Josh Glanc Captures the Fringe Spirit in New Special Vrooom Vrooom

There’s nothing quite like a Fringe show. The room crackles with anticipation and the feeling that absolutely anything could happen. Even though this artist is going to perform this piece night after night, no show will be quite like the one you attend, with the same audience, the same alchemy. It’s an incredible testament to Australian comedian Josh Glanc’s special Vrooom Vrooom, released via 800 Pound Gorilla, that it manages to capture this elusive spontaneity.

Glanc’s special may have been filmed at Melbourne’s Stupid Old Studios, but you can tell from the jump that this is a show made for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Glanc lurks off to the side of the entrance disguised in a bucket hat as the crowd arrives, a trickster figure waiting to pounce. And when he does, the results are mixed, but overall well worth your time.

This is a full spectacle, replete with lights, a changing backdrop, and a sound team that flesh out Glanc’s off-the-wall ideas. Director of photography Evan Munro-Smith deserves major kudos for kinetic camerawork that makes the viewer feel like they’re actually in the room. Both fast-moving and lucid, his direction goes a long way toward encapsulating the visceral quality of a live show.

As for the special itself, Vrooom Vrooom has plenty of meta commentary—sometimes quite literally, with a voiceover of two sports commentator-types weighing in on Glanc’s performance as he takes to the stage in his tennis whites. The voiceover is thankfully used in such small doses that it’s purely a funny feature enhancing the odd moment, instead of an overly self-deprecating crutch of the special.

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Vrooom Vrooom is a series of sketches, and like in many a sketch show, their quality varies, though on the whole Glanc serves up a hilarious, enthusiastically silly special. He kicks off the night with some audience participation—his bread and butter—as he gets the crowd to mime buying and eating stadium snacks off him, before transitioning into an earworm of a ditty. Musical comedy is a main staple of Vrooom Vrooom, with some numbers working better than others. The truck song—in which a masc truck driver finds himself at odds with his more fanciful duet partner—is the high point, the type of goofy concept that crescendos beautifully. Then there are bits, like Glanc’s rendition of “Papa Loves Mambo” performed with a bird named Archie, that simply aren’t as strong.

Glanc loves some word play and brings a physical elasticity to Vrooom Vrooom that makes his comedy irresistible. He’ll slow down a song, comically elongating his dance moves, and at the drop of the hat pick up the pace, bringing things up to chipmunk speed. With a subtle change in facial expression or readjustment in posture, Glanc will suddenly inhabit a new character. It’s no wonder he left law for the stage.

Glanc goes full throttle in Vrooom Vrooom, delivering a whole host of sketches with superlative speed, precision, and energy.

Watch Vrooom Vrooom for free on YouTube.

Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s assistant comedy editor. Go harass her on Twitter @theclaremartin.