The Gentlemen of Leisure @ Canal Cafe Theatre

The Gentlemen of Leisure @ Canal Cafe Theatre

19 December, 2010
by: Evolmike

"The layer cake of self-awareness and self-deprecation they bake leaves you giddily unsure as to where they're really coming from." Mike Stephenson reviews the up-and-coming sketch duo Gentlemen of Leisure.

The Gentlemen of Leisure (or the old GOL) are the inspired pairing of up-and-coming standup star Nish Kumar and highly promiscuous comedy writer Tom Neenan. Neenan is the lovably effeminate neo-fop, full of life and floaty joy and bendy dance moves. Kumar is the deep, brooding thesp, of the masked cynicism and the disarming stare. I exaggerate a little, their idiosyncrasies are actually quite similarly matched, particularly at first glance, but as the show progresses the dynamic becomes more and more ostensible.

Writing about the show in question “An Hour Of Too Much Culture” seems an almost moot point as this was its last night, but it gives you a good idea of what to expect from the Gentlemen in future. They are self styled as high art (with tongue generally in cheek, emerging periodically like a raspberry blowing turtle's head.) The layer cake of self-awareness and self-deprecation they bake leaves you giddily unsure as to where they're really coming from. They appear to be smart guys pretending to be incompetent guys pretending to be smart guys. Where else it goes from there is anybody's guess.

Their theme this time around is culture, a loose brief that in theory can cover pretty much anything that can be performed. One is never sure if the whole thing is a veiled satire on the absurdity of the “culture of culture”or simply a baggy weave with with to string sketches together. Their politically motivated dance troupe promises to stab at both extremes of cultural pretentiousness, but soon descends into surreal horseplay. Their playful portrayal of American Dickens enthusiasts, their Mozart story (keenly written in mockery of online translation services) and the engaging amateur play on which they close (not only are they good actors, they're good at being bad actors) are not so much satirical on culture as they are individually funny on their own merits, and that perhaps the culture theme came as an afterthought to join up a selection of their sketches (in which case they must have plenty more where that came from.)

On the other hand, their irreverent take on awards ceremonies shows a light-hearted and much called for contempt for such contrived proceedings. In the same vain, their response to the abundance of “Top 100” list shows, manifested as a “Top 10 best things ever” is a a clever endgame projection, not to mention a potentially bottomless well of entertainment. Awards and list shows are indeed curious and cheap attempts to crank out voyeuristic commentary in place of what might be original content, but I can't help but see the irony in the GOL taking it a further step away in making their own voyeuristic commentary on the matter. And here I am making voyeuristic commentary on that. If your brain still hasn't overloaded on irony, please feel free to leave a comment.

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Evolmike