PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Rondo Theatre, Bath (Wed 19 Oct)

COMEDY / PERFORMANCE POETRY Matt Panesh isn’t a monkey, nor does he write poems about monkeys. He is a feisty Mancunian with a no-nonsense “I’m a leftie and I don’t care who knows it” approach to performing. An intriguingly odd show, this. The first half was his one-man play telling the story of the first Afghan wars in the 1840s. He leapt energetically from character to character, through British Imperial aristocrats to Indian beggars and all walks of life in between, delineating graphically the appalling brutal incompetence and waste of life, but without unnecessary tub-thumping. You couldn’t overall call this a comedy show, but the characterisations were enlivened throughout with deft comedic touches, which made the tale all the more gripping - and its relevance to today’s Afghan entanglement did not need to be, and wasn’t, laboured. A tour de force, and it made its point with wicked ironic accuracy.

The second half was another thing altogether, with a number of tubs being unashamedly thumped via a selection of Panesh's verse on the state of the UK today. There were amusing barbs aimed at some well-deserved targets - the BNP, the tabloid media, celebrity culture - with a particular vitriol for today’s politicians. Though getting the audience to shout “fucking wankers” in reply to the question “what are politicians?” seems a tad less than sophisticated political analysis, it has to be said. All in all, though, an enlivening evening from a man who’s an actor, a comic and a poet.  If he was a singer, he’d be Billy Bragg. (John Christopher Wood)

Copyright John Christopher Wood 2011