[star rating =1/5]
The show opened with the protagonist of this show, Lee Mark Jones, dressed as Ziggy Stardust aka David Bowie. As the show went on, Ziggy’s fleeting presence in it sort of evolved into a slightly odd metaphor for numerous things in Jones’s life as he told his rags-to-rags story of his rock and roll career.
The story was told mostly in a monolog with pieces of theatrics and singing thrown in here and there.
Jones told his tale in a somewhat rambling tone that was almost completely drowned out by the music in the background. Every so often, he’d take a break from the monolog, put on false teeth and a hat and play the part of Death.
The presence of Death had the very strange effect of making perfect sense and no sense whatsoever. On the one hand, death and tragedy were both themes in the show.
On the other hand, the show didn’t really feel enough like a theatre production for his presence to work properly. He just seemed to appear every so often to interrupt the monolog.
The presence of Ziggy Stardust was even stranger. At first, he served as the image of what Jones wished his life would’ve been like, the person he aspired to be. Then he suddenly became a representation for Jones’s ADHD.
Then Jones got a member of the audience to dress up as Ziggy and shoot it out with him wild west style.
The surprising part was, the member of the audience Jones picked turned out to be a pretty good actor. It certainly livened up the performance a bit. It didn’t make it any less rambling and confusing, though.
During the performance, Jones often referred to his ADHD as his “disease”, as if it was something you could catch. While ADHD isn’t a condition to be played down or romanticised, calling it a disease is simply inaccurate. Perhaps Jones should rethink his choice of words for his next performance.
It was hard not to feel bad for Jones at times as he told his tale of tragedy and how he never quite reached stardom. However, that didn’t change the fact that show was strange, confusing and even dull.
There didn’t seem to be any point or meaning to it. It was just one man’s view of rock and roll and his own very messy life.
