Leadership is a prized quality in these rudderless times, but we seldom think hard about what it means. Performance poet-turned-comedian Tim Clare has done that thinking for us, and feeds it into a lecture-cum-standup set elucidating the six rules of personal and political supremacy. By his own admission, the concept peters out halfway through, and we're summoned to only mild reflection on leadership and its implications. But the best of Clare's material has a fired-up appeal that excuses both its tenuousness and the host's lack of authority.
In short, Clare is not leadership material – or even standup comic material. He's a fidgety presence on stage; his jokes in the first part of this PowerPoint lesson feel forced. He's a better storyteller than comedian: his tale of being threatened with a knife at a poetry gig, and his account of the attempted assassination of South Korean president Park Chung-hee, are compelling. And the latter story is novel: Clare has put in theWikipedia hours and crams his show with characterful examples of leadership gone right or wrong. It feels fresh: hack comics seldom joke about Mobutu Sese Seko and his magic walking stick.
The most enjoyable sequences have minimal bearing on the leadership theme. One traces Clare's correspondence with an online mystic, from whom, in a series of preposterously baroque emails, he negotiates the purchase of persuasive powers and a magic hat. For £375 all in. And his finale, in which he raps a tribute to female leaders (rapid-fire rhymes include "blank verse" with "Pankhurst" and "pestle grind" with "Michael Heseltine"), indicates where Clare's most impressive skills lie. This show will win him few disciples, but plenty of friends.
