Angelos Epithemiou is a Shooting Star at Wulfrun Hall

Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall

review by Thom Kennedy

So what's in Angelos's bag? Having spent an evening in his company, I'd say he carries with him a Vic & Bob DVD, the remnants of a closing-down sale at a joke shop, and an industrial strength halluicinogenic.

Angelos Epithemiou, a half-Greek burger salesman and vehicle for British comedian Renton Skinner, brought his anarchic comedy style to Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall.

Repeatedly singing songs about the contents of his plastic, attacking audience members with a toy dog on a pole, and bringing a grotesque puppet onstage; some of Epithemiou's gags bore the clear influence of surrealist masters Reeves and Mortimer.

You can't help but like him, even though his character is drawn in such a way as to make him a social misfit. His resentful view of the world around provides fertile comic terrain – though his one-dimensional world view led to parts becoming laboured.

On Shooting Stars, Epithemiou works fantastically, bouncing off other contestants and celebrities on the show, discomforting them with his awkward mannerisms and lack of social graces.

He takes up the mantle of running the show, even though he is a walking human scoreboard, a sidekick who invites himself into centre stage, interrupting, spraying self-satisfied celebrities with a fire extinguisher, and generally upsetting the already-fairly-unruly applecart.

Onstage, he had no foil for his angst and his limitations became clear.

While not downplaying his fast-paced, bizarre, and often-fun evening, I suspect Shooting Stars – rather than headline comedy gigs – may prove a more natural resting place for Angelos Epithemiou.