16th August

I watched Richard Gadd's show "Monkey See, Monkey Do" as part of Comedy Central's "Live At Soho Theatre" series. The show won the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2016, in part through a huge amount of word of mouth buzz. A year before I had filled in at the last minute in one of his previews for "Waiting For Gaddot", a show in which he only appeared on stage in the last ten minutes and enlisted Ben Target, Ian Smith and Ed Aczel (or on that occasion, me) alongside a plethora of multimedia techniques to tell the story.

He uses similar techniques here to explore notions of masculinity and anxiety whilst spending the entire hour on a treadmill running from the black dog, or rather some sort of ape. It's not always comfortable to watch but it is very distinctive, demonstrating Gadd's aptitude as a physical actor as we journey into his subconscious. In terms of comedy, I'm having a hard time thinking of anything quite like it and it's worth viewing for that reason alone.

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