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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
John Shuttleworth -
Pillock of the Community
Verdict: Unique and endearing world of comedy
Edinburgh - Pleasance One - August 03
There's a security-camera screen on stage showing the 300-capacity audience filing in. A Taste Of Honey comes over the PA, and a man appears - first on camera, then, rapidly, on stage.
John Shuttleworth's an unusual-looking man. He's tall, with brown shoes and leather jacket, red polo-neck sweater and hair slicked back, with a side parting, from an emphatic widow's peak. There are horn-rimmed glasses from which he peers, myopically, and smartly-ironed khaki flannels - it's fashion of a kind. He's straight to an electric piano, and into a revelatory song of sociological exploration, Disaffected Youth. The screen shows his back, intercut with security videos.
John drinks from a can and explains he's from Sheffield. He's done stand-up in Lancashire and South Yorkshire - playing sheltered accommodation and the reference section of public libraries. Why have we been sent here today, he wonders? To learn about home security. He's an ex-security guard at a sweet factory in Wickersley, South Yorkshire. Today, he's borrowed next-door neighbour Ken Worthington's CCTV and come equipped with a couple of keyboards. This is in case one gets stolen, and to provide visual variety, he explains.
The CCTV is fixed on a piece of wood he's using later for a DIY project. John appoints a wood monitor from the audience to keep an eye on it. He produces a carbon monoxide detector. Originally he'd bought it for his son Darren, who'd moved into a flat. John 'deemed the gas fire risky. Darren froze to death'. He appoints a carbon monoxide monitor, and - with every hazard covered - sits at the stage-right keyboard and sings Emotional Porridge - Don't Be Mean To Your Machine.
John's wife's Mary's job is 'to break up scuffles in the dinner queue' at school and, 'ideally, anticipate them - that's the pipe-dream. But tuna mayo was a pipe-dream 20 years ago.' And, as John so accurately points out 'that pink stuff - taramasalata - has been embraced by the populace.' John's at the piano to belt out a new number Ford Transit Mirror - Three Men In A Van.
John exits, to make way for special guest Dave Tordoff. There's a short break to show neighbour Ken Worthington's 1986 video The John Shuttleworth Story, orchestrated on Ken's harmonium, and intercut with footage of Neil Diamond and a picture by local artist Patricia Willoughby. Dave Tordoff appears on stage - we've glimpsed him on the security camera already. He's in jeans, brown builder's shoes, red check lumberjack shirt, moustache. He's been screeding. He comes from Goole, East Yorkshire.
Dave Tordoff's the builder with everything, horses, jet skis, 'vehicles - quite a few'. His wife's Mandy, who he'll do anything for ('here's five grand, go and get your tits done'). His right-hand man's Shane, who rings with a screeding problem ('the floor's going to be a right mess'). Dave's horizons may extend no further than screeding, but his knowledge is deep, as his video on laser-screeding shows. 'Tordoff Construction' comes up, with 60s-beat disco music, and their punchy slogan: 'We'll Floor You With The Quality Of Our Service'. There's an expert commentary about screeding from Dave, then he's off.
John Shuttleworth comes back to the stage-left piano, with security on his mind: 'Did you tell a neighbour you were coming out tonight?' He changes over to the stage-right piano. He's fed up that rap's a young person's medium agaist elderly people. In God's Waiting Room is John's heisting of rap 'against the young in society. This is going out to my brothers and sisters / Well, it would be if they still existed.'
It's request time. John sings I Want To Be A Community Leader, with steel band and synthesised chorus backing track, met with ecstatic whistles and applause from the home crowd. He sings Pictures Of Flies and goes off. There's a demand for an encore, and John comes back to sing Pigeons In Flight - 'Pidge, pigeon, I want to see you tonight, I want to see you fly'.
John Shuttleworth and Dave Tordoff are creations of the remarkable actor Graham Fellows. Each is a at first glance a sharp parody of a particular kind of bore - the man of limited horizons who sees no further than his own dull specialty. Also, at first glance, each confirms stereotypes of men from Yorkshire.
What makes Graham Fellows's characterisations unique, is the warmth and humanity he puts into his creations. John Shuttleworth is gloriously endearing, without a scrap of malice or badness in his makeup; a simple man who in his own particular way sees and reveals great truths. Dave Tordoff's a newer creation, with excellently narrow vision, and alarming potential to make screeding a national sport.
Graham Fellows has the rare talent of being able to create happiness in an audience. It's a genuinely delightful show, by a remarkable writer and performer with the gift of creating laughter.
Credits (alpha order): Written, performed and directed by Graham Fellows. Technical manager - Nic Watson. Management - Richard Bucknall Management (RBM).
END
John Park
reviewed Saturday 23 August 03 / Edinburgh / Pleasance One
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
