one4review | On 23, Aug 2025

When I went to go see a clown show about James Bond, I wasn’t expecting it to start with a fully naked man imitating an ape knuckle-walking around the stage and then assembling a clarinet to the strains of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. But perhaps that’s on me.

Pull My Goldfinger is a work from the clearly somewhat cluttered mind of clown and comedian Carlos Sandin. While ostensibly about Bond, James Bond, the famous spy is more a jumping off point for Sandin to weave various types of comic scenarios, from a frankly hilarious chase scene where he mimes a conga line of baddies chasing Bond, their methods of transportation getting stranger and stranger, to a life or death struggle with a shark with occasional kissing, to a shootout where the crowd try to pelt Sandin with bean bags to the point where he makes two members of the audience real martinis while playing a melodica.

Sandin’s clowning is highly imaginative and accomplished and disarmingly delightful in a way that’s not easy to put into words. The nonsense unfolding as the show continues only ingratiates the audience to him more. There’s probably an argument to be made that there’s not really a reason for Sandin to take the entirety of his kit off for the show, but this seems to be something of a sticking point with people who’ve attended a certain kind of clown school.

Like Bond himself, the show is packed with charm. Unlike Bond, it’s also very silly, very strange and probably wouldn’t try and feel you up on a night out. A very amusing and enjoyable late night show that makes a great way to end a day of fringing.

****
Tom M
The Annexe at Paradise in The Vault
23:00
Until 24th