Welcome to the recreation of Paul Cree’s first home away from home, a room at the Camden Lock Hotel transformed into a Brighton bedsit, strewn with comics and cassettes, decorated with caps and flyers. In fact, come in, sit on the bed, have a cup of tea and a biscuit. Take off your shoes if you like. You need to kick back and relax to enjoy this extremely intimate, site-specific storytelling session.
He looks right at home, sat in the corner of the room for all the world like he’s 17 again, holding court with a bunch of mates but the performance of this autobiographical tale is carefully crafted. Given the bare bones of his story, not much happens. Boy leaves suburbia, dreams of making it in music, struggles with a supermarket job, inhabits a crappy bedsit, falls for a girl etc. But Cree is so likeable and his delivery so engaging that every turn the story takes is compelling. Lines regularly erupt in sweetly unexpected rhymes that conjure up vivid pictures. The pace changes, mixed up with the rhythms of drum ‘n’ bass and rap. His honesty and self-deprecating sense of humour are endearing and we particularly enjoyed his enthusiastic self-identification with obscure comic book hero, the Fool Killer.
This is a warm, funny and thoughtful show. Almost too warm in fact – it gets hot when 10 people cram into a bedsit. Make sure the window’s open.
A Tale from the Bedsit is just one of the creative spoken word shows you can see at the Roundhouse until Sunday and there are opportunities to catch new works in progress and take part in workshops and masterclasses. Read our preview here.
A Tale From The Bedsit is part of The Last Word festival at Roundhouse. Tickets £12.50, 16-25s £5. Catch it 28, 29, 30 November at 8pm or Sunday 1 December at 7.30pm (in the Studio Theatre – an accessible performance with many more seats than Room 101!)