With a fully overgrown beard, British comedian Tim Key rants about his sexual frustrations and much, much more in Single White Slut. Donning a workers’ denim jumpsuit and brown, heeled leather boots, Key exhibits a delightfully subdued stage presence, but his versatility as a performer is hard to miss.
Perhaps best known as Sidekick Simon in Alan Partridge’s Mid-Morning Matters and the excellent 2013 feature film Alpha Papa, Tim Key now adopts the role of poet. Key has demonstrated his ‘topical poetry’ before in Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, but when live on stage, his poetry moves on to strange new heights.
Reciting poems about owls, tooth fairies and ‘one for the lads’ from small cards, Key’s poems carry a peculiar tone somewhere in between bemusement and shrewdness (see his Twitter, for instance). After reading them, he tosses the cards away. The offhanded scattering of tiny white cards across the stage perhaps reflects the jumbling of eclectic topics covered in his subsequent anecdotes.
Key stands alone on stage, flanked by a bed and a small metal drawer. The stage’s minimal setting and lounge music soundtrack comes close to that of a low-budget theatre set. He points to the bed, claiming it had been sent by air freight from his home in London. ‘This bed is a metaphor for…bed,’ he quips, and proceeds to recall his attempts at sleeping with audience members.
Key takes on a freeform style in his approach to comedy, as his delivery oscilliates between deafening shouts and hurried whispers into the microphone. In actuality, his distinctly curious utterances are a sign of his impeccable comic timing. With his poems, the best ones are those that end abruptly; the poem’s hilarity only sinks in with its sudden conclusion. His little anecdotes fluctuate between being quirky and uncouth, but he never loses his charm.
Exhibiting a keen awareness of his physical surroundings, Key makes full use of the intimate space both onstage and off. He invites audience members onstage, sits next to them on his bed and begins uncomfortable conversations with them. He talks to a shy lady about Russia, before politely moving on with, ‘Can I walk you back to your seat now?’ Additionally, he walks up along the aisles, only to stop halfway and begin a fantastically surreal narrative about his encounter with Anne Hathaway.
At the end of Single White Slut, Key proclaims, ‘You have survived a poetry recital.’ It is an interesting choice of phrase, since his show arguably consists of more than just mere poetry readings. He meshes together an unusual concoction of poetry, stand-up and theatre to produce a bizarrely incomparable one-man performance. Key’s persona may be that of a hopeless, frustrated comic, but he skilfully pushes the boundaries of a conventional stand-up to create something that is both weird and beautiful.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Single White Slut
By Tim Key
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
www.comedyfestival.com.au
8-20 April
