Pretending things are a Co*k

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In a long and increasingly amusing introduction, Aussie Jon Bennett demonstrates an intense preoccupation with audience expectations of his show. It's an entirely reasonable preoccupation: a show about a man travelling the world for three years, taking over 300 photos of various objects protruding, from his groin could easily be an hour of unattractive laddishness. It could conform to the boorish stereotype of the hyper-matcho white, Australian male, stomping the globe on a relentlessly depraved tour of the hospitality industry.

In fact, the younger brother to a fairly rotten-sounding school bully, Bennett couldn't be less laddish if he tried. As he tells us in a quote dubiously attributed to Plato "behind every cock is a story." It's these stories that are his focus – the cocks serving as metaphorical hooks over which he drapes his narratives. So, for instance, "Machu Picchu cock" thrusts us into a lovely little story about the blossoming of a friendship with a Swedish man he met in South America; "door snake cock" provides the seed for a tale about the day he bested his brother. Part travelogue, part personal adventure, Bennett tells these stories engagingly, swinging nicely between the hilarious and the sublime.

So what about puerile? It's a criticism Pretending Things are a C*ck struggles a little more to escape from, and every so often Bennett permits a peek at the childishness which has largely driven the escapade. But, then again, there's a fiver here for anyone who doesn't raise a smile at the majestic "New York City skyline sunset cock."