one4review | On 18, Aug 2024

Let’s get the obvious out of the way here – this show is not sh!tty. It’s a funny, clever, puerile, show that takes a huge amount of work to make it look extremely low effort.

Written and performed by US comedian Aaron Nemo (writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) as his alter ego – Shitty Mozart – a sub-standard clone of the famous composer, the show is a mix of comic songs, animation and drum-machine based technical wizardry. The jokes and the songs are a mix of honestly very clever observations with fun wordplay to things that are funny for their sheer brazen vulgarity. Some are both. There’s also a lot of bees. With the drum-machine linked up to a complicated sound board of sounds as well as the animations projected on screen, Nemo is able to deliver a masterwork of gags, which clearly took a huge amount of work to produce, which is an interesting contrast to the admittedly amateurish-looking drawings of the animations and the somewhat pedestrian composition of the music (still better than what I could do, of course).

The only thing holding the show back is the distinct lack of confidence Nemo seems to have in his work. He starts the show letting us know that he knows that he can’t really sing or draw. He is playing a character who is defined by being rubbish, seemingly to preemptively dodge criticism. There is a running gag poking fun at one of his early reviewers who gave him only 2 stars at the start of his run which started as funny, got a bit petty (though this was acknowledged) and ended as being just a bit defensive. I’ll admit that, as a reviewer, the gag did make me a little uncomfortable. But the fact remains that Nemo and his show are good and he doesn’t need to spend so much time saying that he knows it’s bad.

With the presentation of slightly wonky animation and occasional puerile and vulgar jokes, overall Sh!tty Mozart reminded me a lot of the golden age of online Flash animations. And I think that comparison might help with assessing if you’d like it. But overall, I’d recommend this show to almost anyone, certainly after a few drinks and as long as you don’t mind a few jokes about genitalia.

It’s not Mozart, but it’s certainly not sh!tty.

****
Reviewed by Tom
Gilded Balloon – Patter House – Nip
23.00 (1hr)
Until 26th August