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This likeable, energetic, occasionally slightly bewildering new show from king of the shaggy-dog story Shôn Dale-Jones and his company Hoipolloi is a consideration of twentyfirst-century capitalism that manages to be both winningly heartfelt and distractingly chaotic.
He crafts a series of interlocking yarns – mostly stories of questionable veracityabout himself – and sets them spinning like a precarious array of plates.
It begins with a yarn about catching a train to a poorly sold show and being forced into handing what limited profit he might have made to a pernickety train guard. Upon arrival things escalate quickly and long story short Dale-Jones ends up deciding to encourage passersby to rob a local bank.
That’s just the tip of the story iceberg: much of the show refects back on his childhood in ’70s Anglesey, where his biggest influences were his Thatcher-voting dad and staunchly socialist nan. There are a good few chunks of the Robin Hood myth thrown in, though this does fall by the wayside. And come the end he’s ended up in an altogether angrier place, worked up into a fury about the inequalities of a society that he has, to some extent, benefitted from hugely due to our deranged housing market.
Dale-Jones is a magnetic storyteller, with a stand-up’s audience rapport and a knack for seeming totally heartfelt even when telling a story that’s manifestly fabricated. Aside from hard questions about the extent to which we passively tolerate capitaism, ‘Me & Robin Hood’ says some smart things about the value of a meaningful narrative versus ‘the truth’ (Robin Hood’s ‘life’ had an impact that few people who actually existed could come even close to).
Still, I couldn’t help but feel that Dale-Jones ultimately hoists himself on his own petard a bit. The ending combines an earnest plea for monety for the charity Street Child – with an even more earnest post-show speech on press night – with the performer sending up his unwillingness to sell his house to help. We dig deep, of course, but emotionally it’s a mix that doesn’t quite work – the sincerity undercuts the irony, and vice versa.