Terry Clement: Din Times 8

“It’s psychedelic music with swearing,” explains Terry Clement in the introduction to his show, before warning that it “could be a bad trip or a good trip” for the audience. On balance it proves to be more of the former than the latter.

The Canadian launches into a unique rendition of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ before switching to a poem about turtles and a short vignette using two wrestling dolls. It sets up the scattershot nature of everything that follows, as only the dimming of the stage lights indicates where one section finishes and another begins. There’s nothing in the way of an narrative arc, while constant awkward tonal shifts quickly become more tiresome than amusing.

It’s frustrating because there are moments of brilliance in Clement’s set, particularly when he abandons his guitar to indulge his love of the surreal. But for every entertaining moment when he’s chatting to a banana or dancing with a jellyfish there’s an uninspired song with a title like Lick Ninja or Too Stoned to go to The Liquor Store.

His use of multimedia is frequently ingenious—particularly in a song about a spelling bee—and a couple of dark screenplays he reads out suggest there could be hidden depths beneath his bearded stoner exterior. But then he’s back to demolish any momentum with more misjudged music.

It's almost a mercy that it's over so quickly, with Clement filling no more than 40 minutes of his hour allocation before shuffling off to baffled looks.