Tommy Dassalo’s previous festival shows have been fairly ambitious affairs with long running plot-lines and a lot of theatre elements, but Explosion of Colours sees him step up and deliver in fairly unadorned stand-up mode, but even without the extras, Tommy just shines.
Tommy covers a lot of topics through fantastic short tales covering everything from a (not very) near death experience to his various health failings to a trip to Wet’n’Wild, but the overarching theme is that of fighting to maintain a life of excitement in spite of the various powers that want him to become ‘a grown up’. Accompanied by a series of hand-drawn illustrations, the audience is treated to story after story of hilarity.
While Tommy may lament having the hairline of an older man, he can take comfort in the fact that his skills have also been maturing at an advanced pace. Tommy has an astoundingly good grasp of comic timing, and the rhythm of the show keeps a constant cycle of punchlines going to keep the audience constant engaged and laughing. At one point during his PowerPoint joke I could not stop laughing due to his ability to find just the right point to break the repetition to mine the laughs for all they were worth. I’m not sure whether Tommy worked with Adrian Calear as director again this year or whether he’s managed to take the lessons of past years and applied them himself, but either way it’s a joy to watch him pull everything together so seamlessly.
There’s a lot of similarities both in theme and style between Tommy’s stand-up and that of Justin Hamilton. In fact there were a couple of moments where I could have shut my eyes and imagined I actually was at a Hammo gig, and that’s nothing but a good thing. That’s not to say that Tommy is derivative, he’s as distinctive as they come.
Tommy Dassalo is one of the best young comics at the festival, though that feels like such an odd label to attach to somebody that’s been churning out such consistently good work for over three years now. Go and give him some of the respect he deserves.
For full details visit the Comedy Festival Website. For bookings visit Dramatix