Paul Richards: Getting Lost In My Hometown
Paul Richards
Sportsters Bar, 1st - 22nd August @ 16:15:00
Paul Richards
Sportsters Bar, 1st - 22nd August @ 16:15:00
Reviewed by James Schafer on 10th August 2014.
Lost In Direction
Paul Richards has a Tesco Value boom box. He uses it in his show to play background music. A lot. He’ll often press play, say half a sentence and then stop the boom box, finish his sentence, and then press play again. He does this many, many times. The despair in the room escalates with every passing push of the pause button. At one point the CD starts skipping. “It’s not meant to do that” Paul nervously chuckles. I consider eating my hand.
This show needs a tech guy. It so, so badly needs a tech guy. Or maybe it shouldn't have any tech. Maybe Paul Richards should just tell his incredibly dull story free of inappropriately moody piano tracks and poorly conceived sound cues. His alternative to a PowerPoint is a ring binder he flips through. He tries to do a tech failure joke involving Phil Collins. It makes no sense. He does it as a callback later. It remains equally baffling.
At one point Paul gets a crappy toy keyboard on stage and plays a song called “Grace Face”. This is the chorus:
Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace.
We are expected to sing along.
He then does the same song with a hip hop back beat. This is the highlight of the show as I collapsed into my hands and bellowed with laughter. It was either that or cry.
This show exemplifies delusion. Paul Richards assures us he has toured this show up and down the country. One can only hope he loses it in Edinburgh.
Not that fun to watch. Definitely awful and inspired a moment of lucid hysteria but sadly more pain than pleasure.
For further information about this production and book tickets click here.
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Probably not, so move on please.