Today we looked at past solo performances that had achieved a high grading last year, as well as looking at the solo work of actor and performance-maker John Fleck.

What was particularly striking to me was the diverse range of themes and topics covered in the solo performances, and how simple they seemed to be. Of course, there were performances that included more tech than others but the presentation or for want of a better word the mis-en-scene of the pieces were simple. There wasn’t too much going on. Even Meta! which along with Oliver Hicchinsons performance (I didn’t catch the name) had various elements going on but the way it was structured made sure that we as an audience were not confused. The audiences attention was directed in right places at exactly the right moments. That’s what made it simple, yet, the process to make this happen seem complex.

Simon Payne’s Meta! and Oliver’s piece were performances that really appealed to me because of their individual unique styles. They were both very much inspired (at least in my eyes) by Tim Crouch and Thomas Pain. The main reason why I liked these particular shows is because both performances reflected a unique, experimental style that I myself love to use when creating my own work.  The unique performance style of these pieces became very theatrical and whilst I liked the autobiographical pieces, I don’t think that I personally have a sufficient story to tell, without it sounding cliché or rubbish.  Billy Cummock’s performance about working class identity in Yorkshire had me thinking this way in particular. It seemed very cringe-worthy and whilst, yes, working class identity is sufficiently important in relation to Thatcherism, I felt that he could have done more with it. He catered a majority of his jokes and dialogue towards a specific audience, which was an audience of his peers. Granted, theatre should be catered towards a specific demographic of audiences, that’s a general fact. However, his audience consisted of the majority of his friends, so when he made jokes about ‘site-specific’ the comedy became very in-housed and could only be identified by the people in the room who have a personal association with that subject, thereby causing the laughter. I personally felt that this cheapened the comedy.

JOHN FLECK

John Fleck is an actor and solo performance artist. His show Bless are all the Little Fishes (1989) interested me because of his ability to compel different states of atmosphere through visercal imagery. This excerpt (below) shows Fleck dressed as a mermaid, and the show itself explores alcoholism and religion.

            “Blessed Are All the Little Fishes reveals Fleck’s attempts to grapple with the two biggest factors in his childhood: alcoholism and Catholicism. ‘It’s the story of this man’s binge, which is also    society’s binge—man at his lowest point of alienation,’ says Fleck, who, in the course of the show, dresses as a mermaid, urinates on stage, hacks up a dead goldfish, talks about bisexuality, and makes a toilet bowl into an altar by pasting a photo of Christ onto the lid. For his drunken character, Fleck says that the toilet is ‘the center of the universe, a place of miraculous visitation.’

                                                                                                                            (Blessed are all the little snowballs in hell: Screening and discussion with john fleck, 2013)

The aesthetic of the show seemed very hilarious to begin with. Fleck is dressed as a mermaid, drinking and smoking. He then proceeds to escape his mermaid ‘shell’ in a beautiful visual that resembled a metamorphosis to a certain extent. Following this, Fleck proceeds to play God and his ‘character’ changing address through vomiting into a toilet which later serves as a shrine to Christ. At the start of this sequence it is quite funny, however, as it carries on and the sequences begins to get visually unbearable it becomes very intolerable. We become sympathetic to Fleck’s character. I think the simple repetition of a particular action or event, can really affect the way that the atmosphere shifts.

Fleck’s performance was inspiring to watch because of the theatricality that he embodied. Fleck’s childhood was full of alcoholism and sexual revelation however he doesn’t make the show explicitly about him. Nor is it an autobiographically preaching. It is autobiographical in the sense that it is personal to Fleck and yet it still remains as a theatrical performance.

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