This was just printed today. The critic attended my first night, I was a bit nervous at how he might respond, but he seems to have enjoyed himself.
I’m on til June 10. See you there?
Hope so.
The Times
June 8, 2012
Scott Capurro
Soho Theatre, 4 Stars
If there is another jubilee concert outside Buckingham Palace in ten years’ time, Scott Capurro probably won’t be one of the comedians invited to make crass and unfunny jokes at the Queen’s expense. The gay American expat has shown in the past that he can certainly do crass and unfunny, but he is too unpredictable a property to ever become a mainstream performer.
Going to see his shows has often been a chore. Yet, as he grapples with another midlife crisis he has grown less shrill, more vulnerable and more thoughtful. Although his latest show brings together many of his familiar themes, religious intolerance and his dysfunctional family background chief among them, his newly acquired status as a married man has added an extra layer of ambiguity.
His partner, you see, is a black Brazilian and an evangelical Christian who has not yet got round to telling his own mother about his sexual preferences. That sentence alone surely provides enough material for a whole evening. Not content with exploring that topic, however, Capurro adds a substantial sequence about the recent death of his mother and, much more controversially, radical Muslim hostility towards gays in his patch of the East End. We are not just talking about slogans scrawled on walls: Capurro and his other half have been chased through a park by a stranger wielding a broken bottle. No one came to their aid. So he is fighting back with words.
Some of them are not well chosen, it has to be said. There are one or two throwaway lines about Islam which are gratuitous, even by his standards. Elsewhere he deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt. Is it OK, as he claims, for an American to use the word “Paki”? In this context I think it is, and I say that as someone who has had the word hurled at my own family. Capurro’s mission is to make everyone nervous, regardless of their faith or colour. It goes without saying that you should avoid this show if you are easily offended. But he is addressing important issues in his own reckless and courageous way.
****
Clive Davis