1 - Coming Home Party 2 - Martha 3 - Get Yourself Together

Waiting Man / Stevie Wonder’s Stern Warning @ Black Lion, 13.07.13 The standout pieces of Nowt Part Of Festival (on the second Saturday, at least) were two one-man shows written and performed by Josh Coates (Stevie Wonder’s Stern Warning) and Jon Coleman (Waiting Man). The pieces share a common theme of being alone, of dealing with a void, and of waiting for something – or someone – to come along. Waiting Man is an existentialist musing littered with hope, potential, loss, action, and inaction. Told in the third person by a bard-like narrator, the audience is not quite sure whether the story being told is true or not. However, the delivery, the investment in everything being said, and the incredibly effective and deceptive simplicity of the storytelling is so compelling that by the end we are visualising the trajectory of a character who never actually appears onstage, and with devastating results. This is a desperately cynical and yet strangely life-affirming piece of theatre which can lead the audience to think about the path that life could potentially take. On a stage covered with incomplete crossword puzzles, origami birds, clocks, empty food wrappers, and even juggling balls, the Waiting Man...