Jamie Bowen has always had a healthy fear of concrete, he doesn’t quite spell it out at first, but eventually you can work out where he’s coming from. After the usual welcoming stand up and asking audience members where they’ve come from, Jamie wants to tell us there is a town in the US called Concrete and cracked some jokes about facts he’s gleaned about it off the internet. Hmmm. Not the most auspicious start, it feels a lot like padding, is not especially funny and obviously had nothing to do with the rest of the show.
The first main part of the show was about dangerous childhood pursuits like rollerblading, and how an injury led to his first heartbreak at 12. Then he talked about bungy jumping, skydiving and falling down drunk and I wondered what this was all about. Eventually the meat of the story became a little clearer. He had spent many years a drunken bohemian of no fixed abode and thought it had made him cool. His fear of concrete was actually his fear of a straight lifestyle. He had sabotaged potential relationships and behaved appallingly so that he hated himself. But he discovered that after cleaning himself up, and forgiving himself it has made him happier and brought him a loving relationship. All this was really nice, but unfortunately there were not enough laughs to make it a top stand up show.
The stage at the lovely bohemian Bats Theatre was set for him with a hat rack, rug, tiny organ and ukulele. He proved himself to be a very accomplished musician and his third instrumet turned out to be the current most popular toy that I’ve seen three comedians play with this year, a loop machine He used it to good effect musically, but unfortunately his songs were not very funny and his music came across as a bit self indulgent. His main comedy song about a flasher on the bus just came across as plain creepy rather than amusing.
Jamie was a very affable storyteller and it was not an unpleasant way to spend an hour, but unfortunately the stories were not very exciting or well connected. There was obviously an order to his topics but they did not flow together well. There was also a lacking of a heart to the show. It would have been nice to know how or why Jamie made the decision to sober up. Did he have an epiphany, or did he reach rock bottom? I laughed heartily at the story of his inability to cope with his exgirlfriend’s loud breathing, and thought, surely there were some difficulties he faced in sobering up that are funny to look back on? Clearly he’s trying to be positive and self nurturing, but at times the show is a bit self indulgent. Still there were some laughs to be had and there is an interesting story in there, between the lines.
Visit the NZ Comedy Festival Website for booking details.