Laughing Horse @ Bar 50
Aug 1 – 24 (18.00)

Material:  Delivery:   Laughs:   Room:

At Bar 50’s Alcove we were treated to the conundrum of comical masculinity performed by Aaron Twitchen, a gay man with a hairstyle (a bit like Bjork’s) who also did circus work. I believe I may have inadvertently intruded on a no-press performance, but I hope I’ll be forgiven because I’d rather just think of myself as a punter with a pen. So what did I see? Well, Twitchen is an expert storyteller; with his small, closely-packed audience lapping it  all up. In fact ,you’d be equally ravished if you picked up the story from just about any moment in his set.

It seemed he had broken up with a long-time partner (a matter of months which according to Aaron was a long time in gay terms), so found himself going to Egypt for a getaway to mend his broken heart. He hadn’t gone alone, however, but had been joined on the venture by friends. He joked about his father, the fact that pyramids offer no shelter from the sun and that where he was in Egypt was in fact 300 miles from the pyramids. Alongside these hilarious stories came his take on the contemporary era, taking huge swipes at anything that interested him or that he cared about.

Twitchen feels that being gay nowadays could do without the Pride reputation that has been built up over the decades, that if we human beings could just figure out how to stand together we could bring about a revolution that could actually change the world. This was an engaging and good humored way of addressing dissatisfaction in the modern world and modern society and more importantly questions being asked as to who and what we really are or may be.

Aaron Twitchen was frank, bubbly and sincere about his feelings as he touched on issues relevant to us all; a very intimate show, which I spent hoping I wouldn’t be the next person he’d pick on, albeit charmingly. Ultimately optimistic, you felt you were being shown a brighter future and being encouraged not to ever give up. We were all rainbows that no-one would be able to stop shining. Oh, and he’s very, very funny!

Daniel Donnelly