Presented by the Adelaide Cabaret Festival
Reviewed Saturday 23rd June 2012
The advertising for Lenny Henry’s show said that he would be going back to his roots, and it seems that he did. Within no time at all after walking on stage he was telling racist, ageist and sexist jokes, making derogatory comments about audience members, and creating stereotypical caricatures of various races, things that were typical of stand-up comedy decades ago.
Many of his one-liners were just as old as his approach to his performance, or older. It was all somewhat embarrassing, for both the audience and for Henry. Often, his attempts at being funny fell dreadfully flat, the audience, like Queen Victoria, not being amused. Sometimes his material barely raised a murmur, and his “all together or not at all” line, desperately trying to get a better, but late reaction by this prompting, became monotonous, as did his constant reminder, whenever he sat at the piano, that he had only reached Grade 3 on the instrument. There was more cringing than clapping.
Looking at the elaborate programme before the show, one could be forgiven for expecting that the numerous songs mentioned were going to be sung by Henry, presumably with a sizeable combo providing the music and, perhaps, some backing singers, as he linked each of them to his life. Finding that it was just a one man show, with no coherent narrative, only occasional references to the music of his youth and, in fact, just another of his extended, rambling, stand-up comedy routines, with no acknowledgement of that fact that this was supposed to have been a cabaret performance, was very disappointing.
Henry has a pleasant enough singing voice, but he is no rock star, so it was probably fortunate that it was not primarily about the songs. There are a few moderately humorous moments, such as his claim that he thought he was related to Elvis because his pictures were all over the house. He also mentions that he missed an entry when he played Othello because he was listening to loud music on headphones. Some laughed a little, but I suspect many others groaned, as I did, at his lack of professionalism.
In the end it all seemed like a cobbled together, self-indulgent attempt to try to convince us, and perhaps himself, that he really could have been the rock star that he failed to be. He brought the festival to an end with a whimper, rather than a bang. One would have thought that even blind Freddy could have seen that the fabulous Ben Vereen should have been the final night closing act. There was no surprise that, when looking around after the interval, there were vacant seats that had previously been occupied.
There were some bigger laughs here and there but, for the most part, it felt rather like a re-run of segments from shows that he had done long ago. Most of the punch-lines could be seen coming a mile off and some of the quips came under the heading of nostalgia. I was left wondering what on earth had happened to the Lenny Henry that I found funny in the late 70s, and then came to the conclusion that my tastes had matured; his comedy had not. A percentage os the audience seemed to have enjoyed the performance, applauding and even standing, but many more sat waiting for the lights to go on so that they could leave.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor, Glam Adelaide.
Cabaret Festival web site – Lenny Henry
Venue: Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, King William Road, Adelaide
Season: one show only
Duration: 2hr 30mins
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