With the exception of George Dawes in Shooting Stars and that video of the pug drumming to Enter Sandman, it’s hard to imagine how someone can make drums funny, especially someone as musically proficient as Alexander Fox. However, Fox uses the drums to create both a scenario with the audience and a tale of infidelity, obsession, and movie references.
After blasting through The Who’s Who Are You and introducing us to Fox’s instrument of choice and its different parts, we are told of his private school upbringing and his desire to be different to his stuck-up peers, which leads him to a college studying a certificate in music. His choice of instrument is drums, but he’s told by Mrs Richardson, a sensual American teacher, that she can improve his sloppy technique and to come back to her place for some, ahem, extra lessons. As it turns out, her husband is away, and she offers him a drink and a few hours in her sound-proof recording studio.
Yeah it’s a parody of The Graduate and the show doesn’t hide it. At one point Mrs Richardson has that particular film paused on a television, and she makes sure that our hero hasn’t heard of the movie before she moves in on him. What sells the show is Fox’s self-deprecating caricature of himself as a naive, awkward nebbish. As the story is told, the audience is treated not as an audience but his session musicians for an album he is recording, which leads to some fun interactions with the audience; we get a couple of people put on the spot pretending to play instruments, but this aspect of the show could be a whole concept for a routine in itself, but ends up being a little unexplored. The show is broken up by him drumming along to songs, and whilst musically very impressive, I forgot a couple of times that it’s meant to be him recording an album.
But Alexander Fox is a masterful storyteller, and his tale of illicit passion goes to some quite thoughtful places, ruminating on obsession, originality and self-identity. Despite the familiar story. Fox has one of the most unique comic voices I have seen at the Fringe this year.
