Toronto Fringe Review - Jem Rolls

Enraged and eloquent, subversive and silly, acclaimed U.K. rantsmith Jem Rolls one-ups himself with this show (no small success, considering his past powerhouse performance pieces) and becomes an epic poet in his own fashion, spitting out an hour-long torrent of thoughts that is an anti-ode to consumerism and a lament for the state of the modern man’s soul — or, as he puts it, “8500 words about shopping”, with each of those words carefully chosen, forcefully delivered and effectively repeated, presenting audiences with the obscenely abundant mall as the symbol of our empty times, presenting this ridiculous, sobering idea not as a staid thesis but rather as an impassioned monologue, pouring fiery language over the audiences’ heads, leading them through realization, laughter, familiarity, discomfort, inanity, self-doubt, and the frozen meats aisle, with ideas and images springing forth from Rolls’ mouth as freely and vehemently as the sweat jumping out of the rest of his body, the whole thing equal parts dark and light, fun and uneasy, like the Clash doing Lost In The Supermarket as a gloomy industrial house track banging at 120 bpm, and by the end of it, performer and audience alike are exhausted, and you know you’ve witnessed something special, and you’ve undoubtedly re-examined your own relationship with money and shopping and STUFF, but you’re not sure whether you feel better or worse than before… not that it really matters, because as the poet himself says, he is English, and “the English never let something like complete and utter misery get in the way of having a good time”.

www.fringetoronto.com

And watch for Jem on the further stops of the Fringe Circuit as he heads across Canada.