One Monkey Don't Stop No Show review, Tricycle Theatre

There are moments in One Monkey Don't Stop No Show where the audience howls with laughter, and other points at which it just howls. An uproarious journey through ochre shirts and afros, flares and The Joy of Sex in 1970s New York, it is presented as the live recording of a TV show, starting with canned laughter and cardboard caricatures that morph into real characters. Hamming and cartoon expressions soften, but don't disguise, writer Don Evans' social messages about sex, marriage, and attitudes to women in the black community.

Monkey wench

We start with the preacher, Avery, getting a second flush after reading his son's sex manual. His wife, Myra - the glorious Jocelyn Jee Esien, star of the controversial TV comedy series, Little Miss Jocelyn - plays hard to get, but there's more going on under her shiny black wig than we think. Meanwhile, Avery's backwoods niece, Beverley, shakes off her dungarees and gets out the lipstick to please tough nightclub owner, Caleb.

As Avery, Karl Collins does a wonderful comic turn and Clifford Samuel as Caleb manages to be both macho and mild. While the men get to grips with their women, the boy - prissy Felix - gets his ghetto girlfriend, L'il Bits - Rochelle Rose looking like she's stepped out of Hair - pregnant.  Dawn Walton's production raises snorts when the snooty suburb is assailed by a siren from the street.

In conclusion: As with the best US sit coms of the last fifty years, One Monkey Don't Stop No Show has dated but not dulled. It's compared to the Cosby Show but closer to My Family. We laugh at the everyday confusion, not the wit.

References
Tricycle Theatre, tickets
Paul Taylor review in The Independent