After sitting for what seemed like eternity, listening to the most terrible ‘comedy music’, a very hairy and slightly nervous looking Munnery entered the room. This is the second show in a trilogy that runs alternately every night.
‘It might be better if you close your eyes,’ he informs us ‘Well, I might not be so nervous’ His beard has got to the length where it has started to look a bit sinister and his awkwardness is spilling into the room. He makes a couple of gags, to which the audience respond with a couple of sympathetic laughs, before launching into his monologue.
His suggestion on closing our eyes turns out to be quite good advice as the monologue is read straight from the page. It’s material that would be perfectly suited to radio, as there is none of the physical performance that usually comes from Munnery. It takes a while to get used to his delivery, as he talks quite quickly and there are so many gags crammed into the speech that it’s easy to miss them.
Despite a somewhat rocky start, Munnery settles into his material, which is genuinely very funny and convinces the audience that he would make a very credible Sherlock if there were ever any call for a replacement. His second monologue is read as the character Heinrich Prich, who’s pedantic ramblings on setting the world to rights seem to have been less of a chore to write than the Sherlock Holmes material. This character seems to have been born out of Munnery’s previous work and his love of the absurd, and his observations on everyday life and human behaviour are sometimes poignant, quite often unsettling, but always very very funny.
4/5
Becky Stone
