Alongside an impressive collection of literature-referencing music, Robert Finn guides us through his attempt to follow Dan Brown down the literary garden path. The former trucker struggles with all the pitfalls of writing a novel, from tackling writers block, choosing pseudonyms, approaching snooty publishers and dealing with rejection.
He even faces rejection from Mr Brown himself, as the show is styled as a series of monologues, with Finn reading aloud letters he has penned to his literary Grand Master. You do hope Finn might have actually sent the letters, just to see if Brown would get the joke, but no. Perhaps a good thing as otherwise the show might have ended with a restraining order.
This stylistic choice was actually a great idea as it allowed many of the aspects of comedic performance we are familiar with to be dressed up in a new way. One example would be a long anecdote about false teeth, which is used to illustrate just how foul mouthed one of Finn’s characters was. A character from Fife naturally.
The whole point of the show is really to poke Dan Brown with a stick, and that was thoroughly enjoyable. There are some choice excerpts from the Da Vinci Code that had the audience in stitches when heard out of context and an impressive revelation of the secret past of the author. There are also some insightful jokes about the writing process which might be aimed at a selected audience but seemed to go down well with all. The show is admittedly something of a one-trick pony, and there are moments when you feel like saying, ‘We get the point!’ But there is enough deviation from the theme into the world of trucking, the evolutionary process of Stonehaven and the pact E.L. James must have struck with Satan to keep the show from getting boring. This was absolutely necessary and could perhaps be improved on as the Da Vinci Code is hardly current.
Finn could easily make a stab at a paid show next year, but there are things that could be improved in his act. While he is very charming on stage, he needs to relax a little. Because of the length of text used in the show, he spent a fair bit of time glancing at his script (letters), which was fine, but the moments when he would stumble and find his place again were glaring. But this is just a question of practice, and hopefully Finn will be back with more next year, giving him plenty of chance to improve on an already good act.
