Shyness Is Nice (Greater Manchester Fringe Festival)

Venue: Studio
Where: Salford

At one point during his one-man show Joseph Ross-Williams (who wrote the show with Michael Love) reads out examples put forward by the audience of when shyness blighted their lives. He later admits that he cheated – not trusting that the examples would be sufficiently amusing he added his own fictional comments.

This approach seems typical of the show. The examination of the central theme of ‘shyness’ is supplemented by autobiographical material. This is amusing but it is hard to see the relevance to the main subject of complaints about being mistaken for more successful bespectacled performers or moans about lost lovers. They feel like they have been bolted on to ensure that the show reached a reasonable running time.

The approach taken to the subject is lazy. Rather than attempt any scientific examination of shyness (or why it might be considered ‘nice’) the writers skim the Internet and settle for examples drawn from the press. These include a chap in his late 20s who remains a virgin and has no girlfriend. Ross-Williams does not offer original analysis but quotes comments made by readers from the Internet pages. This seems more like photocopying than writing.

The show involves a high degree of audience involvement with someone being encouraged to overcome the shyness to which he has admitted by taking to the stage to recite Wordsworth. The conclusion is badly misjudged – to pull off a stunt in questionable taste, as Ross-Williams attempts, the audience has to be driven to a point of almost hysteria where the ‘ He wouldn’t dare oh God he has’ routine generates laughs because you just can’t stop. As such a level was not achieved the routine just felt embarrassing.

– Dave Cunningham