Four years ago, a broody Russell Kane raised an imaginary child on stage. Now, he can decommission his imagination: the motormouth Essex man is a recent father, whose new show addresses pregnancy, childbirth and paternal love. Oh, and maturity.
Kane used to be notorious for dissembling about his age. Now, suited and booted, he’s here to hymn the virtues of happiness in one’s own skin, no matter how pallid, battle-scarred or wrinkly.
Which sounds grand, but doesn’t develop as an idea. Nor is it reflected in any mellowing of Kane’s neurotic, hyperactive manner. On the contrary, Right Man, Wrong Age leans heavily on tales of his uptightness, now contrasted with wife Lindsey’s blithe spirit.
He’s an insomniac; she can’t stay awake in an unlit room. He neatly folds one holiday outfit per day; she “jazz-packs” bikinis, fur coats and old newspapers. She has undramatic hangovers; he turns vomiting, very amusingly, into an Italian opera.
It’s an entertaining picture of a couple with complementary energies, as Kane would have it. It’s also slightly oversold, and there are other instances here of Kane giving one too many examples to bolster a comic point. But if you’re not always laughing, you’re never bored: there’s more – and more lurid – material crammed into these two hours than many comics would fit in a decade.
In the second half, it’s mostly about baby Mina’s arrival – and her dad makes up in animation what his stories lack in novelty. Here we are at conception, as Kane roleplays the durability of female sperm over male. Later, we drop in on the 12-week scan, the troubled birth, and an improbable avian encounter in the first weeks of parenthood. (“Have you ever known anyone milked by a crow?!”) It’s not his most thought-provoking show, but it succeeds cheerfully in proving that, for Kane, acting one’s age and being funny needn’t be mutually exclusive.
- At Theatr Brycheiniog, Brecon, 31 March. Box office: 01874 611622. Then touring.
