Tim Key is often described as hard to categorise. He’s a poet (“sort of”) and a stand up (“not really”). His work is well-received by critics (he’s won the Perrier!), but he’s hardly a household name (his was the Pointless answer when it came to famous Tims). Even his stage persona is hard to pin down. Key sells us an outlandish, self-obsessed twerp and yet his own genuine charm and affability shine through for the duration of the set.
He seems almost enigmatic, but Key’s own interpretation is much more straightforward: “I’m a performer!” he announces at the get-go. He’s bang right. This isn’t a stand-up gig, or a poetry recital. This is a one-man play; a vignette on the collective madness of the last two years.
The performance starts before we’re even sat down. Key strolls about the stage as his audience enters, greeting every one of us with a nod. It feels a bit awkward to be on the receiving end of this breaking of the fourth wall, but Key is relaxed. He’s leaning against his fridge and singing along to Russian ska. “This is my house,” each nod says, “welcome in.”
He’s doing alright for himself (professionally) he tells us. Pointless Celebs sniffing around, the Perrier already in the bag. He’s never more at home than when he’s in his suit on the stage! But it’s March 2020 and things are about to change. He shambles over to the door framed behind him and turns the key. He glances back up at us before shoving the thing over for good measure. There’s no getting out now – where once he was at home on stage, now the whole theatre has become his flat and we’re all locked down there together.
Over the next hour, we relive it all with him – the uncertainty, the clapping, the 2 metres and the Scotch fucking eggs. We laugh along at how ridiculous it all was, but bubbling underneath is the frustration too. Occasionally The Poet releases the tension with a crash of his fist onto the fridge. He tells us about the relief of getting to spend an evening with his Support Bubble, painting us a beautiful picture of hope and togetherness, the recognition of the simple pleasure of enjoying a beer with a friend. And then, suddenly, “...But when you really think about it, that’s a shit night I’ve just described”.
This one line sums up the futile emotions of the pandemic better than any other. We can’t spend the rest of our lives being grateful for small mercies, Tim tells us; connecting with others is our most basic and mundane of needs. We’re reminded of this constantly throughout the show – the majority of which is built around audience interaction. We laugh along with Ben whose one Amazon extravagance was a new DVD player (“Ben locked down in 1998!”), and with Dave who was stuck inside with his in-laws. The line between stage and crowd – performance and reality – is blurred further by Key’s prop-based antics. He has Mark hold his beer throughout and Ben is twice hauled out of his seat to play stagehand. After the last two years, experiencing this level of interaction in a roomful of strangers feels oddly cathartic.
And what of the Poet? If this is catharsis for us, what is this for him? Tim masterfully disguises in plain sight the desperate loneliness of his own lockdown. Some of the funniest poems and best lines make reference to the fact that he spent lockdown alone, watching the industry he loves fade into almost nothingness. He refers to the insanity of incarcerating performers and tells us how he spent lockdown lugging his Perrier around. It seems that this trophy which previously represented the defining achievement of his career transformed in lockdown to a heavy reminder of what he wanted to be doing, but couldn’t: making people laugh. In the closing moments of the show, he dons his suit again and retrieves his award from the fridge where it has been nonsensically stuck for the duration of this symbolic quarantine. He leaves the stage and strolls through the audience, carrying his Perrier with him. But this time it isn’t weighing him down, this time he’s off to carry on doing what he does best – performing, bringing audiences together and making them laugh. It’s a beautiful message to be able to take away: yes, the world has changed, but it's time we leave behind the worst bits and get on with what makes us happy.
Beautiful, perfect, well written, my new pinned post 💔🦋
