Max Wall – Funny Man

An unfortunate title, for the great Max - 'man's answer to the peacock' - has to be seen in the flesh to be seen at his best. In this little movie (filmed with video cameras at the Richmond Theatre before a well-lubricated audience) he seems at his second best, simply because he relies so heavily on live audience response; when his gags and bits of business are edited together and framed in darkness on a cinema screen, they seem pale imitations of the originals. Still, this is a valuable celluloid record of Prof Wallofski doing his stuff, searching for the piano stool, swatting a fly, measuring up his arms, and pulling faces that you never knew existed.