“Let’s Talk to Barry”, Watford Palace Theatre, 9th November 2007
November 11, 2007 – 12:09 pm | by Peekay
Barry from Watford first came to light on the radio, calling in to Iain Lee’s LBC show – and has been developing ever since. As Lee’s LBC show has now ended it is intriuging to find out whether the character still has legs, and will be able to survive after this. As rumoured Iain Lee was in attendance and joined Barry on stage at the end of the show.
Barry’s show has two strands – one is his discovery of Talk Radio shows, in particular LBC and Iain Lee’s afternoon/evening show, the second strand is his hometown of Watford, and the bitter disappointment he feels at the way the heart has been ripped out of it, to be replaced by a ring-road and a dirty, shiny, soulless shopping centre.
He explores these two areas with the aid of clips from the radio show, and a slideshow showing pictures of his family, and how Watford was, and is now. He unashamedly shows us his rose-tinted view of the world back in his youth, and his blood-tinted view of today. But both views are presented perfectly, with comedy and pathos and all add up to create a believeable “Barry from Watford” universe.
Barry from Watford is a well-developed character, and “Let’s Talk to Barry” is a well thought out show, though at just under an hour, is too short for my liking – but then who’d feel comfortable making an 81-year old man appear on stage for any longer than that? I got a sense at the end of the show that the story is curtailed faster than it should, that the cry from an old man to keep those things that are precious to him and his generation, in the face of “progress”, was missing some of the emotional intensity generated earlier in the show. However this didn’t distract from the show as a whole.
An impressive show, well worth seeing the next time it gets a showing, and keep an eye out for more Barry in the coming weeks – particularly in BBC3′s Comedy Shuffle starting Thursday 15th November at 11pm.
