Hannibal Buress: Still Saying Stuff

Hannibal Buress dislikes the Fringe, seems to find Britain tiresome, and couldn’t care less for petty Scots and English squabbles. “I hate you both equally,” he ventures, somewhat brazenly.

Responsive as we remain to the laconic, ultra laid-back Chicagoan’s ad-hoc jumble of jokes—heck, we even laugh when Buress twice runs out of stuff and resorts to pulling down the venue’s overhead projector screen, momentarily engendering the unreasonably hilarious thought that he might actually have prepared a Power Point piece—it still feels like he’d rather be elsewhere. Drinking and hooking up with girls, his two favourite subjects, seems an educated guess.

It’s a totally refreshing approach to Edinburgh in August among many lesser comics practically dry-humping your leg for a stray chuckle. You do wonder why the sometimes 30 Rock and SNL writer remains satisfied with just strolling through when, if he stepped it up a little—you know, simple stuff like having a fixed routine, not insulting the audience—Buress could be a blockbuster. But let’s not split hairs.

You feel sorry for the competition when a guy this relaxed can be this funny. His ribald synopsis of how Miss Piggy and Kermit’s sex life gave him hope eternal is as explosive a one-liner as you’ll hear all Fringe. When his best joke—about getting threatened with murder as a kid after punching out a hopeless mugger—resolves hilariously on a single simple phrase 100% in the delivery, it feels (whisper it) almost Richard Pryor-esque. Not that Buress will want many compliments that glowing – he probably couldn’t use the hassle.