Elizabeth and Raleigh, or Simon Munnery the Great

Last night, Simon Munnery performed the part of Queen Elizabeth the First. It was truly intense and quite magnificent. “Elizabeth and Raleigh: Late but Live” was written by the oft wonderful Stewart Lee. Although I am finding hard to rate the play as a whole, I can say that Simon Munnery was tremendous.

As the late-medieval Queen, aka Simon Munnery, white faced, and in full regal dress, bounced vigorously on a trampet, her hair went completely skew-whiff. “Now, that’s made me even angrier”, she announced whilst straightening it. Undeterred by the likelihood off it flying off altogether, she bounced even harder. Her hair looked aptly wild for the rest of the performance.

Munnery portrayed the Queen’s anger beautifully; with fierce stern eyes, harsh dialogue and fiercely sardonic cheek. Simultaneously, he managed to be quite scary and very funny. He seemed to enjoy every minute of it. Never have I seen Munnery looking so confident. He writes fantastic comedy, but perhaps is less self-conscious when performing the work of a very talented friend.

You may not know the name Simon Munnery, but those of you a little long in the teeth may remember ‘Alan Parker: Urban Warrior’ or ‘The League against Tedium’. I have had the pleasure of seeing Munnery playing various characters, including himself, on many occasions over the years, primarily in the Cabaret Tent at Glastonbury.

It was during the Brighton Comedy Festival in 2005, when I truly came to admire Munnery as cut above the best as a human being. Last night, he became that as a performer.

As he hoisted the large farthingale hoop of his dress, to prance across the stage with wonderful inelegance, I watched with great intrigue. I thought back to 2005. In the very same venue, in front of a much smaller audience, he had stood before us, with his left hand clutched awkwardly. “I’ve had testicular cancer”, he said, “I’ve had one ball removed, and, as a side effect of the treatment, my hand looks like this”.

I already felt bad. The Brighton Comedy Festival was running for just a week. Several big names were playing in different venues across town very night; there was a lot of competition. We sat in a small and mostly empty venue, and I felt Simon deserved more.

Before long Simon had turned his encounter with the devil’s disease into a comedy sketch and all was well in the world. His hand became, amongst other things, an inverse, disapproving emu, throwing scorn at its master for attacking people. It was a brief stand up routine, which explained a very apparent disability. It did its job beautifully. Then Simon moved on; or was it sideways? With Simon, it’s more often sideways.

That year, we had the great pleasure of watching Simon wearing a number of different buckets on his head. We’ll all be doing it in the near future, don’t you know. It’s how we’ll cope with the absurdities of modern life. Last night, he was Queen Elizabeth the First in sequinned Crocs.

Yes, Simon Munnery’s brain is a surrealists dream.

As for Miles Jupp, he played the straight man last night, albeit with some terribly corny puns. I thoroughly enjoyed his cloth willie and the fact he gave Munnery a brief encounter with the giggles.

Fabpants Recommends: Special Needs – Funfair and Heartbreaks. This is an old album, but one that keeps returning to the top of my recently listened to CDs. It is a work of brilliance and Mercury were idiots to drop the band in 2005. Special Needs split up in the November of that year. In 2006, Re Action Recordings Ltd released the debut posthumously. The reality of Special Needs makes me sad, but the songs make me oh so very happy.