Reviews from the Brighton Festival Fringe:
I spent the first half of Matthew Bellwood’s sweet, welcoming, thoughtful show trying to nail who he reminded me of. Then I got it. With his soft-spoken Northern accent, his gentle stories of life’s little moments and his downplayed but definite campness, he sounded almost exactly like Alan Bennett. I’m not sure why it took me so long to work it out – perhaps because Bellwood is still in his 20s.
Bellwood is a storyteller. In this show, he presents tales about his own life which, he admits, is uneventful. One theme that recurs is fear of the unknown; how indecisiveness can be far more destructive than any imagined consequence of a bold move. Several stories end on a downbeat note, with Bellwood failing to make the braver, righter choice and moving on through his life never knowing what would have happened if he’d somehow been a better man.
There was only one story I didn’t like. In No Eggs, Bellwood muses that he will never have children because he has no ovaries – which seems to have slightly missed the biological point – and also ponders whether women ever have babies as fashion accessories. In amongst the clever, profound ideas in is other stories, this observation couldn’t escape seeming trite and unoriginal.
But that was one of ten stories, and that’s a pretty good hit rate. In the stand-out tale, and the one from which the show takes its title, Bellwood is trapped in the back of a taxi whilst the driver asks him a series of friendly but rather odd questions about his gay lifestyle. Bellwood tries to be polite and informative, but stays constantly on edge – unsure where all this is leading, worried it might be heading towards violence.
It’s actually going somewhere else entirely, and the concluding spin Bellwood puts on it lifts it further still. As with most of the others, in this story we’re hearing about a unique situation that happened to Bellwood himself, but his unease and frustration is something anyone could empathise with. So while the themes of the stories are life’s minutiae, the magic is the sleight of hand Bellwood uses to transform these simple tales into the stuff of life, of humanity and of universal experiences. A clever, witty show – moving, enlightening and wise. 4.5 / 5
Mathilda Gregory, www.fringeguru.com
A collection of short stories to prove that sometimes even the small things in life carry weight, Matthew Bellwood’s tales were wonderfully formed microcosms of life, love and death.
The kind of man who has a favourite acorn, rescues forgotten toys from bins and enjoys watching long-lost B-movies, Bellwood came across like a foppish Steve Coogan or a thoughtful Mark Gatiss on stage – his tales ending with an almost shy smile and a polite, “Cheers… Thank you”.
Peppered with stories that began with a very precise personal moment or anecdote before pulling back to reveal a larger lesson or philosophically profound message, his style was both poignant and endearing throughout.
Holding up the items that either inspired or related to the story as an epilogue to each narration – visibly slipping into a more casual and arguably more relaxed gait as he did so – Bellwood grounded each of his tales in truth. The orange, self-made tank-top that prompted the delightful poem No Eggs physically embodying the notion that no story, however embarrassingly created, should be left out.
A pleasant 50 minutes in the company of a wordsmith whose youthful stories belie an old soul.
Chris Challis, www.theargus.co.uk