Vincent Goes Splat

If you drop two marbles at the same time from the same height, they’ll fall to the ground at the same time. Similarly, if two humans jump from a building concurrently, they’re likely to hit the ground pretty simultaneously. This is what Will and Vincent did. Guess who met a messy demise.

The entirety of Vincent Goes Splat, written and performed by Wil Greenway, leads up to this one moment as we hear about two lives in freefall, plunging to an inevitable end. It’s a charmingly comedic tale of love and fate, and provides a number of hearty chuckles.

Greenway plays fast and loose with notions of truth and fiction (“Who goes to the theatre to be lied to?”), and uses a warm, somewhat scatty style of delivery which immediately gets us on board. It meanders down a strange, quaint path and pulls us along gently for the ride.

Vincent Goes Splat is, however, altogether too full of whimsy to be anything other than an enjoyable romp. Greenway also uses a few too many similes which, though well written, start to grate a little over the duration of the story. The plot and its characters ooze with irony to the point of bursting, and it’s difficult to tell just why this story is being told. Also, watching a man making out with his own hand isn’t as funny as you’d think.