Cracking uncovers the different interpretations of what is funny, what is a joke and what is deadly serious

Cracking

at the North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford

on Tuesday, October 29

Review by JON LEWIS

IT was fascinating watching Shôn Dale-Jones’ production Cracking, directed by Helena Middleton, only a month or so after he toured an earlier work, The Duke, to the Burton Taylor Studio.

They are companion pieces, solo shows using the same storytelling techniques and devices, both using his family and life as a reservoir to dip into. In Cracking, Dale-Jones explores the borderlines between fantasy and reality but the subject matter he exposes is much more troubling.

Quoting from the film director Bunuel that ‘fantasy and reality are equally personal and equally felt’, Dale-Jones informs us that the events he’s about to relate are true, and did happen. He’s turned this personal history into a narrative where an untrue story about him is spread in person and online, leading to harassment, violence and fear. Dale-Jones’ story rests on a misinterpretation of a playful act, seen by his mother’s elderly neighbour, a man known to have fantasised about seeing a whale in the Menai Straits.

His mother needed some cheering up while waiting for potentially life-changing medical test results. Dale-Jones goes to Anglesey to stay with her, and after taking his mam to the supermarket where he is upbraided for not putting some egg cartons correctly back on the shelves, she asks him to crack an egg on her forehead. It’s something they used to do when he was a child. Dale-Jones is a comic actor and relishes performing funny acts in public. Cracking uncovers the different interpretations of what is funny, what is a joke, and what is deadly serious, in the aftermath of this one shared family joke.

In a gossipy small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, old acquaintances become members of vigilante groups. Dale-Jones becomes a Frankenstein figure holed up in his mother’s home, threatened by a mob using modern-day versions of pitchforks and burning torches.

The way Dale-Jones tells the story is comic, the host of locals with their characteristics and voices becoming familiar figures over the 70 minutes. Regular audiences will have met his mother before in The Duke and it is heartwarming hearing more about her life.

Another spellbinding production.