Joe Kent-Walters has been given the DLT Entertainment Best Newcomer Award in the 2024 Edinburgh Comedy Awards, and deservedly so, for Joe Kent-Walters is Frankie Monroe: LIVE!!!! The show is a blast.
It's set in a working men's club in Rotherham which has seen better days, as has its MC, Frankie Monroe. (This device is much helped by the show being performed late at night in an overheated, low-ceilinged basement room at Monkey Barrel.)
What we soon come to realise is the weird-looking Frankie, who for some (unexplained) reason appears throughout with his face covered in Sudocrem, has long ago made a deal with the Devil, who has now come for payment; the club's future is in doubt.
Before that can happen though, the gravel-voiced Frankie gives us one last performance, and Kent-Walters expertly spoofs old-fashioned variety with gags, songs, puppetry, magic and audience participation. It's all done delightfully badly – but affectionately – and given a knowing twist by Kent-Walters.
Spoofing old-school entertainers is not an original idea at the Fringe – there are shades of Johnny Vegas, the League of Gentlemen and others here - but Kent-Walters breathes new life into it, expertly pitching his show somewhere between lampoon and homage. It's utterly daft and great fun.
