It’s a shame when a Tab article by the writers to promote their new comedy is more amusing than the show itself. It’s a shame which is symptomatic of the play’s problem, which is that the writing far surpasses the reality.

The play is, as the title suggests, a one man comedy, in which one man, Adam Lawrence’s backstage cleaner, Robin, struggles through many parts. Lawrence’s character is probably supposed to be a bumbling, blundering fool, but the act seems too realistic at times. Robin fails to capture our attention fully, and seems to be genuinely silly and struggling.

As joke after joke fell flat, the effect became quite unpleasant. The intimacy of Pembroke New Cellars made the problem worse, with the odd awkward chuckle elicited occasionally from the audience feeling more uncomfortable than the silence with which Lawrence’s performance was usually met.

After sitting through one dull half, the audience are at least treated to a twist which seems to make things make more sense; jokes which fail at first have new life breathed into them. But not enough, and the performance remains notably limp. The overall impression is that the whole thing is very well written, and quite clever. It’s probably quite witty on paper, but on the stage it is poor.

I thought for a few minutes that maybe there was something I wasn’t quite getting. A glance around at the faces of my fellow audience members – and in fairness Lawrence was not helped by a poor turnout – corrected the assumption; most of them looked every bit as confused, bored and underwhelmed as I felt. But it’s hard to see how the play could be improved. The writing is revealed to be very clever by the end, but the build-up to this revelation is long, drawn out and monotonous. It was a good idea. It was not a very good play.