Don Rodolfo HD SUB WIDE by David Butcher Young comic Ciarán Dowd won the 2018 Edinburgh Comedy Award for best newcomer thanks to this swaggeringly silly tale of a Spanish swordsman. The entire show has been compressed into a 10-minute short, which barely allows time to establish tone and characters so the result feels a bit slight, but it’s an enjoyable spoof even so, with welcome hints of The Princess Bride.
The legendary Don Rodolfo (Dowd) arrives at a tavern in 1630s Spain, as the Catalan army outside demands his surrender. “I laugh in the face of death!” he cries (“It’s true. We get asked to leave a lot of funerals,” adds his squire), before relating the tale of the six-handed man who killed his father.