On the opening night of the second Brighton Dome Comedy Festival Rob Newman is in a pseudo forest, five green lights striking up high towards the rafters, giving the impression of a woodland that could feasibly be populated by numerous grandmothers’ cottages. An appropriate setting for the wild tales about to spring forth, but these ones have their roots in Nietzsche, Sartre and Pythagoras, not Grimm – and somehow manage to keep all of their wonder.
This is, of course, a testament to Newman’s storytelling skills, which are a downright delight. Pantomiming a variety of characters gleefully, he’s as much at home re-enacting mathematics assassins from Ancient Greece via New York’s Little Italy, as he is describing his exchange with a crazy street man in modern day Exeter. Newman is enjoying himself immensely with wild accents and physical distinctions, play-acting with fun and in an exploration, whilst prodding at the grey matter in an insistent manner.
Think! - is the order of the evening. You don’t have to agree with all or any of what he presents, but to raise challenges semi-organically brings back the wonder of fairy tale imagery, this time rooted in science and other modern-style magics.
There’s a far-fetched quality that questions some of the credulity of his tales, densely packed with a wild mix of information on a huge variety of topics alongside whimsy, never entirely clear when one switches to the other and Newman’s mischievous imagination takes the wheel. There’s an air reminiscent of a quizzed dad before Google existed, reaching for the answers of the universe in the corners of his mind, throwing in a few of his own theories alongside them for good measure and just making up bald-faced lies for the sake of punchlines working too.
Newman knows his well-read audience. There is something of the intellectual snob here, but – as he rightly points out – why should he make himself more inclusive to the masses when the media aimed squarely at the masses doesn’t do the same and make itself inclusive to the intellectuals he caters to? This is his dance in his forest, filled with the magic of philosophy, history, science, anthropology, not to mention some enjoyable autobiography.
The show draws to a close with a song, techno science semi-rapped and half sung, not always on the beat and indicative of the evening’s show. A callback to an anthropology and the origin of speech bit he did earlier, with the sense of pleasing himself and only consequently others. And why not? That’s why we’re here.
The Brighton Dome Comedy Festival runs until October 26. Details here.
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