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Luke Rollasen - Bowerbird

Four stars

 A bowerbird, as Luke Rollason never quite gets round to telling us in his latest madcap potpourri of mime and existential angst, is from a fruit eating species of feathered friends renowned for their unique courtship behaviour. As the Wikipedia oracle does tell us, this ritual sees the male bowerbird build a structure and decorate it with sticks and brightly coloured objects in an attempt to attract a mate.

 

Welcoming his audience with a lampshade on his head while dressed akin to a Hare Krisnna jogger, whatever the significance of the show’s title, by the end of it Rollason has lots of mates. Utilising a ton of domestic detritus and kitchen drawer clutter, a singing sofa and coathanger shoulders for reals, Rollason’s set up resembles a friendlier take on Gethin Price’s self-destructive routine in the cabaret club segment of Trevor Griffiths’ play, Comedians.

 

This is punctuated by a pseudo lecture on comedy by Rollason cos-playing his physical slapstick forebear John Wright, though as it turns out, it’s the old gags that are the best. If Rollason wasn’t fleeing a broken home at the start of his show, the mess he leaves behind suggests it is now, in a pop-eyed meditation on the need to fly the nest.

 

Monkey Barrel Comedy (Hive 2) until 28 August, 12.30-1.30pm.


The List, August 2022

 

ends

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