David Trent: This Is All I Have

A disappointingly weak finish makes it a high three rather than a four for multimedia-obsessed ex-schoolteacher Trent’s “difficult second album” of a Fringe show. But you’d be well-advised to experience this satirical deconstruction of society’s ever-lowering brow and the idiotic advertising campaigns it permits: from Andrex Washlets to Pussy energy drink. Soft targets maybe, but in a world full of race-to-the-bottom (no pun intended) marketing, one’s probably as good as another.

Andrex’s massively misjudged spend on a product intended to bust the “taboo” of anal hygiene is pedantically reduced to a wipes-to-expense ratio. The Pussy bit peaks with the simple hilarity of hearing him angrily call its key funder Sam Branson a “total fucking prick.” A go at Google’s sinister, privacy-encroaching Glass and their Don’t Be Evil corporate motto doesn’t work as well, but then they’re a harder and worthier target.

Second child just born, big mortgage to pay, Trent makes plain the necessity for this show to succeed while bemoaning the stresses of putting it together. Its technological meticulousness—the Brass Eye-worthy video mash-ups really are brilliant—belies the show’s self-deprecatingly “this will do” shrug of a title for the most part, until the head-scratcher of an ending.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are surely about the most self-parodyingly ridiculous band in rock, not to mention a cultural anachronism. Quite why Trent reckoned lampooning their penis-obsession would leave us with food for thought as we head home is hard to fathom.