Jihad Me at Hello
- reviewed by Stephen Hunt (Calgary Herald)What's Hell like? In Jihad Me at Hello, Obscene But Not Heard's
uproarious sketch comedy show, Hell is not only hot, it's humid. The
waiting room is filled with trashy Hollywood gossip rags that only
write stories about Paris Hilton. Every radio station plays the same
song over and over and over--The Macarena, that regrettably
unforgettable dance hit of a few years back. Sitting on a chair,
looking somewhat forlorn, as audiences file in, is none other than
Hitler (Trevor Campbell), a little balder, a little older and lacking some of that old
Zeig Heil he used to have--but that's what sixty years of sweating it
out in the underworld will do to a despotic mass murderer.
Hell in Jihad Me at Hello is less like the Hell you see in the movies,
all molten lava and fireballs erupting out of volcanoes and more like
a dentist's waiting room, which, when you come to think, is probably
the closest thing to Hell on earth--and at the same time not entirely
unpleasant, if they have a subscription to Vanity Fair.
Jihad Me at Hello, which was written by Tony Binns, z(who's getting married August 25th) doesn't confine itself to Hell, however. Soon
enough, it travels to one of those theme restaurants that are also a
kind of Hell on Earth, where a creepy waiter serves Zombies to a pair
of girlfriends, (Nicole Zylstra and Peter Strand Rumel), who are
trying to work out Zylstra's tendency to date the biggest losers alive.
uproarious sketch comedy show, Hell is not only hot, it's humid. The
waiting room is filled with trashy Hollywood gossip rags that only
write stories about Paris Hilton. Every radio station plays the same
song over and over and over--The Macarena, that regrettably
unforgettable dance hit of a few years back. Sitting on a chair,
looking somewhat forlorn, as audiences file in, is none other than
Hitler (Trevor Campbell), a little balder, a little older and lacking some of that old
Zeig Heil he used to have--but that's what sixty years of sweating it
out in the underworld will do to a despotic mass murderer.
Hell in Jihad Me at Hello is less like the Hell you see in the movies,
all molten lava and fireballs erupting out of volcanoes and more like
a dentist's waiting room, which, when you come to think, is probably
the closest thing to Hell on earth--and at the same time not entirely
unpleasant, if they have a subscription to Vanity Fair.
Jihad Me at Hello, which was written by Tony Binns, z(who's getting married August 25th) doesn't confine itself to Hell, however. Soon
enough, it travels to one of those theme restaurants that are also a
kind of Hell on Earth, where a creepy waiter serves Zombies to a pair
of girlfriends, (Nicole Zylstra and Peter Strand Rumel), who are
trying to work out Zylstra's tendency to date the biggest losers alive.
It's a show filled with indelible comic images you will be waking up screaming to for months to come: Campbell, in a black wig, doing a perfect Christopher Walken imitation of him reading from a book of sausage recipes; Rumpel, clad head to toe in black leather and wraparound shades, as the sadmachistic circus ringmaster in Circus of Pain, verbally abusing the audience (to its great delight); and Zylstra, as a consumptive clown, coughing her lungs up onstage.
Campbell, Rumpel and Zylstra have been playing the fringe circuit all
summer and it's resulted in a hilarious show that's expertly executed
by a bunch of comedy pros. The three of them seem as relaxed as a
posse of potsmoking slackers after a Beavis and Butthead marathon in
the parents basement, as they effortlessly (and crisply) segue from
one sketch to another. Think of them as the Western Canadian version
of Monty Python's Flying Circus, the granddaddy of contemporary sketch
comedy groups--outrageous, occasionally over-the-top, quite rude--but
all of it delivered with the dignified aplomb of a great waiter.
Four and a half stars
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