Writer: Steve Otis Gunn
Steve Otis Gunn’s debut fringe show opens with him entering the stage wearing an eye-patch and a hat that looks like he could have raided the props department of a 90s BBC drama. It’s a fitting look for the story that sounds like an acid flashback to the set of Back to the Future that he then launches into.
This however, is not his stand-up routine as the story is brought to an abrupt end by a voice in his head telling him this isn’t who he is, and calling on him to reveal his true identity. He duly does this to reveal the straggly hair and face that lurk behind the hat and eye-patch and tell us that he is uncomfortable.
This is also something of a false start as he doesn’t go on to deliver a set about all the things that could make a man born at the tail end of the 60s feel out of place five decades later. Instead, the show winds back to his childhood and it becomes clear that it’s the audience that he wants to feel uncomfortable.
He talks about having parents that robbed banks, albeit in a non-violent way, living with his grandparents before twice being kidnapped by his mother, and various criminal activities he got dragged into or decided to embark on himself, in various countries before and during his teens.
It could be the basis of a rich vein of dark comedy but it isn’t. While there may be a lot of humour that could be drawn out of pretending to be a tour guide and selling stolen festival programmes to rich people in foreign places, he does not do this. Instead, the stories are liberally covered with neglect, violence and abuse, particularly from his father. There is nothing to offset the bleakness apart from spin-the-wheel type moments that lead to short questions about TV programmes, or fake phone calls that don’t work in their own right and feel even more out of place in the context of the rest of the show.
Described as part stand-up and part storytelling, it feels as if the desire to be the former is getting in the way of what could be a far better show if it concentrated on the latter. Letting go of the stand-up and letting his life story breathe rather than be constrained by a format it doesn’t suit could make for something more powerful and engaging than what’s on offer at the moment.
Runs until 24 August 2024 | Image: Contributed
