One-third of the sketch troupe Penny Dreadfuls, Humphrey Ker uses his first solo show to tell a tale of second world war derring-do, in a style that fans of Commando comics will know well. Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher is apparently based on the exploits of Ker's grandfather. But the story told here betrays few links with documentary reality, or any sense of its personal significance. It's a very broad spoof that runs along familiar lines, elevated by Ker's terrific performance and a script that's crammed with wordplay, one-liners and loopy anachronism.
It helps that Ker looks every inch the lantern-jawed hero, clad here in khaki, and addressing us in the clipped tones of the 1940s newsreel. We meet the young Dymock as duty separates him from his new sweetheart Joanie. "She was six foot in her heels if she was an inch," Ker tells us. "Which she was. So she was six foot." That's the style: cliches (verbal, narrative and cinematic) are constantly undercut, metaphors are strained ("the silence in the room was thicker than an elephant kebab") and retro atmosphere is jolted by inappropriate modern idiom.
The jeopardy mounts as Dymock parachutes into Romania to sabotage a Nazi atom-bomb factory – with only a magician's costume disguise and a dog called Uncle Trevor as accomplice. But there's no corresponding danger for Ker, or the audience: this is always cosy pastiche, whose style and narrative twists contain few surprises. Happily, Ker is a great storyteller, moving events on at a clip, hopping between characters – a gung-ho mission leader, a homicidal Geordie trainer – with unshowy skill, and orchestrating a few memorable set-pieces along the way. It's an affectionate romp through a Boy's Own Paper fantasy, and very easy to enjoy.
