ALEXANDER SPARROW: Narcissistic Diva
Fringe Bar, Cnr Cuba & Vivian, Wellington
22/02/2013 - 23/02/2013
Production Details
Hot Diva has many fans
Alexander Sparrow: Narcissistic Diva, Alexander Sparrow’s solo stand-up comedy show, premieres at The Fringe Bar on February 22nd as part of the New Zealand Fringe Festival. New Zealand’s self-titled sexiest comedian; Sparrow has performed at the Globe Theatre in London as part of SGCNZ YSC 2011. Sparrow said, “Expect an extravaganza. Narcissistic Diva is your chance to say I saw Alexander Sparrow before he was famous”.
Adrian Sparrow, Sparrow’s father, says of the comedian, “. . . you’re so pleased with yourself it’s almost comical . . .” – and it’s not hard to see why, when other comedy acts are calling him “NZ’s Orlando Bloom” (Adam Wright, Raw Comedy Quest finalist 2012).
More about comedian, Alexander Sparrow:
Alexander Sparrow has been a comedian for a year and gigs regularly throughout Wellington. Sparrow is a writer, artist, director and dancer – some of these will be part of his act in Alexander Sparrow: Narcissistic Diva.
Sparrow is directly involved with three shows in next year’s Fringe Festival. He will perform in three shows in the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.
Fringe Bar, cnr Cuba @ Vivian
Fri 22 – Sat 23 February, 7pm
1 hr 10 mins
1hr 10mins
Amusingly self-effacing
Review by John Smythe 23rd Feb 2013
The hyperbole of his introduction perches Alexander Sparrow atop such a tall, albeit imaginary, poppy that the only way is down. His methodical plucking of the petals in a ‘he loves himself; he loves himself not’ game creates effective comic tension.
“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” Hamlet tells Horatio in the graveyard. “If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come – the readiness is all.”
Script-wise Sparrow is very ready but he hasn’t yet mastered the art of making it sound spontaneous, nor of working the audience up and into his material so that it all seems mutually responsive. That timing will also come.
It was his father, he tells us, who gave him the title some years ago by calling him a narcissistic diva, and the way he speaks of that estranged relationship is a genuinely awkward moment in his otherwise amusingly self-effacing show.
In retrospect, ALEXANDER SPARROW: Narcissistic Diva could be seen as his means of telling his father he has ‘got it’ and can laugh at his own pretensions. More generally, it joins a growing number of works wrought by a generation brought up to believe so utterly in their own wonderfulness, in the fantasy they can be anything they want to be, they need to get themselves into perspective (cf: Who’s Neat? You! and HOME / The Hilarious Comedy About How I Nearly Killed Myself…).
And it holds up the mirror we see our own self-image in too.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments