Comedy Central Live: Ria Lina and Yianni Agisilaou Review

3/5

Being half German, half Filipino and with an American accent, Ria Lina is something of a mixed bag of cultures and identities, which allows for copious amounts of self-ridiculing.

Accompanied by a ukulele, she does well to craft entertaining songs about topics as diverse as her mum being a mail-order bride to stories of various dubious sexual experiences in a catchy, well structured fashion.

Teetering on the edge of social awkwardness, she gauges the audience’s mood whilst constantly stretching the limit of an impertinent style which leads to some highly controversial yet enjoyable comedy. Perhaps it is because of her girlish good looks and multi-nationality that she is able to get away with it.

However, at times this brash nature feels shocking for the sake of being offensive. This combined with a clear sense of script that has been followed too many times removes some of the life from a show that is in need of more vigour and energy.

Australian comedian Yianni Agisilaou, of Cypriot descent, imbues some of the energy which Lina lacks in a set that unfortunately would have been considerably better had compère Ro Campbell not been absent, making Agisilaou have to fill more time than the amount of material he had would allow.

He does well to ostracise his audience early on as his overflowing personality leads him to accidentally make various incongruous comments. Luckily these are accepted as hilarious moments of temporary ignorance and not merely prejudice.

Peak moments follow those where the audience questions what he is trying to say, as the flow of his performance is somewhat sporadic. However, this slightly disjointed style is again probably due to the undesired length of his set.

The moments that do shine are particularly excellent allowing the audience to warm to his nature, especially those where he recounts moments with his family in Greece such as his ability to speak Greek better than he understands it, which, as he sarcastically points out, makes no sense.

Taken from The Student, published Tue Jan 18th 2011.