In a passionate display of the spoken word, Joe Hakim, Mike Watts and Ruth E Dixon provide an insight into a world of low self-esteem, loneliness and anxiety. The performance straddles the border of the self-indulgent and the offensive, leaning more and more towards the latter as time goes on.
The threesome presented themselves as attempting ‘to find a sense of identity in a world that is growing ever more fragmented and chaotic’ through a mix of comedy, poetry and live theatre. It is hard to see where the live theatre was involved and the comedy was few and far between. They started by telling the audience that they were from Hull, and wanted to present a different side to the city than is commonly observed, they then began to list reason after reason why we should never visit Hull.
In her introduction, Dixon expressed her frustration with the fact that as women got older they were no longer valued in the media. The performance was then filled with the theme of ‘if you’re not famous you might as well be dead’, as Dixon went on to recite her offensive poem ‘weather girls need to have tits’.
The audience fluctuated between about 4 and 11, as some decided the performance wasn’t worth their time. It is clear that the cast care a lot about the spoken word, but unfortunately the show is clumsily put together and fragmented.
