(Punchline/Beyond)

A big bowl of comedy fail

Whenever a stand-up comedian opens with a mother-in-law joke like Jeff Dunham does you know it’s not a good sign. Dunham is a ventriloquist with an array of puppet characters, like a less funny version of David Strassman. His characters are a grouchy old man called Walter, a pimp named Sweet Daddy Dee, a redneck named Bubba J, some weird green-haired thing named Peanut and – this marks the point where he obviously got really desperate for ideas – a Hispanic jalapeño on a stick named José Jalapeño. His other character and YouTube sensation, Achmed The Dead Terrorist, doesn’t make an appearance. Though having a selection of characters to bring out over the course of the show might add variety to his set, it’s all the same humour: obvious stereotypes and telegraphed punchlines. The redneck says he met his wife at a family reunion, the old guy complains about The Kids Of Today and his nagging spouse – it’s like somebody built a time machine  just to revive 1950s’ jokes so they could enjoy a frail second life today. Making matters worse are a series of clips inserted for the DVD showing a puppet’s unfunny backstage antics. Dunham’s not even that good a ventriloquist. The audience laps it up though, hooting like baboons at every cliché and exploding whenever he actually does say something funny – which he manages a handful of times – because there’s no accounting for taste. Avoid.

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JODY MACGREGOR