David Eagle: The Eagle is Candid

★★★★★

One of Hartlepool’s greatest sons, and one part of the Folk band The Young’uns, makes his Edinburgh debut, with an hour so perfect, I’d quite like to frame it on the wall.

            Eagle is an example of a perfect marriage between persona and material, a rare thing in stand-up. This sweet bloke with the gruffest accent delivering beautifully constructed stories, his language (and I feel it is a Northern thing) is almost poetic, not a word out of a place, as if each one was chosen carefully.

            The laughter from the audience was constant, and I mean constant. So much so, we sometimes missed punchlines and asides. Someone tell David, he can stop for the laughs, although we’d probably get less than half the show.

            When our aching bellies cannae take no more, Eagle launches into song. For a folk singer we don’t get too many, but when they do, they are amazing. His contemporary George Formby is genius. And actually Eagle channel’s Formby in more ways than one; Eagle is a man out of time, he feels like a vaudeville star. So many acts spend so much time making a show that’ll stand-out, that will be seen for some gimmick, that they forget to actually make the show entertaining. Well David Eagle is the secret to human happiness and with Ben Van der Velde’s clever direction, he’s a step away from the big time.

David Eagle: The Eagle is Candid is on at Just the Tonic at Cabaret Voltaire until August 25th