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John Cooper Clarke
Shepherd's Bush Empire, London W12/Touring
5 Stars
One thing's for sure about John Cooper Clarke.
The people's poet-elect, anarcho-jester and laureate for all things sardonic certainly delivers some uncomfortable truths.
His custom-crafted beat poetry mixed with stand-up is totally unique and in this show religion, anorexia, royalty, branding, VD, BBC bleeps, hypocrisy, growing old, democracy, ancestry and euthanasia all come under scabrous scrutiny.
Imperious, book in hand, he's fuelled with what looks suspiciously like water as the punchy, frenetic delivery never flags.
The words, hilarious one minute and darkly melancholic the next, are delivered with trademark sarcasm. They overwhelm the audience to such a degree that they're laughing even before he delivers a punch line.
Clarke's greatest hits abound - Hire Car sets the tone for what to do with crap scrap metal and Get Back On Drugs You Fat Fuck gets the laughs, when maybe it shouldn't.
The brilliant, brutal Beasley Street resounds as the most acute of Clarke's dirty kitchen-sink dramas and it's matched by its sequel Beasley Boulevard.
Clarke quits the hellhole that is Eventually Chicken Town with a pile of expletives, a haiku left dangling at completely the right existential point, while the delightfully surreal I Wanna Be Yours has probably changed our appreciation of what vacuum cleaners are all about forever.
Don't miss.
Details of John Cooper Clarke's national tour are available at: www.johncooperclarke.com
Peter Lindley
