Just the tonic – the Mash House
Aug 18 – 19, 20 – 21, 22 – 26, 27 – 28, 18.40
Ted Hill’s show (Comedy) ‘All the Presidents Man’ was witty, clever (genius), entertaining, painfully funny and an accomplished (dissolving academia), truthful and eventful farce; with a great face to clear and clean the crowd. We found ourselves in a gorgeous attic; with balustrades of wood and the most wonderful scent of old wood that has had little human contact.
This show was meant to be for many reasons, not least the very universe coming together. Sitting there in a balance of harmony of sight, feel and touch. Ted ran to his show in an endearing green dungaree costume, to explain all that he had put together.
In my second power point of the day, though this one was the work of a magician, his first comment was on A.I. in his creation of Steve the power point who basically introduced the show. His rampant delivery grew from cadet to commandeer in no time at all and his nice seeming presence was soon to erupt with prophetic reasoning, rattling himself while pouring out a plot about Presidents that enthralled and sometimes almost sang (or rapped, or he had created an entirely new way of performing.He told us of his life time ambition to be inducted into the famous Guinness Book of Records set by his desire to speak to the world (accomplished well by this show). I have never been so interested in pie charts and graphs as I was when in the hands of Ted’s commitment. He mentioned more than once that for the great number of these charts he had taken days to complete.
His magic charm was comedy, throwing away much of his work as superfluous and irrelevant for his cause. Wow I had no idea comedy could be so truthfully effective, then he began to explain his fragile predicaments. Medication, hospital and help, all cried out after being saved from what he called invasive thoughts. I was touched as I think the whole room felt.
Depression is a killer (let’s not joke about) but when he spent his time in hospital everyone realised his creative potential and he found that being silly was something he intended to do (a self confessed silly Billy). So he sporadically mentioned every President, many of whom skipped by (based on his reflection on them) some bad and untrustworthy, others nail bitingly making vast changes to America. This was no vision of a bedroom put onstage, no revealing of self as proceedings went by, and it knocked the pace out of being any kind of board room gambit.
This genius should grow and flow into a worldwide phenomenon to be used on so many levels that he seemingly effortlessly (to great effort) touchingly, honestly tiraded, but suffering ensues in his life so perhaps this level of artistic engineering must be part of making something as awe inspiring as this small, delightful show, please keep em coming Ted.
Daniel Donnelly
Mumble Comedy 