29 May 2010

The Last Stand to Reason by The Pajama Men

Written and performed by Shenoah Allen & Mark Chavez plus their tireless musician, Kevin Hume at the Soho Theatre. I think I saw James Serafinowicz as I was leaving. Does that count as an 'audience notable'?

My first impression was that this show wasn't as tight as Versus Vs Versus but that may have been contingent upon the absence of the impact from seeing them for the first time and the hard-to-warm-up audience.

It's undeniably clever stuff, well crafted and presented. In a piece this long, not all of it's going to work at a consistently good level but I would never hesitate to see them again. Mark looks and performs as though Shenoah just drew him during a long period of procrastination, then got someone to animate him. I meant that as positively. He does things with his voice that most people would need sophisticated equipment to replicate.

A quick scoot around for reviews of the current show has been relatively fruitless. I was in a packed audience on the last night of a very short run. I'd hate to see them in a less intimate venue but surely they can support a longer run?