Seymour Mace: Marmaduke Spatula's F*ckin' Spectacular Cabaret of Sunshine Show

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Already fairly strange to begin with, Seymour Mace's Marmaduke Spatula character allows him to plumb the very depths of his oddness in this structureless, chaotic, puerile but ultimately quite amusing and enjoyable hour. 

A former actor, star of Johnny Vegas's cult BBC3 comedy Ideal, Mace goes beyond "I'm mad, me!" territory to give a genuinely bizarre performance, but one which is nonetheless expertly toned down in places. Standing in front of a backdrop of his own sketches—some rather cute and others very suspect—Mace mixes childish whimsy with strictly 18+ crudeness, though he does manage to stop short of being offensive—merely skirting Jimmy Savile with a song about all of his '70s childhood heroes who turned out not to be sex offenders. 

A few routines, however, go on for an intentionally, uncomfortably long time, ending up being more annoying than anything else – and it's a shame Mace decides to finish his otherwise hugely energetic hour on an interminable sketch involving him picking up an award in very slow motion.

Mace's stuff isn't big or clever but he does, it seems, have a small but dedicated following who want an hour of no-holds-barred silliness, and this is exactly what they get. Despite his deliberate attempts to make the audience feel uncomfortable, Mace and his Spatula character are hugely likeable and it's a testament to this likeability that even the po-faced punters who thought they were coming to see something avant-garde, rather than an hour of dicking about, have managed a grin by the end.