Apart from Elvis and Cash, who can truly pull off a white jacket? Phil obviously thought he could, along with white trousers, shoes, thin 80s tie on the backdrop of a loud violet shirt (sweat-laden, just 3 poems in) at the Comedy Festival last night…
Phil Nichol is Bobby Spade ‘A Deadpan Poet Sings Quiet Songs Quietly’
NZ International Comedy Festival 2010
Apart from Elvis and Cash, who can truly pull off a white jacket? Phil obviously thought he could, along with white trousers, shoes, thin 80s tie on the backdrop of a loud violet shirt (sweat-laden, just 3 poems in). Team that little ensemble with a rectangular, white enamel belt buckle with Farah Fawcett look alike hair, reclining in a sunbathing pose and you’ve got the Deadpan Poet who Sings Quiet Songs Quietly.
Accompanied by a polished and tight double bassist and keyboardist who provided the odd bit of vocal work and Nichol himself on guitar (yep, you guessed it –a white one), provided a great dimension to the show; just like quality illustrations that support the text in sophisticated picture books. In the words of our very own Dave Dobbyn, ‘Black humour made you kick your blues.’ There were no taboos here ladies and gentlemen.
With a full range of emotion, majoring in angst, Nichol’s performance was polished and quirky, showing great vocal capability. Using several female’s-worth-of-word-allowance-per-day on one show, he shot puns like ammunition. The short nature of the poetic genre allowed greater opportunity to ‘regroup’, so the fall-out wasn’t so horrific if you missed content. The clever play on words, songs drenched in detail, demonstrating a range of musical styles, certainly brought a witty and intelligent touch. Among them, we had punk, emo –with a Helen Keller’s fella number ‘I can’t smell her’ and a little romp down Sesame Street with an upbeat song created for ‘Organ Week’ named ‘Pancreas’. Jim Henson later sacked Spade for the pancreas is in fact, a gland.
A lot of shouting resulted in a woman, in front and two seats to the right, nigh on hitting her head on the ceiling. Perhaps she just wet her pants instead.
Humour was blokey and crass in the main. Not a first date option. A couple in front of me got up and left. I suspect it was the florid vocab. The ‘let’s bag your family’ scene wasn’t pretty. At times it proved difficult to keep up with his pace –the sheer velocity of delivery and the plethora of puns meant somewhere along the line you were bound to miss content. No taboos here. Termination jokes are non-negotiable for me. Again, not pretty.
Favourite line: ‘And now for a musical number…….4!!!! (sung loud and proud).
So, all in all, this was a mixed bag for me. Less swearing would’ve made the show far more enjoyable, but I’m in awe at the energy and talent, not to mention the left hand gyrating with the snake-bite move at the end of each poem. That got a loud chortle from me. Nice one, Bobby.
By Catherine Pittams, 5 May 2010
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