Review: Hugh Hughes in...360, Pleasance Courtyard

Written for Culture Wars

With their blend of whimsy and wide-eyed wonder, no one else could pull off Hugh Hughes’ performance lectures. Such is the contagion of his unfaltering enthusiasm that you cannot resist sharing in his worldview.

Hughes’ power is to make us feel special, both as collective audience and individuals therein. He greets us in the queue, remembers names and then plays perfect host, breaking ice and spinning connections amongst his audience. Within minutes, he has transformed us into a parish and, from that point on, Hughes is preaching to the converted.

This ritual is crucial to the success of 360, since, as raw material in and of itself, Hughes’ story-fuelled examination of friendship and perspective is flimsy. In fact, it’s a fundamental foundation of Hughes as a persona. Without the atmosphere of goodwill forged, Shôn Dale-Jones’s embodied emergent artist from Anglessey would seem nigglingly naive and even unstomachably indulgent.

In both Floating and Story of a Rabbit, Dale-Jones has made a virtue of these traits, which allow him to simultaneously clarify and delicately parody postmodern theatre. Reincarnated for 360, however, Hughes seems closer to character comedy, somehow simplified and more ordinary.

Gone is the homespun detritus with which to raggedly recreate events. Instead, Hughes weaves a story from the paired-down resources of language and physicality alone. Skipping between 1978 and 2007, Hughes attempts to regain his childish perspective on life having found it entirely eroded by a skulking, sulking colleague. As such, accompanied by childhood friend and perpetual prankster Gareth, he sets out to climb Mount Snowdon, to take in the panoramic view and reset his perspective.

There are some smart and ticklish moments along the way and Hughes’ control of his story is impeccable. Despite swirling into all manner of chaotic tangents, he maintains a tightness and economy of narrative throughout. However, the material itself never overcomes its slightness and, excepting its infectiousness positivity, remains uncharacteristically unaffecting.

360 comes off, but it does so without excelling. Hughes’ defection to the comedy listings is perhaps symptomatic, as the act has lost its unique theatrical perspective and become just another story-based stand-up persona.