"a subliminal masterpiece"
She Was Probably Not a Robot
Underbelly, Cowgate
Theatre Reviewed by Thom Dibdin
Stuart Bowden does not so much swim through his storytelling show, he positively luxuriates and wallows in it, keeping the audience onside in their expectations of comedy as he allows his quirky humour to shine and carefully negotiates his audience into a splendid silence.
For the opening minutes he simply plays with a Casio piano, singing inane little doodling songs in perfect falsetto then deep bass, drawing the giggles as drops the knowledge that the audience are all dead into his script - to the expected hysterical edge of laughter.
It is this ability to know his audience and play with them that inspires. The story he draws, shaggy dog-style, into existence could be related with quite cruel effect in three or four minutes. A tale of a boy whose love has left him and who survives, alone, after the world ends - only to be picked up by an alien who just happens to have built an Earth replica to pass away the time.
Yet this doesn't feel like self-indulgence. The joy is in the telling. And the punchline reveal, that if someone walks out on you it isn't the end of the world, is a subliminal masterpiece.
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