Hello is a fantastic introduction to the unique world of Simon Munnery as it is essentially a greatest hits package. Recorded live before an audience in Cardiff in 2007, Simon delves into selections of material spanning his twenty plus year career. A noticeable omission is “The League Against Tedium” however a number of concepts from this show seem to have leaked into other areas of his material. Besides it’s an audio visual behemoth that would look out of place in this charmingly bare boned performance. Multiple cameras catch the action to cover Simon’s sometimes animated stage personas and many delighted reactions from the punters.
Ever the non conformist, Simon divides the show into three halves. The first section begins with straight stand up covering mostly observational musings from his life. While this is a domain covered by every other comic, Simon manages to make his delivery unique with a mixture of gentle self deprecation, scrutiny of logic and social protocols, and various deconstruction techniques. Simon then delves back into the archives with a short piece by his “Security Guard” character. Donning a hat, he delivers the jokes with faux menace to give life to this authority figure.
Act two begins with a revisiting of his character “Alan Parker – Urban Warrior”. Alan attempts to enlighten the people about “The Man” with hilariously primitive cards to illustrate his points. Along with a drummer called Mack he performs beat poetry cum songs cum chants. We next get an abridged and hurried version of “The Secret Confessions of Sherlock Holmes” followed by a sketch entitled “One Man Down” that utilizes paper characters to give an alternate take on a biblical story.
Part three sees Simon performing some songs back by Mack on drums that, given his difficulty with timing, verge on beat poetry. Next is “Poem on a Scarf” that, while embracing the often anarchic nature of Simon’s shows, was obviously more fun for the live punters than for the ones on the couch. The resultant unintelligible din doesn’t exactly transfer well to DVD. Up next is a faux lecture on “Womens Studies” that delivers plenty of misogynistic material with tongue firmly planted in cheek by a lab coated character. This is followed by the reading of motions from his Edinburgh AGM shows and his book “How To Live”. Simon concludes the show with an over the top folk song about the dating world.
There are a number of bonus items on the DVD. An extended version of “The Secret Confessions of Sherlock Holmes” consists of “Sherlock” sitting in a chair speaking to camera. While the camera work isn’t perfect, it does give an appropriate feel of someone self recording the confession that would be discovered after they have passed on. “God & Jesus” is a stand up performance recorded in 1989. It is filmed from the audience so the quality isn’t the best but it shows Simon in all his spooky deadpan glory, accompanied by an equally strange partner playing “Jesus”, delivering some amazing absurdist material. There is also a gallery of stills from the show and a preview from Simon’s “I am TV” DVD which is a version of the “League Against Tedium”.
Menu button twiddlers will discover many Easter Eggs with each menu item containing alternative content. There is Simon’s preamble to the audience before the taping of the show that helps explain the format, an interview with Simon conducted before the show by Chris Evans and an extended monologue from his 2003 Edinburgh AGM show that is filmed from the side of the stage. Other eggs include an alternate “I am TV” trailer and some of Simon’s handwritten notes illustrating various show ideas.
With the extra items running almost as long as the show proper there is a lot of footage to get through. Whether you are an old fan or new to Mr Munnery, this is a fantastic document of his career thus far and a great way to become acclimatised to his world.
Hello is available from “Go Faster Stripe”:http://www.gofasterstripe.com