Ben Powell
At the crossroads between Attenborough’s Planet Earth and Mike Myer’s The Love Guru sits Animal Magnetism – a comedy lecture presented by Sid Delicious. Sid is an actual genuine expert in this field, with a PhD on the topic, and this, coupled with a retired rockstar-cum-bar owner style drag king vibe is the makings of something really fun!
Sid opens the show with a brief warning against using of the evening’s learnings as guidance for our own behaviour, decrying, particularly, the rise of pseudo-alpha male nonsense that seem the current zeitgeist and, with that, we’re off into one of the most amusing and fascinating hours of my recent life.
Let’s not beat around the bush, baby (speaking of which, I learned more about bushbabies than I ever anticipated), this show is about sex. It’s about sex and sexual organs and courtship and everything else your biology teacher shuddered at discussing. Animal Magnetism is to zoology what Horrible Histories is to archaeology – exploring all the silliest, oddest and grossest nitty gritty bits.
Sid is a great host, clearly an expert in their field, and speaks with passion and enthusiasm, guiding their audience through a whistlestop tour of animal sexology. Their accompanying slides are equal parts educational and hilarious, with a lovely sprinkling of dad jokes throughout and a couple of gameshow pilots that it’s easy to understand why they didn’t make the air!
I like to consider myself a nature buff, and this show was a real delight. Animal Magnetism is fantastic.
Recommended Drink: 29 pints… and when you see Animal Magnetism, you’ll know why.
You can still catch Animal Magnetism at CODA on Sunday 1st Nov from 6pm (60mins). Tickets are available through the Colchester Fringe Online Box Office.
Será Será Theatre
