Review by Florence Carr-Jones
Joe Kent-Walters’ show takes place in the cosier Monkey Barrel Two, a more intimate venue that feels perfectly suited to this performance—even if by chance. The venue’s higgledy-piggledy little underground bar, with its rugs, homely adornments and complete lack of phone service, creates an atmosphere that seems tailor-made for an act like Frankie Monroe. As you enter the main room, the experience is completed with its kitschy red lighting, heat, and jazzy trumpet—or is it kazoo? —music.
Frankie Monroe descends from the back of the room to the dark and growing chanting,’ here comes Frankie, here comes Frankie’. As Monroe takes the stage, these come to an abrupt stop. In his thick baritone Rotherham accent, Frankie comes alive, quipping, ‘Things get a bit tense when Frankie arrives’, and everyone laughs. The ability to build tension and then subvert it is a critical ingredient in what makes Kent-Walters’ portrayal of Frankie Monroe so successful. Kent-Walters is Frankie, and they are always two steps ahead.
The world is complete once Frankie has arrived. You’re transported to ‘Misty Moons’, a Rotherham working men’s club long past its heyday. Frankie Monroe is a one-man working club machine. He enjoys a drink, loves his trowel, and calls audience members “good boy” and scolds them when they get cheeky, reminding them, “You can’t kid a kidder.”
The jokes are silly and absurd, and Kent-Walters is completely in it yet wholly adaptable. Kent-Walters moves through four characters, including Monroe’s little nephew Brandy, a puppet called ‘Mucky Little Pup’ whose voice expertly mimics audience members and a Johnny Cash impersonator. The flow of the world is never broken or disrupted even as the Sudocrem starts to sweat into Kent-Walter’s eyes, and props appear to have been forgotten and then found. Kent-Walters’ immense skillset marks him as a truly first-class entertainer – he sings really well, he delivers on-the-spot impersonations, and his sharp, quick-witted interactions with the audience leave everyone in tears of laughter.
Kent-Walters as Frankie Monroe is a wormhole into another world. A world which is magic for all.
Review by Florence Carr-Jones (contact@corrblimey.uk)
Florence recently graduated with a degree in History from the University of Edinburgh, where her passion for theatre often took precedence over her academic studies. During her time at university, she was actively involved in many theatre societies, but her deep passion was with Theatre Paradok, the experimental theatre society, where she served as president this past year. She is the director and writer of her own company, Fools and Thieves, and will begin a Master’s in Drama Directing at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School this September. Florence is particularly fascinated by interdisciplinary approaches to theatre and how the medium can evolve in the contemporary world.
