The link isn’t available online yet but we’ve put the full review below.
4 Stars
Phil Nichol launches this rapid-fire one-man show with a description which confuses the ordering of dessert in the local caff with his doing something unspeakable to the pretty Lithuanian waitress. Nichol plays Kevin, a man who wilfully and habitually confuses reality with fantasy.
For the next 40 minutes or so, this twisted, funny and occasionally puzzling monologue circles around Kevin’s infatuation with Daina. But Dave Florez’s script is so lithe it springs off in all directions, to be surreal, or rude, or incline towards a big issue like fate or family.
Nichol, directed by triple Fringe First winner Hannah Eidinow, is more than able to keep pace with it. He shapes a character who is complex and full of contradictions, a coiled spring of repressed energy, if not entirely likeable then at least completely believable.
Then Nichol stops. He says he can’t keep up this “sentimental claptrap”. And suddenly, what we have in front of us is Perrier Award-winning stand-up Phil Nichol, sharp-tongued and sarky, undermining both his show and his audience: why have we come to listen to this bullshit? We should all f*** off.
You may indeed feel like taking him at his word at this point. Don’t. Nichol is about to undercut things again in a way which will change how you feel about everything you’ve heard so far. It would spoil it if I told you how.
Somewhere Beneath It All… leaves us with more questions than answers. Is it an inspirational story with a poetic title, or a clever fiction which shows us how easily we are manipulated? Either way, this a sharp, inventive piece of theatre, impeccably delivered
