Dave Hill Superstar

Positioned as an apostle of show business with a crafted entertainer's persona, a parallel world is revealed to audiences

Dave Hill is an undiscovered legend, an entertainer for our times. He’s the only host who can hold his own against Sandra Bernhard’s motor mouth. With his sly asides to her lunacy he sparred with her quip by quip, as she appeared as a guest in his show “The Dave Hill Explosion” at the UCB Theatre October 5.

Do not dare disrupt Dave Hill’s stories, as he begins his show with a monologue about a character in his neighborhood, read off a piece of paper, as he means business and isn’t trying to be funny as he shoots glances at any audience distractions. It’s a portrayal of an entertainer character who seems to take his job, well, very seriously.

At times it appears when Hill plays what hopefully is a version of himself, rather than the real thing, that his comic viewpoint comes from another planet, as in a “commercial” featured in his show where a frolic turns grisly.

At other times though, Hill’s humor is more straightforward, and arguably connects better as a result, as with a short film made during fashion week in which no one he interviews there realizes Kofi Annan and John Mark Carr are not fashion designers.

With his persona, Dave Hill succeeds at creating a warped parallel show business universe, where a standards singer might follow a midget Michael Jackson impersonator (yes, both appeared in this performance, too). The joke of Hill playing such an unlikely entertainer, is more complex than it may seem at first. Even in the oddest moments of this “explosion,” or perhaps experiment, the show captivates and draws you in to Hill’s world.