It is interesting to come upon a young standup working with Brian Friel’s engage in Translations, of all points, as the body for his debut solo display. Considerably less interesting that he apologises for how “gay” theatre is just before doing so. Which is symptomatic of Vittorio Angelone’s debut, which introduces audiences to a extremely gifted comedian, even though trying a little bit much too really hard to be all things to all people today. It is enough that Translations – also Angelone’s title – is a clean and considerate hour of comedy riffing on the marriage concerning England and Ireland, as experienced by an immigrant from Belfast to London.
There’s also material on his Italian immigrant relatives and some throwaway things about “clicktivism” in a display which saw Angelone nominated for finest newcomer at the Edinburgh fringe previous 12 months. Some pert material covers his arrival in England, where the natives see Englishness as “the manufacturing unit default” and bask in blissful ignorance of their country’s worldwide abuses. His connection with an English girlfriend is parsed, amusingly so, for its colonial subtext. Anti-Irish prejudice is shown to be alive and violently kicking.
This is all sent with a light-weight contact and enough self-irony by an act with the craft and self esteem of a comedian twice as skilled. When Angelone confesses to concerns with panic, it’s a shock, because his onstage demeanour betrays none whatsoever.
This materials does get him in a little bit of a tangle, intellect you, as he information his ordeals in treatment though distancing himself from sad comedy that asks for its audience’s sympathy. There’s no need to have: triangulating aside, this is an eye-catching youthful comedian with almost nothing to apologise for.