Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour review – fringe gem leaves you ecstatic

2 hours ago 4

When I saw the title to the Australian clown Conk’s show Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour, I thought I knew what the trick would be. Yes, the terms of the show’s billing would be fulfilled, but (I imagined) by twisting whatever that song was into a diverting variety of new shapes – rather as the comedy trio Sheeps did when performing the same sketch repeatedly for an hour way back in 2014.

More fool me, for doubting that Conk – AKA Connor Dariol – would keep things as ruthlessly simple as his Ronseal title suggests. He really does sing the same song over and again, with the same backing track and surprisingly little embellishment, for 60 minutes – with a bloody great clock marking the limits of your endurance on an upstage screen. And wait until you hear what song it is! Its opening chords are greeted by an aghast laugh from the audience. Reader, this experience felt like an endurance test before that song had reached the end of its first cycle.

One recalls with unease that the US military tortured people during the “war on terror” by playing bad songs at them over and again. So how does Conk fashion this experiment in patience-testing into one of the most joyful hours in town? It’s a subtle process. His near-relentless pep is part of it. Then, he starts throwing the odd anxious glance at the clock: how long is there still to go?! It’s not till the fourth or fifth performance that he modulates the delivery of the lyrics, putting a suddenly funny spin on the singer’s relationship to the story the song tells.

We’re deep into the second half before he really cuts loose, and even then his wilder antics usually remain tethered to the truth of this deeply ridiculous song, now performed in a sinister whisper or while posed scantily-clad on a chair. Without the show ever having coerced us – call it Stockholm syndrome – we’re all involved by the end, Conk’s exercise in absurdist perseverance devolving into the most ecstatic communal experience I’ve shared at this year’s fringe.