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Edinburgh Fringe 2010

His Name Is Tim

Experiment86

Genre: Storytelling

Venue: Zoo Roxy

Festival:


Low Down

As you enter the space, a attractive young man strums a guitar, easing you into the mood and style of the piece. Thomas J Millington is a sweet and affable performer, and the entire piece has an atmosphere of understatement. In a town that’s currently stuffed to the rafters of performers shouting at you to make their point, this is a breath of fresh air, although it occasionally reminds you that there’s not a great deal going on.

Review

The story, in fact, is very slight, and while it’s true that passing crushes have sustained a hour of story-telling before (most notably the sublime Stefan Golwaski Talks About A Girl He Once Loved, which this emulates, but does not resemble), this is light, but not always light hearted: it’s significant that the narrative takes the form of an internal dialogue, as opposed to a direct address to the audience, meaning that we always feel somewhat removed from the (in)action. There are set-pieces, however – being late for school, getting to ride a bike with a beautiful girl in the driving rain, and attempting to make a cup of coffee for a boss with impossibly high standards. Given the gentleness of the rest of the piece, these are moments that could have been exploited for their full comedy and physical potential (this is advertised as a movement piece, after all).

 
But it is indeed, all very sweet. Tim – as boy or man – is a hopeless romantic who can fall in love on the spin of a Radiohead CD, and thinks about little else other than creating his own music, a dreamer who doesn’t like his boss very much (although, t be fair, his boss seems to be remarkably patient with a lad whose desk is a mess, can’t even make a decent cup of coffee, and spends an inordinate amount of the day strumming the guitar he continually brings into work).  There are certain narrative resolutions left open – so much so that it’s tempting to think that the company are not aware of them – but this is a gentle and sweet story that deserves bigger audiences.

Published