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Still here: While They Were Waiting - Upstairs At The Gatehouse

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As the song goes, time heals everything. Or as another song says, it's time after time. Yet waiting—for a moment, a minute, or even a while—can feel like a chore. In Gary Wilmot’s slightly absurd and silly While They Were Waiting, the focus is on waiting and wordplay. No opportunity is missed to find more than one meaning in what is said. A debate arises about the difference between a smidge and a whisker. There's a playful riff on how you can be here and over there at the same time, depending on your standpoint. If this piece has a point at all, it depends on what you find funny. The concept of waiting-related language is, in itself, amusing, and there is plenty to laugh about in this show. It’s currently playing at Upstairs at the Gatehouse . The premise is simple: Mulbery (Steve Furst) arrives for an appointment and is kept waiting. What the appointment is for, we are not clear about but he is waiting for a yellow door to open. Nobody answers when he rings. He’s joined by th...

Made up voices: Me and Mr C @Ovalhouse


After watching Gary Kitching’s improvised performance at Oval House Theatre, Me and Mr C, you realise that you probably had the most fun you could invent for an evening.

On our night, audience members were chanting “Pigfucker! Pigfucker! Pigfucker!” as part of a lesson in organised heckling, while the remainder of us were rolling around in hysterics at the premise.

Kitching has come up with an act that derives its humour from getting the audience to do stuff. Lots of stuff. And amazingly everyone does what they are told.

The premise is simple. Mr C is the ventriloquist dummy that he bought online, and becomes the voice inside his head that he is no good.

But along the way Kitching invites the audience to give him the ideas for the dullest job imaginable, the dreary items people have in their front rooms, their kitchens and their hallways. Words of good advice are noted down and it all becomes part of the piece he then acts out the story of a man who wants to do a job he really loves.

Audience participation can be tricky and (particularly with jaded London theatregoers) it can be difficult getting anyone wanting to get involved. Perhaps the lively and funky audiences of the Ovalhouse were much more open minded. They at least had inspired suggestions for the choice of music at key parts of the story.

In the end people went along with the ride. But as Kitching warns at the start, “it could be shit.” I suspect he is too smart for it to be that, but every night certainly will be different.

Me and Mr C is part of the Fabulism season at Ovalhouse which concludes this month. The season has been about covering the fantastical in the everyday. Check out Gary Kitching’s website for other dates for Me and Mr C.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

"Me and Mr C" by Gary Kitching from Selma Greyscale on Vimeo.

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