Did we enjoy Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz? You bet we did
Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz
at the North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford
on Tuesday, November 19 and Wednesday 20
Review by JON LEWIS
DATING should be a doddle: you know you are a good catch because your doting parents keep telling you so.
Nathaniel, a friendly fine art graduate in a dead-end call centre job living in a bachelor pad in Birmingham’s trendy Jewellery Quarter, is an expert on dating etiquette.
When his last date stood him up with half an hour to go, he’s not downhearted. He lines up his next possible leads, two young women who work in the same office and then asks the audience which of the two he should ask out.
Nathan Queeley-Dennis’ Bruntswood Prize-winning solo play Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz is a contender for the feelgood show of the year.
His alter ego Nathaniel takes life logically, following his rules of three, confident in the life lessons he’s learned. Outside his family, his most important relationship is with his barber, although he has a choice of three hairdressers who are his regulars.
He’s into evocative descriptions of ordinary life, diving deep into the advantages and disadvantages of each barbershop. His latest cut is a disaster and after he flees the barber’s, there’s a hilarious depiction of the social media chat with the barber later, full of flaming hands and black heart emojis.
Queeley-Dennis peoples his narrative with memorable characters. He puts on a Jamaican accent for his father, born in Spanish Town, who joshes with his son for being such a Birmingham second generation immigrant, when, Nathaniel wisely recalls, it was his father’s own decision to base himself in the city.
Nathaniel loves his lists, regaling us with fun facts like three people you don’t want to have a long conversation with.
He has an acidic tongue, describing his boss as a ‘self-loathing black man with a Cockney accent’.
He knows his music, entertaining the audience with a series of samples from Beyoncé songs treated as life lessons.
He adores his city and is almost as passionate about the skyscrapers and abandoned factories with their all-night raves in Digbeth as he is of his date who is escaping the call centre for a postgrad qualification.
A joyous performance.
