Tour de force as loser dices with devil
Cairns shines in diabolically clever script in battle of wits with Grim Reaper, writes Beverley Brommert
MORE saucy than sinister, James Cairns’ interpretation of Shel Silverstein’s diabolically clever script delivers an hour of memorable entertainment to its audience, provided the latter is open of mind and gifted with a robust sense of humour, since the show flirts outrageously with sacrilege.
As a gesture to Billy’s Southern roots (he is an exponent of Country and Western music), Cairns sports a checked shirt echoing the design of the backdrop; vivid lighting and a simple but effective set provide all that this actor requires to enhance his brilliant portrayal of a loser dicing with the Devil, not to mention an array of other characters headed by Satan himself…
The arch-fiend is a complex amalgam of simpering complacency and viciousness, Protean in his ability to assume any identity that occasion requires, and not shy about the persona assumed: at one point he even impersonates God, to universal astonishment and discomfiture. In Billy, however, he has met his match, and the pair engage in a slippery contest of wits, all recorded in articulate iambic pentameter by the narrator.
Such a vehicle of expression could easily undermine a show, distracting from its content by the ingenuity of expression (some of the rhymes are highly inventive), but such is Cairns’s talent that he subordinates this stylised recital to the natural rhythms of everyday speech to avoid a Gilbert-&-Sullivan-like sing-song effect.
His mastery of diverse characters and their accents is a major strength of this one-hander, but best of all is the manifest enjoyment with which he embarks on the narrative; he brings the zest of schoolboy ruderie to his performance while clearly savouring the hold he has over his listeners – the hallmark of a seasoned performer.
As the intrigued spectators embark on this labyrinthine journey through Billy’s dealings with the anthropomorphic Devil, one thing is certain: Cairns and Collocott’s collaboration has again resulted in a show to be remembered for some time by its audiences. With pleasure, if they are stout-hearted.