By rights this one-man show should not work at all. It's just a middle-aged man in a cardigan, talking. Or not talking. Sometimes hugging a cupboard. Sometimes suspended by a rope. Occasionally swinging. Occasionally soaring. He is accompanied by a musician who provides an instant soundtrack.
It doesn't sound much, and yet it isn't in the least bit boring. This vocal-physical monologue is funny and tender and true.
It is Guy Dartnell's ordinariness that carries the day - that and an extraordinary stomach that growls and rumbles as if he's got a restless troll inside. He brings forth instantly recognisable characters, perhaps all part of his own personality, all aching to express themselves. All in their different ways opinionated or doubtful, argumentative or diffident, angry or shy, fearful or confident.
It is the muddly, messy humanity of it all that makes this so appealing. Dartnell gives voice to the constant dialogue we all have going on inside our heads. The voice that insistently whispers, "Perhaps you would like me better if I worked out / had a new haircut / lost weight"; the one that's dead keen on enlightenment and is always arguing with the one that only wants to watch the football; or the voice that declares loudly, "I haven't got time to sit through another crap show."
No fear that you'll feel like that about Dartnell's virtuoso offering.
