“You get that cashier’s cheque right now”
The sheer variety of shows available at the Soho Theatre these days means that
it is unsurprising that some of them are genre-straddling and thus somewhat
hard to define. Patrick Combs’ Man 1, Bank 0 is such a show, somewhere between
monologue and stand-up comedy and rather incredibly, entirely based on a true
story. With credit card debts mounting up and a dry sense of humour about his
bank’s willingness to serve, Combs decided to deposit a random junk mail cheque
that came through his letterbox and somehow, the $93,093.35 that it promised
was cleared into his account.
What follows is Combs’ account of how both he and the bank dealt with it: his
moral wrangling with what to do with the money and trying to find out the legalities
of the issue by tracking down retired legal professors; and the bank’s
heavy-handed response in trying to strong-arm the return of the money without
admitting any culpability. He takes us on the many highs and lows of the
journey, encouraging audience interaction where he can as the adventure keeps
on rolling and showing that sometimes it is actually possible to stick it to
the man,
Combs’ ‘I know, me!’ schtick is relentless but there are enough wry touches of
humour – the frankness of his family’s pronouncements on his fate, the
responses from the general public once the story becomes public, the
impressions of the various personnel of the story, the ‘gobsmacking’ anecdote –
to pull the show through the occasional moments where it feels it might become
self-indulgent. And there’s also enough gravitas to the story to stop it from
just being lightweight fun – the bullying nature of corporations, the lack of
transparency when it comes to exactly what obligations banks have to their
customers, and modern society’s attitude towards money.
The amazingness of the story aside, the show’s finest moment comes with an
absolutely inspired montage of an ending which is probably worth the ticket
price alone and the charm of the evening overall is undeniable. Combs (imagine
a younger, leaner Jim Carrey) makes a highly personable narrator with
Duracell-bunny-like levels of unflagging energy, and this cheery enthusiasm
leaves one inclined to forgive the odd lapse into overly self-regarding
territory and start to wonder if one oughtn’t start opening the junk mail
too.
Running time: 75 minutes (without interval)
Booking until 16th March
Labels: Soho Theatre