Rob Cawsey: Just Cruising

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Rob Cawsey is looking for love in all the wrong places, specifically the Banshee Labyrinth where the cinema room proves an apt stage for what is essentially a silent film played live by the gangly comedian. On the lookout for his prince (as the overdone fairy tale style voiceover explains), Cawsey bounces from one extreme situation to the next with some audience interaction and some excellent sound design.

Mime when done well can be a joy to behold, but Cawsey almost does a caricature of the form, overselling everything for fear of a late audience at the Fringe not quite grasping what he’s getting at. The tale of a single gay man’s night on the town where he visits a drag night, a Turkish bath house and Nando’s after ditching the babysitting job he’s lumbered with by his more ‘together’ friends, the show breezes by pleasantly enough thanks to Cawsey’s gamefulness and the sound tech’s ingenuity but they’re aren’t enough big laughs to make it a memorable experience.

The lack of originality is shown further when a scene in a park with a mysterious stranger is a little too reminiscent of a Tape Face routine though the ‘climax’ of the piece is a novel twist. A closing monologue is a little too earnest and overwrought for what’s gone before it and makes you long for the silence of the rest of the hour that saw Cawsey gurn and flail with abandon and the soundman excel.