Sarah Kendell is enlightened and delighted by the word-nerd comedian's latest show.
From the moment I walk into Soho Theatre's Studio space, I'm assured Alex Horne's Wordwatching is going to be just as weirdly wonderful as expected. The comedian's previous exploits have included trying to revive Latin as a language and attempting to find a person of every nationality living in London, and having interviewed him last week, I've been looking forward to experiencing his peculiar brand of high-concept stand-up for myself. This show, which he performed to acclaim at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, details Horne's five-year quest to get nine new words in the dictionary.
Straight away, us audience members are asked whether we've ever invented any new words, and if so, to write them down and put them in the in-tray on stage. Horne reads his favourites at the end of the show, among which my contribution sadly is not – but considering it came about as the result of a predictive text accident and too many beers, I'm hardly surprised. I'm also not in the least bothered – by the end of his hour-and-a-half-long odyssey, Horne has taken us off on so many intriguingly bizarre tangents that one can't help but leave feeling utterly satisfied and more than a little enlightened. The best way to describe Wordwatching? Like the funniest, most creative university lecture you can imagine.
Of course, it helps to have an understanding of Horne's love of wordplay to get the most out of the show, as his first gag demonstrates. “I should start off by telling you I've had a bit of sad news,” he says, “My grandmother was beaten to death. By my grandfather.” Having watched several of Horne's sets on YouTube, I recognise the pun immediately, but suppress the urge to crack up laughing as the room is completely silent – the rest of the audience are still awkwardly stuck on the notion of spousal abuse, which obviously is not so amusing.
But Horne's warmly self-deprecating manner soon brings the audience around, and makes them more aware of his style. He recounts the now legendary tale of how he got his start in comedy – through winning a Christmas cracker joke competition with the similarly pun-heavy gag, 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday... Ah, those were the days.' “I mainly won the contest because all the other entries were very racist”, Horne jokes.
His wordplay-driven material may divide the audience, but it's when he launches into more educational stuff that Horne is at his best. His multimedia presentation on the development of his new words uncovers his true passion for language – he's scoured everything from 1800s slang dictionaries to the extremely unpopular Omnibus magazine for Cambridge's Latin and Ancient Greek scholars. He's also uncovered that Shakespeare, in his lifetime, invented 1,200 words, including 'eyeball' and 'elbow'. “What would people have said before he came along when they got elbowed in the eyeball?”, he wonders. “'He did that in my thing and it hurt'?”
The amount of effort Horne's put into the show is quite incredible when you consider that most comics come on stage with nothing but a head full of tightly honed gags. As well as the somewhat ubiquitous Powerpoint, there are interactive audience games, old television and radio footage that he makes great and hilarious use of, and pre-filmed versions of himself that he occasionally 'throws to' via projection screen. Through these varied mediums, Horne draws us in to his ongoing quest, and recruits us in his mission to continue spreading the words.
Horne told me last week that one of the main reasons he creates these astoundingly multi-layered shows is because he wouldn't feel comfortable coming on stage with just himself and his anecdotes. Unfounded or not, that insecurity has certainly worked to the audience's advantage in this case. With Wordwatching, Horne has created something truly unique. It may not generate belly laughs, but it's damn fascinating, and how many comedy shows can you really say that about?
Alex Horne: Wordwatching runs at Soho Theatre until April 24th.
See Sarah's interview with Alex Horne
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