Writer: Damien Warren-Smith
Director: Cal McCrystal
14 theatre styles performed in 60 minutes, the character of Garry Starr is here to save the performing arts from extinction by educating the Southwark Playhouse audience to appreciate each of these genres. Created and performed by Damien Warren-Smith, Garry Starr Performs Everything is a daft one-man show that both celebrates and gently ridicules the art form by using a variety of comedy and audience interaction techniques that mean almost no one is safe from appearing in this show.
Opening with a physical theatre dance and covering Euro theatre, Drawing Room Comedy and Greek Tragedy along the way, Warren-Smith begins with a clear distinction between each of these theatre styles and the characteristics that will make them funny. Some earn more obvious laughs including Melodrama as a Pinter duologue from The Lover is wrought with dramatic voices while the Burlesque segment involves lots of twirling around, gyrating and catching grapes in his mouth, but in each case, the audience gets the point.
In other sections, Warren-Smith pushes the boundaries, relying on more sophisticated techniques to bring his own unique perspective to these interpretations that move Garry Starr Performs Everything beyond a comedy sketch show. The performance of an entire scene from Hamlet at double speed is silly but effective and highly impressive. Some slightly unappetising spaghetti play illustrates Romantic Comedy surprisingly well and is very clever, referencing Lady and the Tramp and convincing several members of the audience to voluntarily inhale the other end of the pasta. A reimagining of Tragedy using Romeo and Juliet with dramatic Britney Spears lyrics is an imaginative highlight.
Yet it is overly repetitive, the same jokes performed three or four times in each segment that sucks momentum from the show. The lengthy scene from Pinter is elongated by the script given to a game audience member with several deliberate mistakes that they stumble over so Starr can correct them, and goes on long after the audience has got the point. Likewise, a section on Slapstick invites audience members to hit each other with large foam batons which doesn’t quite represent its genre in the way that Warren-Smith imagines.
Anyone fearful of audience participation should be aware that the majority of scenes involve some form of engagement, and sitting at the back won’t save you. Starr is happy to clamber over the seats, point at people at random and pick multiple individuals at a time. Tasks include everything from acting as a scene partner to playing drums, throwing grapes and being the fall guy for Starr’s comedy, much of which is physical, enjoying the impression of different funny costumes including a small thong and a short period of nudity.
Garry Starr Performs Everything doesn’t quite tick off all of the theatre genres and, given the style of Warren-Smith’s performance, reducing the repetition could create room here for a couple more – Avant-Garde in particular but also Cabaret and maybe even Agitprop that Warren-Smith could easily send up and develop a conclusion that reiterates the show’s core premise that theatre needs saving and Garry Starr is the man to do it.
Runs until 23 December 2023
