A largely inventive show with an interesting premise, its main drawback is its confusing style of presentation, says Emma McAlpne
“The novel has died!”
Opening with a solemn funeral scene, the Gentlemen of Lesiure (or the GOL as they like to refer to themselves) are mourning the loss of their dear friend the novel, killed by modern day evils like television and the internet. Presenting a spoof lecture to prove that in fact, “it’s more alive than ever”, they explore some of the most important novels in history from Lady Chatterley’s Lover to Don Quixote (“the Eastenders of its day).
The pair have an energetic dynamic with Nish Kumar playing the serious, straight man to Tom Neenan’s (at times irritatingly) exitable fop. As they proceed to anaylse the novel, through the old trusty PowerPoint presentation, it soon becomes apparent that both aren’t quite as erudite as they first appear. Undermining their highbrow status for comic effect, they compare various novels to TV shows and mine Wikipedia for most of their facts.
At times you wonder where they’re coming from. One minute they’re pulling off of an impressive abridged version of A Christmas Carol and a rap about The Mystery of Edwin Drood (proving more than a little knowledge of the story); the next they’re playing at being ignorant again.
Their script is also full of this intentional sabotage, with groan-worthy jokes and ideas that begin to wear after a while. The pair clearly have writing skills as occasionally an enjoyably silly or sharp line will pop up: “A good novel is like a good cat. It has a beginning, a middle and an end.” It’s a pity there aren’t more of these lines on display, as they would have been preferable to a stream of bad jokes, no matter how tongue-in-cheek they were.
Highlights of the show include a potted comparison of life in the inequality-ridden1950s, with the freedom of the 1960s; a pastiche of some cheesy American TV presenters trying to make Charles Dickens (“CD”) cool for kids and a largely fabricated reenactment of the night Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein.
A largely inventive show with an interesting premise, its main drawback is its confusing style of presentation.
The Gentlemen of Leisure: The Death of the Novel is at the Underbelly at 3:20pm until the 28th August
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