Comedy Review: Henry Rollins

By Fiona Shepherd

HENRY ROLLINS **** GILDED BALLOON TEVIOT (VENUE 14)

HENRY Rollins, hardcore punk rock icon of 30 years’ standing, in the comedy section of the Fringe brochure – who saw that coming? Of course, Rollins could steamroller all those pussy comedians with one spit-flecked roar of riotous wrath but, increasingly, his acclaimed spoken-word show comes over more like an attention-craving stand-up set. His act is still far closer in spirit to Mark Thomas’s erudite campaigning than to Michael Barrymore’s neediness but there are glimpses of the tears of a punk as he walks a tightrope between self- deprecation and self-pity.

He still keeps an outwards, iron gaze. He says he’s had an epiphany in Edinburgh, and now realises why the world hates America. It’s a simple, credible explanation, which I won’t leak, but he does propose a counter-attack involving The Ramones and George Clinton.

His more earnest plan for world harmony also resonates: as citizens of the world we should all seek out other citizens of the world and spend time hanging out. For a masochistic badass like Rollins, this involves hopping on a plane and heading to some of the most unstable territories in the world, preferably with a camera crew in tow. He got his kicks strolling around Islamabad hours after Benazir Bhutto was killed, and here he is fresh off the plane from Burma and bursting with stuff to share.

For two hours, he fires out slugs of colloquial insight. It’s not all heavy stuff, far from it. Rollins has become a compulsive namedropper and can spin a diverting yarn out of a brief sighting of Cat Stevens or a quick exchange with his comedy hero George Carlin.

It is a mark of his storytelling skill that he can milk a bunch of entertaining tangents from a pretty straightforward anecdote about attending a Van Halen concert, which might just make him the Ronnie Corbett of punk – and who saw that comparison coming either?

Until 25 August. Today 10:45pm

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