The Year of Magical Wanking

Neil Watkins is a wanker. Watkins expands on this key theme using verse forms reminiscent of Shakespearean soliloquies – down to the occasional comic relief – and rich word play, and cutting across the invisible wall to thank the audience for patience with his tale. He follows his muse to discuss laptop porn, recreational drug use, New Age mystics and “gay shame”, all further exploring his wanker state while cutting from one anecdote to the next, told in a variety of ways.

In a charmingly frank opening, Watkins confessed to an aversion to intimacy, while harbouring a possible longing for a relationship. In turns he took us through his side of different conversations with his friend, his therapist and a stranger in a bar. Other anecdotes were told in a more traditional confessional style, with others told by his alter ego, or by way of a plaintive lament sung to his mother. Most impressive was an argument between Neil and Heidi – Miss Alternative Ireland and Neil’s alter ego – that stayed coherent and compelling throughout.

Some major ideas were examined: child abuse, loneliness, life with HIV, desire for abusive partners, religious hypocrisy, depression, emotional emptiness and several varieties of shame (and discovering release). The use of so many and varied narrative arcs, slightly disjointed but giving an eventual picture of the whole, worked as each new scenario demanded attention, gripping the audience in a new way each time.

Despite the inauspicious opening night delayed start, Watkins hit his stride from the first moment on the bare stage. Starkly lit from below by white fluorescent tubes on foldback stands, no props beyond a single chair and masking tape on the stage, a barefooted Watkins held forth. The only injection of atmosphere came from occasional use of a smoke machine and the discordant electronic soundtrack mixing samples of industrial equipment, artillery, bird song and harsh fragments of speech between scenes – a far cry and strong contrast from the single all-too-human voice with its talk of dreams and memories.

The Year of Magical Wanking sees potentially alienating and uncomfortable material delivered in a beautifully engaging way, the carefully prepared script with its rhythms and rhymes performed in a manner veering between beguilingly natural and heavily stylised where further detachment adds emphasis to the scene. A contribution of substance to this year’s Fringe World, and a welcome cultural visitor to Perth.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

THISISPOPBABY presents
The Year of Magical Wanking
Performed by Neil Watkins

Metcalfe Playhouse, Northbridge
31 January 2012–11 February 2012
Bookings and info: www.fringeworld.com.au