TERRY FATOR

BY ED BRUCE edbrucevegas@yahoo.com

Where ever the list is for the best talent ever....this guy is on top of it !

Terry Fator, ventriloquist, singer, writer, comedian, producer and all around good guy on a long term contract at the Mirage in Las Vegas. This guy does it all and does it in a spectacular fashion. He appears at the Mirage in the theatre previously used by Danny Gans and it is perfect for his show...six muscians, a showgirl and a quasi amusing opening act....Fator sort of in competition with Gans for the top attraction in Las Vegas now sits alone on top of the world. The theatre, sold out every night, of course, has nice background screens...left-right-center...for those in the back to see if Fator is moving his lips.....NO ! I have not accepted totally the need of the band as I am anticpating funny lines ...at times the music drownds out the material....but like Paul Shaffers backup to Letterman most of the accent is perfect timing. Fator with a perfect stage presence, looks comfortable and either by design or fact makes you like him. Fator, audience friendly allowing videos and pictures during the show.

There is no way this review is fair to anyone and its especially unfair to Fator to try and describe what he does and how well he does it.

There couldn't be a dozen people in the world born with this talent and none able to expand and create the way Fator does. This the ultimate example of the creative arts. It is amazing to me the mechanics of the total picture here.....desire, presentation, creativity, writing, humor, timing, freshness of the material, ventriloquism, voice, manipulating the puppets ( I have seen this before and to move the eyes, eyelashes, mouths, arms, hair, legs and bodys of the puppets while doing the conversatons...NOT MOVING YOUR LIPS...and trying to and being funny.....) what a talented package !

I did not see America's Got Talent (I only watch PBS) which Fator won but part of the shtick was his turtle Winston singng Roy Orbisons "Crying"....now here is the ultimate hard to sing piece of music.....and this guy does it with his lips closed...no emotion...in key ....sounding exactly like Orbison and he did the whole song. I am a Roy Orbison junkie and Fator fires this out as his opening number...actually at this spot in the show it couldn't get any better....but it did maintain this amazing level.

Fator with this long term contract is expanding if you can believe it updating his writing and working on new themes....the decade belongs to Terry Fator and I hope nothing changes as I go to bed everying night and know Fator's genius is four miles from my home. Here....the reason why Las Vegas is the Best City of Them All.

Not perfect...a DJ-dancer is on stage early for warmup til 7:44....my ticket said 7:30...thats 14 minutes late for our hero and killing a perfect score....everything loses one point for every minute late. Still in itself this is The Sigfried and Roy of the decade. Let's all go again and often.

86 B