Built as a prop forward and loudly powered by a radio microphone, MacPherson takes us through the past love life of his character, Dan, in the hour leading up to his next date.
Through a series of awkward encounters, lecherous feelings, false references, and sugary kisses (“Calpol and tequila”), Dan emerges as a friendly man who seeks love, finds it, and loses it through his inability to maintain relationships with women or men.
He admits to being a narrator who provides a clue to his true motives and character that only emerges in the closing minutes of the show.
With nothing but a chair as a prop, McPherson performs with dancing grace despite his burly physique.
The language is almost poetic, full of catchphrases and inner rhymes that heighten tension as well as amusement.
Under the assured direction of Susie MacDonald, Sam MacDonald’s lighting and voice design are admirably woven into the monologue, accentuating phrases and moods; Sometimes he sounds like a slam poet, other times, he sounds like a rapper.
He even sings a few lines.
Alternating between fixing the audience with a basilisk gaze and a looming smile, he urges us to truly believe Dan’s nature.
The final reveal delivers a below-the-belt punch that has you rewinding the monologue to find the clues he laid out all along. He’s deceptively smart and brutally honest in Sixty Minutes.
enormous At the Soho Theater until March 25 (tickets: 020 7478 0100).
[ad_2]
