A gloriously unhinged, sweat-soaked clown masterclass that turns the entire audience into championship contenders
Forget everything you think you know about competitive sports. Chase Brantley’s Don Toberman: Ping-Pong Champ takes the familiar spectacle of high-stakes American television, throws it into Soho Theatre, and adds questionable sponsor endorsements, synchronized crowd chants, a leaf blower, and a frankly bewildering amount of theatrical chaos.
Directed with razor-sharp comedic precision by Toph Enany and performed by Gaulier-trained dynamo Brantley, this is arena athletics with the safety catch removed. Here, the central conflict is centred not on two professionals battling across a net, but on one man taking on every single spectator in the room. Don Toberman’s quest for supreme athletic glory quickly becomes an increasingly absurd battle of wills, ego, and collective audience mischief.
Brantley gives us a wonderfully volatile champion, moving effortlessly between chest-thumping bravado, faux vulnerability, and complete physical meltdown. He is exceptionally compelling, switching between swaggering trash talk and razor-sharp clowning with a comic confidence that keeps the production moving at a frantic pace. His command of the room is one of the show’s biggest strengths: Brantley constantly bounces off the crowd, turning ordinary heckles, high-fives, and consent-driven audience tasks into moments of genuine comedy.
The production cleverly uses the tropes of cable sports as a starting point rather than a rulebook. Familiar rituals-the bombastic anthems, sideline interviews, and overblown halftime shows-are twisted, interrupted, and pulled apart, allowing the audience to view the hyper-masculine world of professional athletics from a completely different perspective. The result is wildly playful without losing sight of the razor-sharp timing running underneath the bedlam.
Central to maintaining this delicate equilibrium of chaos is a stellar ensemble of comedic foils. Jon Tilley makes an immediate impression as an intensely protective bodyguard who shadows Toberman’s entrance and lurks threateningly from the wings, ready to defend his champion’s honour at the first sign of a boo. Darius Emadi enters the fray as an antagonistic, hilariously deadpan rival umpire who continually locks horns with Toberman, before later showing off some deeply unconventional athletic prowess of his own. Meanwhile, Charlie Mulliner steals scene after scene in a black morph suit, operating as a tireless, deadpan multitasker on camera and cleanup duties while finding ever more disruptive ways to invade the audience’s personal space mid-rally.
And the show certainly isn’t afraid to let things spiral into sheer surrealism. Absurd detours sit alongside the table tennis matches, creating deliberately hilarious contrasts. One minute you’re watching Brantley pantomime an invisible, high-stakes rally; the next, the production derails into bizarre Olympic cutaways and an unhinged, sweat-drenched musical halftime routine that truly has to be seen to be believed.
That joyful collision is precisely what makes the show work. There is plenty of silliness, wonderfully strange movement sequences, and moments that are almost impossible to describe without sounding ridiculous, but the energy never flags. Enany’s direction keeps the pace galloping without sacrificing a single drop of spontaneous madness.
What could easily have become a self-indulgent solo hour instead feels more like an unruly party. Brantley doesn’t simply ask the audience to watch; he drags us into the arena as his sworn adversaries and leaves us howling with laughter at our own complicity.
Bold, sweaty, funny, and surprisingly generous, Don Toberman: Ping-Pong Champ knows exactly how to turn a simple game into pure, communal entertainment. You will laugh, you will cheer, and you may leave wondering how a ping-pong paddle and some low-fi staging can cause so much joy.
Either way, it’s unlikely you’ll look at table tennis-or halftime entertainment-quite the same way again.
Show Details & Listings:
- Venue: Soho Upstairs, Soho Theatre (21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE)
- Dates: 17 – 19 September 2026
- Running Time: 60 minutes (10:30 PM)
- Tickets: From £19.00 (Members £16.00 / concessions available)
- Book Online: Soho Theatre Event Page