Holly’s ‘Off-the-Wall’ comedy makes afternoons a delight

Joe Delaney

Friday, July 6, 2001 | 8:55 a.m.

"The Michael Holly Off-The-Wall Comedy Hour," presented by Dick Foster Productions in the Sahara's nicely refurbished and rearranged Congo Room, is the newest entry in the afternoon entertainment competition.

The $12.95 tab is nicely competitive for a rapidly paced one-man show that combines very funny interactive audience comedy with liberal helpings of magic, juggling, wire-walking and other incredible feats on the high wire. Comedy is the principal ingredient but the magic, juggling, stunts and high-wire antics are of the highest order.

The pre-recorded music is an enhancement, comedic punctuation and occasional props for the tall, angular, articulate Holly, who was the featured comedy act in Foster's long-running "Spellbound" productions that preceded Clint Holmes at Harrah's. Holly proves here that he is an equally effective solo artist at one hour, double the time allotted him at Harrah's.

The opening of the show caught was preceded by a series of humorous offstage announcements. Holly poured water into a folded newspaper and unfolded it completely to show it was entirely empty -- and dry. He then refolded the paper and poured water from it into a glass -- standard material made special and different by Holly's banter with the audience.

Cutting and restoring a long piece of rope was ordinary material made extraordinary by Holly's humor, as was a mental segment with the audience which netted strong applause. The juggling portion that followed lifted the performance to its highest level, maintained and built to a strong climax with a book trick, a Japanese "Bonihana" take-off, a bowling-ball routine and his high-wire juggling closer.

Holly's easy manner and delivery reflects his beginnings as a street-corner performer in New York City's Washington Square Park. A year or two later he returned to his studies at the University of California, Irvine, earning a degree in psychology with a minor in theater arts.

Holly is offering an unusual hour of well-selected and performed variety music-hall-type material leavened with honest, almost entirely spontaneous comedy, much of it off-the-wall, all of it funny.

This show is really different, and the difference is Holly. Put this one on your list of shows to consider.