The Jinglists
The Jinglists is a one-act play written and performed by Tamlyn Henderson and Warwick Allsopp, who previously won the Comedy festival’s Best Newcomer Nominees in 2006 for A Porthole into the Minds of the Vanquished. It imagines the lives of two brothers, Leigh and Loman Gravelly, who were told by their mother never to leave the house, just before she left the house forever. In a series of events never quite made clear, the brothers manage to survive into their thirties and even flourish successful business as song-writers for advertising jingles, receiving orders via the phone and delivering on them in the same fashion, all without ever leaving the house. Like the protagonists of No Exit, they are essentially trapped in their own self-obsessed universe, with elder brother Loman using psychological manipulation to keep his younger, more childlike brother in line.
While the initial premise holds a lot of comic potential, indeed the opening scenes and the jingles themselves are both clever and amusing, the story almost inevitably takes a turn towards the darker aspects of the dysfunctional relationship in its confines. In the biblical tradition, the two brothers seem happy in their isolation (although Leigh’s dreams of leaving the house are quickly quashed by his brother) until the intrusion of a woman, their upstairs neighbour, which sends the two brothers into a downward spiral of self-deception. This bleak material ultimately makes the play much more of a tragedy than a comedy, and the laughter came to a grinding halt in the second half of the show, leaving a lot of the audience unsure of what to make out of what they were seeing.
Those who like their comedy blacker than coffee may be interested, even fascinated, by the slow unraveling of these two curious minds, but by the time the extremely odd, tacked-on happy ending came about, this reviewer felt that something important was missing from the mix. Kudos to Allsopp and Henderson for trying something brave and different, but it certainly isn’t for everyone.
Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and further details