Scott courts the offensive

For his Edinburgh show, Scott Capurro went out to court controversy, and found it.

The banners flying overhead announce some of the intended victims: the Queen Mum, Madonna, Princess Di and Superman. But besides laying into them, Capurro has always been brilliant at hitting on audience members. "You're 16?" he gasped to a young man who unwisely sat in the front row. "I have sperm older than you."

Capurro proudly declares that he has been threatened with anything from a beating-up to death while performing this show. And who will take offence? Perhaps anyone belonging to any of the following groups: Jews and blacks; gays and straights; Americans and non-Americans; men and women. The abuse is scattered universally, in other words, a politically correct trick going back to Lenny Bruce and before. If you hurt everyone, no one gets hurt, right?

The remark "Holocaust Shmolocaust" caused outrage at Edinburgh, but as he admits that his grandmother was Jewish, and that he's a Jew wannabe, the abuse turns into, well, self-abuse. Then he goes for the jugular: "Getting into that Mercedes was the best thing she ever did," he says about Di, drawing the expected hushed gasp.

When all's said, Scott's a nice guy who tells very funny jokes. He looks good, he's fluent, articulate, well-informed. His homework on Britain is inch-perfect. Why does he want to be black or Jewish? Perhaps so he can assail them from the inside. His problem? with a winning smile, his offensiveness genuinely runs the risk of going too far: in other words, he might get away with it, which is not the idea. Or perhaps London audiences are just too damn sophisticated for their own good.

Scott Capurro in Erect In London