Alex Horne: Seven Years in the Bathroom

Did you know that the average man’s life will include 24 years of sleep, total earnings of £1.5 million and 55 days of sex? Alex Horne does, and he’s keen to tell you in this massively ambitious and complex multimedia standup show.

The comedian, with a little help from a few audience members, aims to recreate the expected 74-year lifespan in a 60 minute period. Thus the seven years in the bathroom of the title becomes five minutes on stage.

A screen keeps tabs on progress, adding years and pieces to the pie-chart of life as Horne demonstrates the activities—from kissing to queueing—with props and punchlines. The whole operation is carefully choreographed to the split second with a voiceover moving things on at the designated time. There’s a real joy in seeing Horne beavering around the stage, desperately trying to hit his marks while chatting with a talking panda or searching for a jar of lemon curd (we spend 18 months of our lives looking for lost things).

The sheer size and scope of the show is boggling but Horne never loses sight of the need to provide laughs. In the hands of a lesser comedian this could have easily turned into an interesting, but only sporadically funny, lecture.

It’s also pretty inspirational. By shining a light on where we waste our lives (18 months of literally doing nothing) Horne challenges us to change. As he says himself: “People say that life’s too short. It’s not – we’re just idiots.”