Pete Johansson - Utopian Crack Pipe

Forget Monkey Tennis. Pete Johansson has a killer idea for a new TV show: Gypsies versus Bears. The garrulous Canadian has developed a bear fetish of late. Not content with having them gorge upon an average two German tourists a year in his native land, he is keen for Paddington and his kin to be adopted into every facet of life in Britain, his new home.

Bears on TV, bears in the police, and, most importantly bears in his new Fringe show. You see, what initially seems like a throwaway suggestion that this green and pleasant land should reintroduce bears turns out to be the basis of his entire hour. To be so deliberately one-note is a ballsy move, but Johansson is such a confident comedian it works. Just. And to be honest, in the face of monochrome shows based solely on matters such as the Olympics or, shudder, the comedian’s love life, one about bears seems incredibly refreshing.

Johansson throws his furry friends into a number of scenarios, imagining how much money the state would have been saved in clearing the Dale Farm travellers had bears been deployed—hence the televisual fantasy of Alan Partridge proportions—and how roaming bears would wipe out such unsavoury British pastimes such as littering and dogging. He even manages to weave a tribute to his late mother into this bear love-in. It amounts to an ambling show that is ultimately more Yogi than grizzly: jolly and cuddly rather than threatening to chew your face off.