Frantic multi-cultural laughter (From Stroud News and Journal)

Frantic multi-cultural laughter

Omid Djalili - No Agenda Cheltenham Town Hall Thursday, March 9

BURSTING onto the stage with a flurry of fanciful dance moves, the disco dancing Omid Djalili literally thrusts his energetic brand of comedy upon his audience.

Djalili's mixed roots have undoubtedly inspired his show, which hinges upon schizophrenic skits from a frantic Iranian obsessed with "wobbly man-breasts" and "groin-grabbing" grandparents, as well as the middle-class canape and caviar quaffing Kensingtonian.

In fact his brand of comedy has a decidedly multicultural outlook - indiscriminately uniting all races, religions and creeds through unscrupulous sardonic observations.

His high-energy locomotive of a show stops off everywhere and anywhere from Brixton to Baghdad leaving challenged racial and social stereotypes in its wake.

He confronts head-on the all-too familiar Western preconceptions and neatly packaged portraits of stock politicised Middle Eastern figures and their implied fundamentalist affiliations.

One minute he is a defiant Abu Hamza exclaiming "talk to the hook 'cos the patch ain't listening", the next his own alter-ego, the paranoid Anglo-Iranian, sweats rivers in the airport departure lounge as the words 'suicide bomber' are repeated over and over in his head.

But as the title of the show suggests this is not a vitriolic venting of political spleen, or yet another pedestrian parade of vogue anti-Bush or Blair propaganda.

Djalili is a true thespian and his performance is a very physical, all-singing, all dancing affair that if given the chance should not and cannot be missed.