Among other things, Still Ticking, Nigel Osner’s unexpected blend of self-penned song, contemplations about aging, and character-based monologue provides colourful and pleasing proof (if proof were needed) that you can still have a career in fringe theatre as a septuagenarian. The show is, like its creator, quixotic, surprising, and packed with personality. It is a paean to growing old disgracefully by a performer who brings to mind a better maintained version of Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones.
Once a practising barrister, then employed at the Ministry of Justice, Osner stepped into cabaret-style writing and performing 25 years ago. Still Ticking showcases a selection of his lyrical and prose creations, whose style harks back to the 1960’s queen of character-based comic monologue, Joyce Grenfell. There is hint of the sardonic 1950’s American songwriter, Tom Lehrer, in there too. This is the work of an erudite and educated writer with a sophisticated understanding of the cultural reference points he draws on.
The songs include the reflections of a 900 year-old vampire on the many and varied necks he has bitten, one on the agonies of a Botox enthusiast told they are simply too old to have any more work done, and There’s Only Me To Love, which describes the narcissistic reflections of a caustic middle aged woman now too old to love anyone other than herself. There is also a song directed towards the moon, sung by an owl who has trainer as a lawyer. One gets the feeling its main purpose is to find an excuse to air the character’s name: A-Tawny-At-Law. Osner’s singing lacks much vocal range, but it is the lyrics that provide the value here.
The best monologue, a reference to Osner’s own near brush with death when a routine operation went seriously wrong, is delivered by a vampish angel of death. She is come to collect the soul of a hospital patient who is just not quite ready to go yet, and who has a guardian angel onside as protection. The tone to all of this is gentle mockery as opposed to fierce satire, and the show does not really have much to say about the process of growing aging other than point out its pitfalls. But taken as a whole there is more than enough wit and clever linguistic trickery in the songs and vignettes to make for an enjoyable, if slightly disjointed, hour of cabaret. Catch it if you can.
Writer: Nigel Osner
Director: Nigel Osner
16 October 2022
Duration: 60 minutes. No interval.
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