Greg Saxton - Kim Noble Gave Me A Fiver

Greg Saxton’s contribution to Not Part of Festival explores the dilemma of wanting to perform, without having clear ideas of what to perform. Throughout the half hour performance, Mr Saxton manages an impressive feat of wire-walking, treading the thin line between knowing post-modernism and smugness, honesty and parody. He continually undercuts his own aspirations; he aims to surprise his audience by arriving onstage on a skateboard, but can’t skate, so ends up being pushed by a friend.

The show opens in a hesitant manner, as Mr Saxton plays with different styles of delivery, demonstrating the artificiality of performing, even when delivering his own words. However, this is a tightly crafted and rehearsed act. Greg’s delivery begins to flow, with lyrical, poetic speeches; no attempt is made to present this performance as true life. There are elements of the drama student at times (Greg takes the PoMo/Brechtian step of informing us that this is scripted and rehearsed, in the opening moments), but the performance manages to avoid irritating self-consciousness, and seriousness is undercut with a wry smile.

The downstairs bar at Apotheca is an excellent space for performers, the leather sofas and dark red walls giving an air of luxurious intimacy, and the space is used well. Greg makes clever use of projected images, dodging aliens from an 80s Space Invaders game as he discusses the problems he faced in creating an honest piece of work. He is not afraid to use his muscularity, as demonstrated in this section, and begins his performance with a series of warm-up routines you might normally expect to see from a sportsman.

The show is short, clocking in at just over half an hour, but well paced and structured. After toying with conventions of performance, and breaking the fourth wall during the opening section, with his warm-up routine and references to rehearsal, Greg embarks on a monologue about the search for inspiration; first he travels the world, looking to meet his muse. Then he retreats into his past, and doesn’t find anything to explore there either. As you wonder whether he’s going to come to a point, a muffled drum beat starts, and Greg is suddenly on the microphone, allowing his stream of consciousness to become more and more poetic as he raves about the emotions of performance. The music builds to a peak, and the projector flashes images of student riots, Nosferatu, Batman and The Libertines on the wall behind him. Finally, as the audience is fully committed to the act, the rug is pulled from under them again; Greg is being pushed off stage again on his skateboard, the houselights are back up, and the 70s rock from the upstairs bar seeps through the floor.

Within the constraints of a half hour performance, Greg Saxton reveals himself to be a confident and versatile performer, capable of excellent, poetic delivery and an engaging wit. He shows great discipline to create such a well-honed performance, and not least of his achievements is to incorporate so many drama school influences without becoming insufferable. This is well worth catching if you get chance. And yes, Kim Noble did give him a fiver – he has the photo to prove it.