There's a lot going on in Gareth Morinan's debut show, but a delightfully creative sense of humour can be found amidst the chaos, says Emma McAlpine.
Truth Doodler is an odd little show and I don’t mean that in a bad way. A blend of character comedy, stand-up, personal history, animation, games, data analysis (much funnier than it sounds) and doodles, Gareth Morinan has thrown the kitchen sink at his debut hour, and as you might expect in such a convoluted production, some of it works and some of it doesn’t.
The show opens with a tongue-in-cheek nod to our advances in automation: an animated robot called iCompere who announces the warm-up act. Let’s just say, Jarred Christmas isn’t out of a job just yet. Morinan plays three characters during the hour including a bizarre French artiste called Pep Zoric, a nerdy children’s entertainer and a street ‘youf’ party leader for short people called Clive X. Morinan is not a natural character comedian and the strongest sections are generally where he appears as himself but with his last creation, Clive X, he gets it right: finishing on an amusing pre-recorded voxpop and a comically bad freestyle rap.
The show’s namesake doodles are also a mixed bag. Highlights include a morbid dinosaur tea party and the results of a genetic experiment with a paedophile and a millipede; while a homophobic duck sequence drags on too long. There are some clever use of charts, including a flowchart playfully mocking the standard ‘audience banter’ questions at comedy gigs, and some surreal bits of animation and odd video snippets that hint at a refreshingly diverse sense of humour. Yet these moments of inventive comic gems are almost lost amongst awkward character sequences and an out-of-place section about his experience working for the Civil Service, leaving the audience veering from staccato cackles to polite titters.
There’s plenty of interesting ideas in Truth Doodler and for a first show it’s a promising start. Morinan makes a point of not dwelling too much on the subject of his height, saying he has much more to offer than self-deprecating short gags, and indeed he has. I’d have liked to see a lot more of the quirky, and at times darkly comic stuff; and less of the silly characters.
Gareth Morinan: Truth Doodler is at the Underbelly at 1:30pm until the 26th August
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