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There are shows that dare you, through brutal effects, or difficult themes, or some other figurative means, to get up and walk out. Then there are shows that literally dare you to get up and walk out – as in, the guy on stage tells you to get up and walk out, and you think about it for a second or two because there’s actually something quite good on telly tonight, but then you remember you need to write a review.
This kind of provocative, meta-theatrical deconstruction runs throughout ‘Laughing Matter’, a non-narrative piece ostensibly about actor-writer James Thomson’s existential grief following the death of his father.
The show comes in three parts; a faux-ad-libbed intro in which Thomson – inbetween inviting the audience to do one – sets the philosophical tone. The middle comprises a domestic scene between Thomson (playing himself) and his father (Keith Hill), based on Thomson’s secret audio recordings, played out, remixed and replayed to interesting effect. The finale – a playful mock-Q&A – is lightest in tone, while turning the meta-theatrical cleverness up to 11.
In amongst all the facepalm-worthy ‘all the world’s a stage’ clichés there are some genuinely thought-provoking moments in ‘Laughing Matter’, a show that comes close to saying something deep about parent-child relationships. But these are all too briefly abandoned, and for the most part the philosophical pondering is trite and simply unoriginal, and lends the show the feeling of stumbling into a student house party just as it’s sparking up its fourth bongful.