I’d missed out on every show I wanted to see at the Assembly Rooms on Monday afternoon, so I was a bit miffed. Everything was sold out, or cancelled, and I was looking for something else, but the clowning show the girl tried to sell me really didn’t really appeal.
“I’ve got one free ticket to a one-man show about Jesus?” she said. “It’s meant to be really good. He re-enacts the last supper using Star Wars figurines,” she enthused, before hastily reassuring me it was not sacrilegious. What a pity, I replied. “People either say that, or they are very reassured,” she laughed.
So I took the advice of the information girl and trekked to the church. Yes, really. A show about a Jesus in a church. Now, who would have thought?
Perhaps both the religious and the non-religious will be surprised by Bigger Than Jesus, which has been hailed by some as one of the hits of Edinburgh, but panned mercilessly by others. Almost everyone who has been to the Fringe this year must have noticed that, after George Bush or Tony Blair, the only topic any self-respecting comedian or playwright wants to touch right now is God.
The Fringe this year has also been flooded with shows about Chavs or anything in musical form. Two examples that tick both boxes are Chav: It’s a Musical Innit, and Asbo the Musical. But God-related productions are the really hot property. In fact, religious themes are so popular that The Scotsman was able to review six of these shows on Tuesday alone. And that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
Still, back to the show…
Bigger than Jesus is a one-man comedy play by Canadians Rick Miller and Daniel Brooks. On stage we see the all-singing, all dancing, multitalented Rick Miller. Mixing elements of big evangelical style services (the whiteboard, the tv, the American preacher’s voice) with classical Catholic liturgy, it was a dynamic, fast-paced show.
There were two very impressive things about this production.
The first was the spectacular staging. One-man show it might be, but boring it is not. Using figurines, a camera and Apple laptop, and some kind of screen on the floor that projected his drawings, words and even him lying down onto the screen, Rick Miller held the audience captivated by electronic means. It was rather like the recent staging of Attempts on her Life at the National Theatre in the way he filmed himself in real time. The few props, like Star Wars figurines, which would normally be practically invisible on a stage, were brought to life.
The second impressive thing was Rick. He’s clearly very talented, a singer, dancer, artist, showman, actor, he’s the bees knees as an entertainer. But the flipside of this was that his showmanship at times dominated the show, leading to a confused atmosphere – was this his show, a vehicle for showing off, or about something else? The shock value of his jumping off the stage, shirtless, and kissing the man sitting next to me full on the lips was not lost on the audience. But this trick, like many others, lacked subtlety. This was particularly evident in the rather clumsy word play that could have been funnier if he was more of a wordsmith, but just felt forced – history is HIS STORY and cruxifixion is the FICTION of the CROSS. You get the drift.
That said, the show was entertaining and at times very clever and funny. And Miller is talented. But perhaps he’s not as talented a writer or narrative maker, as he is as a performer. The show veered from edu-comedy at the start, to philosophical ambiguity. The ending in particular was fuzzy to say the least. Overall it lacked the plot and narrative drive to really tie it together and make the cheap – or not so cheap – tricks into something much greater. Miller would be wiser to stick to the comedy, singing, dancing and acting. In this, he has a real skill. Still, it seemed to appeal to the audience, which I couldn’t help but notice was dominated by American college students, possibly looking for something a bit “naughty”, And in the cut throat environment of the Fringe, where theatrical comedies are a dime a dozen and most lose a small fortune, I guess that audience appeal is the best thing that you can hope for.
