Hooray for Ben Target

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As the comedy section of the Edinburgh Fringe brochure hits 1,000 shows—surely it’ll reach bursting point soon?—it’s light relief to actually build a gig throughout the course of the festival. That’s what Ben Target is doing. With around twenty minutes of scripted material as a safety net, Target takes us on plain daft detours through physical comedy (be prepared for some gentle aerobics), relentless audience participation and bucketloads of improvisation.

Target (pronounced “tar-jay” by the way) invites us all to bake a cake with him. On the way in, we’re handed “ingredients” which we’ll later throw up on stage. While this characterises Target’s fooling around with new audiences every day, it actually starts to soak up a lot of the show. Various people tossing up imaginary lemons, icing sugar and flour can’t really differ that much day to day, can it? It feels chaotic rather than surreal, lethargic rather than experimental.

Consequently, we spend far too much time generating very little comedy. As expected, the scripted material is actually the most effective. Target performs ludicrous (but hilarious) liminal skits, from bouncing around to Semisonic’s ‘Closing Time’ to inviting us to reveal the dream jobs we wanted when we were kids. It’s commendable that Target has sought to involve his audience in the most direct way possible, in which we have control over the outcomes and conclusions of his show. While we enjoy genuine laughs en route, it’s a gamble that hasn’t paid off. His final show is on August 24th however – so it might be worth a visit to see how that cake turns out.