I don't know whether I'm witnessing a new kind of theatre becoming fashionable in Bristol, or whether I'm just noticing something which has been around forever. But this is the third time I've recently seen a performance piece straddling a space between story telling, stand up comedy, acting, and -- in this case -- political polemic.
I like it very much. One could argue that it is a product of the Netflix age. With so many movies and TV so easily available, if people are going to walk all the way to the Wardrobe on a Friday night, they need to be offered something which can only be performed live and in front of an audience.
Tonight, Joe Sellman-Leava did two sixty minute pieces -- the first to a full house and paying audience, the second billed as a "pay what you like" work-in-progress. Regular readers may be able to spot which of the two had particularly piqued my interest.
The first, Labels, was a highly autobiographical piece about race, identity and multiculturalism. The performer is from a mixed race background: his unusual surname, a combination of his mum and dad's family names was chosen by his father because even today companies are reluctant to interview job candidates with the name "Patel". The production takes the idea of "labels" literally; Joe has a box full of pieces of paper marked "man", "woman", "friend", "enemy" which he sticks to himself and members of the audience. At one point he sticks a label marked "Paki" to his back, and says he still refuses to say the word out loud. He does quote the infamous Conservative election leaflet about who you might or might not want as a neighbour, bad word and all, and then sticks a label marked "hypocrite" to himself.
The performance is full of clever little ideas -- it is never just one man talking. Joe is a very gifted mimic and the play opens with him providing a disturbing montage of bigoted voices, from Enoch Powell to Kathy Hopkins. When he wants to talk about his father's ambitions to be an airline pilot, he distributes pieces of paper around the audience and asks us to make paper planes. He recounts a humiliating encounter on Tinder by inviting a member of the audience up on stage to play one half of the conversation. ("I don't know what you are looking for?" "I am looking for someone who isn't Indian.")
A lot of the biographical details are very compelling. He paints a sweet picture of his family. His Mum and Dad can't order a takeaway without doing the "Do you fancy an Indian?" joke, and there are lots of amusing and shocking examples of the micro-aggressions someone of non-white appearance has to contend with. ("Where are you from?" "Cheltenham" "No, I mean, where are you from from?") The small things are the most shocking in some ways: when his Mum discovers emojis she finds the only "Indian face" is a little man wearing a turban. It's done with a light touch and there is a strong element of trying to understand where bigotry comes from. But there is also genuine anger: he remembers two students asking him the time in silly a Apu accent he rages "how can two people be doing that infantile comedy Indian accent in 2010 at a Russell group university?"
The second, less polished piece was ostensibly about being a Fanboy and a Nerd. Joe is of a different generation from me, and his cultural signifiers are slightly different: he grew up with Harry Potter; saw the Phantom Menace before he knew the sacred trilogy; and quoted Mitchell and Webb rather than Monty Python at parties. Some of the jokes are a little obvious. A David Attenborough voice tells us that the Fanboy is a solitary creature who can find it difficult to find a mate. When Joe is a getting over Harry Potter he "discovers that activity which keeps teenaged boys locked away in their bedroom for hours at a time...you know..w...w...warhammer." But his liking for and understanding of the material is genuine without being patronizing. "I fucking love this" runs as a refrain through the evening. He fucking loved The Force Awakens but was disappointed by The Rise of Skywalker even though he acknowledges it to be a warm hearted, witty adventure movie. His powers of impersonation are used to great effect when he runs right through the Star Wars trilogy, Home Alone, and the Muppet Christmas Carol in a series of short quotes. (He fucking loves Muppet Christmas Carol most of all, despite finding out that Michael Cain is a Brexiteer.)
It's quite hard to summarize the "argument" of the piece; in a funny way it is denser and has more to say than the racism monologue did. He talks about how he felt isolated by his geeky interests; but then felt part of a community by discovering other people who liked them too. He first spoke to his girlfriend, who he refers to throughout as "Fangirl" because she was wearing a Jar Jar Binks tee-shirt at the midnight screening of The Force Awakens. He speculates that in 2017 everyone was cross and worried about Trump and Brexit and environmental catastrophe and projected that onto The Last Jedi. Running through the play is the terrible story about how Ahmed Best nearly killed himself because of the fan backlash against Jar Jar.
The show turns on a really clever theatrical conjuring trick. I don't see how I can write this review without spoilerizing it, so you may want to skip this paragraph if you feel you are likely to see the play. Going to his parents home to clear his old room out, Joe discovers a video of himself on his ninth birthday; and shows it to the audience. On the tape, he is being "interviewed" by his uncle. ("What sort of pizza did you have?" "Cheesy!") With a bit of fast forwarding and rewinding, Joe is able to pretend to interview his childhood self. ("What are the audience going to think about this trick?" "Cheesy!") But then, of course, the boy in the film starts talking back at him. How tall is he? What are computer games like in the future? What has he done to save the planet? Hasn't he saved a single endangered species from extinction? Just when we've got used to this idea, a huge Emperor like figure is projected on the back of the stage. Life is pointless; the world is going to end; there is nothing anyone can do about it. This figure is, of course, Joe himself ten years in the future. What can the little nine year old do to stop him turning into the person he is now? What can he do to stop himself turning into the cynical person he will become? And what are we all going to do in the next ten years to prevent the coming global catastrophe? The idea of a past, present, and future version of the same person naturally recalls the plot of his favourite film.
So: two honestly thought provoking and clever pieces of theatrical conjuring performed in a range of voices by an actor with an instant rapport with the audience. I fucking loved them.
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