★★★★★ 5/5
Date: Saturday 15th August 2026
Time: 2:30pm
Venue: West End Crackers
Reviewer: Kaitlyn Smith
Before the show has even officially started, Olaf Falafel is already dancing with audience members as they make their way into the room, with energetic music playing and Falafel chatting away to people, so you get a pretty good idea of the sort of person he is before everyone has even managed to sit down.
That same energy carries straight into the show, with Falafel getting everyone involved almost immediately, including a wonderfully ridiculous “good, good, good, I feel good, Falafel good” song which somehow has the room joining in and gives you a fairly accurate idea of the sort of hour you are about to have.
The show is aimed at ages 12+ and Falafel seems very aware that he has both younger teenagers and adults in the room. He asks some of the kids their ages before involving them and, when it comes to the occasional swear word, even checks with the parents first and warns them that there will be a few. There are some slightly more mature themes and jokes throughout, but realistically most younger teenagers will have heard considerably worse at school.
A lot of the humour works on two levels, which is probably one of the reasons the show works so well for a mixed-age audience. There are innuendos clearly there for the adults, with Falafel sometimes leaving just enough of a pause for the older half of the room to realise exactly what he has said and start laughing, before carrying straight on into a silly rhyme or something else the younger audience immediately understands. Neither side of the room feels like they are just there waiting for the jokes to come back around to them.
The PowerPoint presentation is a huge part of the show and includes pictures, video clips and some very funny edits, rather than just being something Falafel occasionally points towards in the background. The videos in particular add a completely different element to the comedy, and some of the edited clips are ridiculous in the best possible way. It also keeps everything moving incredibly quickly because there is always something new appearing on screen or another joke starting before you have had much chance to think about the last one.
Falafel is also a children’s author and illustrator, which fits perfectly with the slightly chaotic visual style of the whole thing. There is constantly something happening, whether it is on the screen, through the audience interaction or just Falafel himself, but it never feels difficult to follow.
At one point he asks how many people in the audience have seen him before and it is roughly half the room, meaning a pretty significant number of people have actively chosen to come back and see him again. By the end of the hour, it is very easy to understand why.
The hour absolutely flies by. Between the audience interaction, songs, videos, visual jokes, innuendos for the adults and complete silliness for everyone else, there is barely any time for the energy to drop. I genuinely felt like I had blinked and suddenly the show was over, and for a full hour of comedy aimed at an audience ranging from tweens to adults, that is quite an achievement.
★★★★★ 5/5
