Catherine Bennett resumes the weekly look at the performing arts world, with the sad end of Jerusalem, the luck of a cabbie, and French revolt. Do you hear the people sing?
Adam Alcock reviews Nigel Kennedy playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons and his own Four Elements at York Opera House.
Catherine Bennett highlights the trends in the performing arts world today.
Jonathan Cridford reviews 'Ghosts', one of the Freshers' plays for this year.
Dave Gorman returned to the York Opera House this Thursday as part of his ‘Powerpoint Presentation’ tour. The Staffordshire-born Jewish comic only made a comeback to touring in 2009, and is perhaps more renowned for his writing credits - The Mrs Merton Show, The Fast Show - and his bizarre televised experiment Are You Dave Gorman? In 2003 he was listed in The Observer’s 50 greatest comics, and he is one of the leading documentary-comedians performing today.
It’s great seeing a well-known stand-up comic. What could be better? Well, with a literalism taken straight from Dave Gorman’s playbook, I should say that the answer is: seeing a well-known stand-up comic after having seen a warm-up act who certainly deserves to be well-known. Cue Jay Foreman, a musical comedian whose act was as hilarious as it was melodious. The material was fresh, and the delivery - which is often sidelined in a musical act - was impeccable. It was also a more varied set than one might imagine: some songs were just two or three lines long, and so were more musical-joke than jokey-music. A talented musician, and comedian, who has neatly avoided the pitfalls of combining the two; if you haven’t heard of him yet, you will - and when you do, you’ll realise what you’ve been missing.
With the audience well and truly warmed up, it was time for Dave himself to make an appearance. I was somewhat apprehensive - I’m a huge fan of documentary comedy, but ‘found’ material can very easily be a crutch to support a comedian who, in reality, doesn’t have a lot to say. This was not a thought I was able to entertain after Gorman took the stage, however; although often my desire to simply applaud was stronger than my impulse to laugh, the comedian structures the show and moulds the material so creatively that even documentary elements become personal to him.
He’s not only creative in how he approaches the act, but very playful. There are a lot of very simple gags revolving around nothing more taxing than the possibilities of having a large projection-screen onstage, but it’s light-hearted, and we’re soon moving into material (often ‘found’ material) which is woven cunningly into the storyline of the show. Everything works together: the subject matter, the delivery and the medium. It’s not gimmicky; the Powerpoint is shown to be a useful device for comedy, and if anything I would say that there is actually a lot more potential in this direction. The medium certainly didn’t feel exhausted by the end of the show.
The problem, fundamentally, is that the documentary elements are so fascinating, and so well researched, that I sometimes found myself distracted from the humorous side - as I said before, sometimes my impulse to applaud is stronger than my impulse to laugh. I was really engaged by the material, so when I did laugh, I laughed harder, but the jokes are quite daringly spaced sometimes. I think Gorman is walking on the fine line between documentary and comedy, and although he does it well, and I hope he manages to keep it up indefinitely, you can’t help but be aware that it is a balancing act.
The highlight of the show was, without a doubt, a pair of ‘found poems’ composed of comments on online news stories. These epitomised Gorman’s style: what is, apparently, a documentary of online comments is reworked into a perfectly-timed, perfectly-written comic masterpiece. It was moments like this which made me wonder if the internet is not just a medium and subject for comedy, but actually large enough to support a new comic genre altogether. There’s a strong chance that the future of comedy lies with Dave Gorman.
Gorman is a master of his art, and although I think his true strength is in writing rather than performance, I have to hand it to him: he really makes you wonder how comedy ever got by without the Powerpoint presentation in the first place. His webby-based, 21st century subject matter is counterbalanced by his warmth and human subjectivity, creating a package that is almost universally relevant but, truly, universally hilarious.
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