Choice: Performance

David Strassman and Chuck Wood, Fairfield Halls, Croydon (0181-688 9291)

The band Space sang, "The female of the species is more deadly than the male." You require proof? Men do get up to pretty daft things, like spending a professional life talking, while pretending not to, all the while waving an inanimate object about the place. I refer, of course, to ventriloquists. Have you ever wondered why they're all men? (The shining exception is the enchanting Shari Lewis who made a career out of an old sock, aka Lamb Chop.) The really clever ones abandoned the technical business of ventriloquism altogether with puppets that didn't speak, like Matthew Corbett and Sooty or Rod Hull and Emu. Alternatively, the speaker was hidden - as with all those men who had their hands up Basil Brush. All of these were childhood favourites, but the audience for this lewd, loud, lecherous American import is definitely adult. These two are to children what a chainsaw is to needlepoint.