BWW Reviews: MARK LITTLE'S #SECRETMEETINGS, Museum of Comedy, March 5 2015

With a touch of Barry Humphries in the haircut, Mark Little looks older than he did in his Neighbours and Big Breakfast heydays - understandably so. But he's also angrier - much angrier - too and he wants us to understand why. Indeed, this Secret Meeting is his way of exhorting us to action!

The show (Mark Little's #SECRETMEETINGS continuing at the Museum of Comedy on 19 and 26 March) is an occasionally exhilarating, occasionally rambling, occasionally violent call to arms to defend, not The Caveman, but The Left from its assaults by Coalition politicians and natural sympathisers turned enemies (there's an unseen effigy of Russell Brand backstage). Though we're told at least twice that what's presented is "Experimental Theatre" and not plain ol' stand-up, the venue, the one man and a mic staging and the interaction with the audience sure make it look like stand-up. But stand-up needs to be much tighter than this if it is to succeed fully.

After a promising start with some lovely riffing on Hawksmoor's extraordinary church, the undercroft of which is the venue for the show, the show loses energy when it turns to the baleful influence mobile phones and social media have cast over 21st century life. The experimental theatre dimension needs a stronger and more original plotline there. To those brought up on Mark Thomas, Jon Stewart and now John Oliver, the political satire needs to cohere more, else the punch becomes flabby, the anger drowning the wit.

But Little stays true to his word not to bully us, sticking to his targets - the politicians and, at arm's length, the passsive electorate who acquiesce in the snooping, the authoritarianism and the marginalising of those that don't fit in. Maybe if it were an actual meeting, with Mark our chair, we might even have got an action plan to bring forth the response that he so fervently demands.

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