23rd October-1st November, Royal Exchange Theatre

The Endurance is an absurd one-man performance that combines a witty script with enveloping audiovisuals to create a show that is both extremely funny and genuinely harrowing.

Performed in the intimate and appropriately claustrophobic “Studio” of the Royal Exchange Theatre, The Endurance reunites the award winning actor Ben Faulks with the equally acclaimed director, Al Seed. In The Endurance, the pair explore their fascinations with two archetypes of British culture, “the obscure thespian” and the “weather beaten explorer”, both of whom are in some ways secluded from society and crucially drawn to the search for fame and glory. The resulting sole character is a bizarre yet enchanting old gentleman who journeys to the arctic top of the earth in search of “the fabled theatre…where the sightlines are perfect, blind sailors man the flies and the programmes are written in squid ink”, all the time dragging with him his battered piano and trusty Welsh tortoise-shaped hand puppet named Ernest.

This obscure storyline would have faltered were it not for the exemplary performance of Ben Faulks. He is a master of physical comedy, seamlessly transforming himself from wisened crone to exuberantly camp performer. His energy was infectious and his comedic timing perfect; few actors could make an audience laugh as much as he did at a song about the potential uses of tin cans. Faulks’ talent was matched only by the audiovisual quality of the performance. The audience was enveloped in the howling sounds of the Arctic, whilst a combination of chalky dust clouds and spot lighting created a ghostly presence that was at times both beautiful and unnerving.

My sole criticism would be that at 90 minutes in duration, The Endurance is perhaps not long enough to fully explore the themes of companionship, glory, and the British stiff upper lip raised by the performance; at times it felt as though Faulks and Seed had crammed 100 different concepts into their scripts and carpeted them over with a thin layer of absurd dialogue, comedy walks and banjo playing. Nonetheless, The Endurance is guaranteed to simultaneously bemuse, unnerve and amuse you. I highly recommend it.

4 stars