Lee Griffiths: Post Traumatic Sketch Disorder

39658 original

Known to audiences as a member of five piece sketch institution Late Night Gimp Fight, Lee Griffiths has much at stake in this confessional solo show. It’s clearly intended as an opportunity for the 30-year-old clown to put his gimp mask aside and come to terms with fully-fledged adulthood, proving skilled enough to singlehandedly deliver an hour’s entertainment in the process. Unfortunately Post-Traumatic Sketch Disorder is so poorly conceived and executed that its muted reception will doubtless ensure the entertainer avoids all professional risk for the remainder of his life.

Because Griffiths has a history of dressing himself up in ridiculous costumes and routinely undergoes consensual humiliation for money, he’s come to the conclusion that he wears the scars of a damaging upbringing. “You are Freud,” he tells us, ushering in what he hopes will be an hour of comedy psychoanalysis.

Despite constant assurances that he’s a wild and crazy guy, we see no evidence of this whatsoever. Instead, his rather staid presence is suggestive of a vain and self-indulgent coma patient. He’s obviously making a concerted effort to step outside his comfort zone, but what we’re left with is a dour performer mumbling about how much fun he’s capable of being and how remarkable we should all find his life. Admittedly, it’s quite unusual for a man to have three dads, but the show’s focus on Griffiths’ father’s homosexually seems intended to trigger a Pavlovian response in passively bigoted audiences. It doesn’t. His extended family just seem like lovely, average people.