Just The Tonic at the Caves
Aug 15-27 (18.20)
Mortui Non Mordent
‘As Seen on CCTV’ sees Matt Price storytelling about a moment of clarity experienced whilst speaking to a ‘Life Therapist’. Life Therapists, as we are informed, make their living reframing the negative in life into the positive. Whilst watching, I had my own moment of clarity. This hour of warmly and energetically delivered colloquial jokes, fine tuned impressions, and barely suppressed frenetic energy is ‘anti-life coaching’, a light look at those individuals and situations which somehow manage to turn positive into negative, which may well be a product of Matt’s particularly irritating life therapist who is anti-stand up, pro-theft, and is more intent on selling Matt ‘whale song’ CD’s than his own goals and aspirations.
Our host introduces himself, and his intense stage presence, by announcing that a member of the audience has bought him a pint before the gig. By the end of the show he’s openly proclaiming that he wished it had been of vodka, rather than lager. The audience laugh in disagreement, as the improvised responses to heckling and the near constant riffing with the crowd are stand out highlights. He describes himself as a ‘people person’, which is just as well given a stage persona which occasionally borders on aggressive. This is not an issue, as the majority of the real-life characters he brings onto stage throughout the show are all of a similarly aggro ilk.
Cockney gangsters, Glaswegians (redundantly) characterised as unerringly psychopathic, and Cornwallian yokels all get their chance to rage against the machine, putting Matt’s own initial frenetic energy firmly into context. All of this colloquial material is well observed with matching facial punctuation and very funny. This is unsurprising given that he’s from Cornwall himself, his wife is Glaswegian, and he interviews criminals for a living. The skills he’s picked up in that unusual vocation are put to excellent use throughout the show while dealing with the increasingly tipsy, and talkative, punter who bought him a pint before the gig, and some of the biggest belly laughs from the audience result from his excellent riffing with the crowd during which he is, counterintuitively, at his most calm even if he does discharge our heckler to the bar before asking the crowd if they’d be willing to take part in a ‘Strangers on a Train’ style intervention involving cling-film and a lamppost.
Other highlights include anti-Devon rants, Death Metal impersonations, and an excellent anecdote about watching the performance of a cover version of ‘You Suffer’ by Napalm Death. Call backs throughout the set to the record breaking feats of Annabelle Chung are not received as well, and sandwiched between Matt’s neat character work and observational skills they stick out somewhat. Despite this it’s a solid hour of laughs with a charming performer, and an amusing insight into niche regional perspectives which are comfortingly similar wherever in the provinces Matt takes us.
Ewan Law
Mumble Comedy 