The Groggy Squirrel

Dave Bushell’s “Dirt, War & Why I Don’t Eat Fishies” is a show about history – Dave’s personal history, his family history, world history and they way that each any every one of us is a part of the history of tomorrow.

Dave has a very casual presence on stage in sneakers and ‘the gayest t-shirt that he owns’. He introduces himself with a few casual quips before launching into his show proper with an explanation of how he is personally responsibly for the death of Princess Diana. Or maybe not, but any one of us could have performed some seemingly inconsequential act that makes its way into history.

Dave then begins to tell us of his early childhood in England, an angry place of “bad teeth and a general sense of grey”. He talks of the history of England and impact of the Black Plague, tying this into England’s more modern disease in Mad Cow, and the possibility that he may have been exposed to the “Zombie Cows”.

Dave then moves into the strongest section of his show, about his family living in Germany during the fall of the Berlin wall. There’s a lot of very funny and interesting material here about relatives involved in the Nazi movement and his clandestine visit to East Germany as the wall collapsed.

This show has a lot going for it – The personal stories of Dave and his family create a really strong core to his show, but there’s a clunkiness in tying both the introduction and the conclusion into those stories that stops the show from reaching its full potential. Hopefully as the festival continues and the show is polished further, this can turn from a good show into a great show.

Dirt, War & Why I Don’t Eat Fishies is on Tuesday through Sunday until April 29th. See the comedy festival website for bookings and further details.