Spencer Jones: The Audition

• Arusa Qureshi
• 17 August 2017

credit: Jill Wooster

Relentlessly silly props fun with charm and amusement aplenty

Armed with his long white lab coat, bowl-cut hairdo and peculiar alter ego The Herbert, Spencer Jones returns with a show that combines character comedy, music and lots of goofy props to interesting and equally strange effect. With a big movie audition coming up, The Herbert is determined to do his best to score the part. But as expected, things don't quite go to plan, with Jones' charmingly silly gags bringing out the absurdly foolish clown in The Herbert.

Jones is a master of his props, switching from sliced tennis balls and tiny hands to a working power drill and puppet version of his son. His use of a vibration plate is undoubtedly the highlight, as he attempts to enact scenarios and sketches atop the furiously shaking fitness apparatus.

In among this, his quirky jingles draw out the unpredictability at the heart of his show. There's 'Mr Nobody', a sad but amusing number which he performs wearing a homemade papier-mâché mask. There's also a song with the refrain 'something's gone wrong', fittingly used to end the show. The Audition may be broad and fairly non-specific in its overall outline, but Spencer Jones still manages to deliver 50 minutes of self-aware and relentlessly silly fun.

Heroes @ Monkey Barrel, until 27 Aug, 6.20pm, £7 or Pay What You Want.