Tim Clare's Death Drive

Poet and novelist Tim Clare of the performance poetry group Aisle 16 has set himself a difficult task for his Fringe debut. Combining standup, serious poetry and music, he traces his attempts to come to terms with his inner angst and unfulfilled ambitions, fluctuates wildly between light and dark, and changes tack from grounded reality to playful flights of fancy. In short, Clare tries to do too much all at once and brings in elements from sources too disparate to work well together. It makes for a show that is less than the sum of its often funny and very clever parts.

The most frustrating thing about Death Drive is that its frequent moments of brilliance are consistently undermined. A haunting, poetic reconstruction of a car accident sits surprisingly comfortably alongside an explanation of what a Jimmy Saville tattoo tells us about a person, but the effect is then let down by ersatz pop culture references and multiple crude references to cunnilingus. It is unbecoming for someone so clearly capable of more.

Clare lets himself down somewhat by constructing a set that is perhaps too clever, and the resulting lack of impact leaves him without much to bounce off. Lovingly crafted and profound lines of poetry, seemingly included to make us stop and think, cry out for quiet appreciation; set against this mishmash, though, they often drown amid the laughter.