Bane (Salford)

Venue: The Lowry (Studio)
Where: Salford

The name’s Bane, Bruce Bane. It is a one man show with a fantastic on stage guitar a compliment (Ben Roe) that sees Bane (Joe Bone) tackling a vast cast of villains with the help of a number of acquaintances and a few animals along the way.

Bone plays every single character with flair and style and creates a number of accents, men, women and children and the aforementioned cats without hesitation and fills the studio space with his creations. Not only does Bone conjure up a myriad of characters but also provides all the sound effects notably a cigarette lighter, passing traffic and various evil laughs with real panache. Filled with humour and film noire style this first person narration piece is great entertainment providing high drama, laughs and tension in all the right places.  

A non-existent set sees Bone have the freedom to move around the set as much as he likes and Roe adds to the tension and atmosphere superbly with his beautiful guitar playing at just the right tempo, time and tone. 

Bane is great entertainment but just lacks a little something to really make it sing. At times the dialogue is a little rushed and it can be difficult to keep track of all the characters we have met along the way but even this is acknowledged in the script; much to Bone’s credit.

It is a fast paced show and running at just an hour is perfect to whet the audiences appetite for the rest of series. An accomplished performance that is well worth 60 minutes of anyone’s time.

– Ruth Lovett