Performance
© Ridiculusmus 2009
Supported by:
The Independent on Sunday, London 2003
Ideas Men
Barbican Pit
Ideas men made me weep with laughter. A two-man comedy about corporate losers it could have just aped BBC2’s mock-documentary The Office. With two blokes in grey suits and one long conference table, this show also looks suspiciously like The Summit, the political satire by the experimental duo Ralf Ralf. But David Woods and Jon Hough, aka Ridiculusmus, are a law unto themselves and peculiarly brilliant. Their style is deliberately unpolished and puerile. They come wheeling in, sporting bad wigs, and race round and round on office chairs. Then they sit at their computer keyboards (no screens attached) exchanging interminable inanities about their lunch hours, prawn sandwiches and the post office. They are two sad bores attempting to ‘strategise a creativity role playing seminar’ without a single idea between them. They draw willies on flip chart sheets, lamely chat up the slapper-secretary, keep running into the boss at acutely embarrassing moments, and finally go AWOL with a large hammer.
The secret is, Ridiculusmus are madly chaotic but also deft, deadpan clowns. The surreal unpredictability of these guys is a joy, suddenly putting their suits on the wrong way round, lounging with feet up on the desk but with the back of their heads where their faces should be. They also play unexpected, clever Pirandellian games with reality and role-play, for the pair switch characters at lightning speed, creating dreamlike jump-cuts. Some people might think this slight and silly – there were a few nonplussed faces the night I went. But with others the reaction was extraordinary, with spasmodic howls of laughter flaring up like will o’the-wisps – the woman next to me creased up silently, her head banging against the chair in front. Tops.
Kate Bassett, The Independent on Sunday, 5 October 2003
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