Review: Punch, Underbelly cowgate (Venue 61)

By Sally Stott
Published on 27/08/2012 15:33

Usually found as one half of comedy double act Frisky and Mannish, Matthew Jones travels a darker path in Steven Bloomer’s often uncomfortable and compellingly provocative exploration of what we’re prepared to laugh at.

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The charismatic Jones plays John, an offensive stand-up comedian – a modern-day Mr Punch, all melting clown 
make-up and manic eyes – who makes jokes about domestic violence, sexual abuse and paedophilia. These aren’t really jokes at all, as he repeatedly points out, but audiences will apparently laugh at anything – a phenomenon explored by Brendon Burns, Frankie Boyle and others, and in no way disproved here.

When John’s not on stage, we see him with his social worker, played by Kirsty Mann. A story emerges in which John’s on-stage persona is accused of abusing his daughter and arrested by a truncheon-wielding policeman. Inevitably, a crocodile also features.

The fusion of pantomime and real-world violence forces us to consider what is acceptable and what isn’t. However, a speech championing those who say the unsaid is an over-simplistic conclusion for an edgy piece of theatre that demands an equally original analysis.

Until tomorrow. Today 3:40pm.