The opening of Tommy Dassalo’s new show is a neat little set-piece, a tiny curtain is opened to reveal various cards that, like a still-frame silent film, tells the story of a man and a fish abandoned on an island with nothing but a box of old video cassettes to entertain them. This nicely establishes the mood of Out at the Pictures, the follow-up to last year’s very well regarded Viewmaster.
Like many young men, Tommy views the world through the lens of one too many films, expecting events to play out the way they do in the movies, and he uses this as a framework on which to hang a series of mostly-unrelated stories that are tied to that theme. From wooing his high-school crush to being caught up in the middle of the Fijian coups d’état, Tommy’s teenage years are certainly rich with stories that sometimes do come to the perfect theatrical conclusion and at other times most decidedly do not.
There are some really great laughs to be found in this hour (there’s a surreal story about trying to open a jar that had me almost crying with laughter) but there were also a few periods that seemed to drag. The comic has a natural, easygoing charm which is enough to sustain these slow parts, but it’s these that keep the show from being a festival highlight. One of the techniques Tommy uses to advance (and sometimes subvert) the concept of his life as a movie is the recurrent employment of incidental music at certain parts of the story. At times this is very effectively employed to enhance the mood, but at other times I felt the music was trying to evoke an unjustified reaction. For example at one point the music was sweeping and emotional, yet nothing particularly affecting was happening in the story at the time. Perhaps this was a comment on how movies themselves over-use music, but at the time I was just a bit confused.
However these are pretty minor quibbles about what was a very enjoyable show, and one that comes recommended.
For more info and booking details go to Tommy Dassalo