Rob Auton: The Sky Show

What a missed opportunity. After 50 minutes of socially awkward shtick, with lines delivered with such a blurting force that they sink without laughter, Rob Auton reads from his book. And at last it is funny and engaging. Where was this before?

This is a show all about the sky, how much Auton loves it, and how important it is to history, philosophy, and film-makers. Whimsy and wonderment are what Auton promises, yet rarely delivers.

The Sky Show is pitched firmly at that Josie Long shaped hole in this year’s Fringe programme. Sadly he lacks Long’s charm or the dramatic skills to carry his flights of fancy about the naming of the sky, his Sky newspaper project, or imagining Jesus under a blue canopy in Palestine.

It all feels as flat as an overcast day until he drops his inexplicably staid performing persona, and just reads his poetry. His writing sparkles with the ideas and insights that his comedy struggled to convey. His poem about getting a sunset Lego set for Christmas is quiet and melancholic. The climactic story, about ascending to the moon via every stairway, elevator, and escalator he has been on in his life, moves him to near tears. It is by far the best thing in the show.

This closing salvo shows that The Sky Show is at its best when Auton’s eyes are not looking upwards at the heavens, but rather gazing down at his written words.