Category: Review

I liked Nicole Henriksen's show last year, I loved this one's amazing energy and delightfully weird humour. It's an evolution of the previous show, with the same structure of her being some completely OTT version of herself – you can see why some 'skinny white boys' would be nervous about texting her back – and three characters (the misogynist DJ from last year plus two new ones including a cult fraud) and it's evolved into something great.

There's a bit of advice to other performers from Tom Robinson that says 'Anything you do, do big. Don't be feeble or apologetic. Take possession of your performing area, own it, fill the space. .. The essence of great performance is energy, passion and total commitment…' Nicole does it big, making a tiny cramped windowless room feel like a large auditorium while at the same time filling it with those three things.

Wonderful.

5/5

I saw two other things on Wednesday – longer reviews later, but here are the headlines:

One Man Breaking Bad

One man does all 60 episodes in an hour. 5/5 if you are a fan of the series, but a waste of time if you haven't seen it.

Ten Seconds With The Pin

Two men do some of the best surreal sketches since Spike Milligan. 4/5

Kevin McMahon was a physicist until ten years ago when he went on the last programme of the 'Faking It' TV series and, after four weeks training, successfully convinced Paul Daniels that he was a professional magician. That convinced him to change careers.

I don't know what he was like as a physicist, but he's a very good magician. I know enough to be looking in the right places at the right times, and sitting in the middle of the front row, I only spotted the trickery some of the time.

As ever, the tricks vary in impact – this was a preview and apparently one that won't be in later shows has recently been spoiled on CBBC, so didn't impress some of the children in the audience as much as it would have done last year. But the card forces lead to a lovely effect at the end.

I enjoyed every minute, as did the almost sell-out audience apparently achieved without 'papering' the room with free tickets. Definitely recommended and I suspect you'll have to book in advance to see this once word gets out.

5/5

Lisa Verlo uses things starting with G – from genitals to getting off – to talk about sexuality, especially in an American context. Her parents didn't like nudity, but she discovers masturbation; her first partner isn't really into her; her second (a famous but unnamed director) is, but also likes other things etc.

The main thing I learnt is that sleeping with directors doesn't guarantee a career – looking her up reveals three entries in imdb: 'song performer' in a film described as "unwatchable" at times because of bad sound and vision, a character in a soft porn film (tags 'female nudity' and 'full frontal female nudity') plus the title character in an episode of its TV series spin-off.

The show itself is worthy rather than good. I can't disagree with anything she says (or sings) but it didn't feel like they were the most interesting things she could have been saying.

I am not asking for the director to be named, but there's not much about how she felt during their relationship, until she wonders how many others are seeing the doctor he recommends when he thinks she might have caught gonorrhoea from him. That's not one of the G's and, for someone her age, it's very noticeable that there's nothing on any other STI. Did HIV have no impact on her?

The format of the show, sometimes talking to a recorded voice, doesn't help make it more of a story than a performance either. It has some good moments, but overall, a disappointment. Sorry, Lisa.

2.5/5

This is what I had been on the way to see before being conned into seeing the start of Deep Throat Live!. Fortunately, because it started fifteen minutes later and wasn't very far away down a hill, I only just missed the start of the show.

Danny Chivers was a nice middle-class young man who got involved in protests against climate change. He couldn't do some of the more practical things needed in the various protests, but he could write poetry… The show is the story of his radicalisation in the face of police violence, undercover police undermining their 'friends' and 'partners', and some of the reactions – from Richard Madeley and others – to the protests.

Amongst the politics, there are some particularly amusing moments – when spotted near to a gas-fired power station near Nottingham after the famous attempt to close down the nearby coal-fired power station, the EDF security team assumed the protesters were attempting to do the latter again, leaving their real target unprotected. That action lead to being sued for £5m by EDF for lost – in reality, only delayed – profits, and one of the proudest bits of the show is the way that was EDF shooting itself in the foot. The case was dropped in exchange for a promise not to trespass on EDF property again or to encourage other people to do so, but you can definitely see why someone might want to…

Had I more time and money, I'd also have seen Mark Thomas's show on having a campaign infiltrated by someone working undercover. Although that one has had a lot more coverage and will doubtless get a much bigger audience, it probably isn't much better than this one. Arrest That Poet! is certainly infinitely better than Deep Throat Live! and is definitely recommended.

4/5

On at 6:15pm at The Stafford Centre (venue 175, and with a nice cafe) until the 13th August.