This is Not Culturally Significant

There is a familiar breed of one-man show that exists purely to demonstrate the performer's range. While these can be impressive, they can also be dissatisfying if they reach for no greater artistic goal than highlighting a breadth of talent for its own sake. Not only does Adam Scott-Rowley's production lack such an ambition, but it fails to come together into a cohesive whole, sadly making it less than the sum of its parts.

Combining clown, bouffon and physical theatre, This is Not Culturally Significant presents an array of sad, broken individuals whose lives are presented in brief, successive snapshots. These include a lonely, aged father pining for the daughter who has become a sex cam star, a homeless Scotswoman (whose accent, one hopes, isn't meant to be realistic) trading sexual favours with the policeman who has just arrested her and, most unpleasantly, an abusive husband driving his tremulous, self-loathing wife to breaking point. The array is so grim it's almost comic – almost, but no cigar. For a while, it seems as though the various character arcs might align into a single narrative, but they never quite manage it.

Scott-Rowley favours confrontational excess over any kind of subtlety, and has a strange faith in the power of repetition; both quickly become tiresome. While he may have been aiming at eclecticism, the constant, queasy nastiness that permeates the show crushes any enjoyment that might be found in its variety. Scott-Rowley is a passionate and committed young talent, but finds himself struggling in the darkness without purpose.