Wolf

Review by: Paul Towers, 18/10/19

Wolf by Lewis Doherty

A Lewis Doherty & The Northwall presentation

Curve – 18/10/19

“an amazing one-man play spoofing American cop shows”

Patrick Wolf is a cop. A cop on a mission. A mission to get revenge for his partner Jay Walker’s death. The streets of Shadow City won’t be safe til he finds the murderer.

Actor, writer, comedian and extraordinary actor Lewis Doherty is a local lad from Nottingham and has created an amazing one-man play spoofing American cop shows. With just a black stage and a stool he populates his world with more than 30 characters.

From the moment he walked into one of Curve’s intimate rehearsal studios Doherty had the audience in the palm of his hand. Murder, mayhem, cyborgs and a multitude of  instantly recognisable characters took us deep into his fantastical tale of a good cop’s pursuit of truth. His very physical performance, along with an uncanny ability to create sound effects, drew us into the mean streets of Shadow City.

An atmospheric soundtrack of music and sound effects are seamlessly bound to his on stage antics as we follow fights and car chases around the city and up and down multi storey buildings with humour and tenacity.

Doherty doesn’t make his hero too serious and regularly allows the audience into his self awareness of parody.

Some of the characters we meet are sometimes only a sentence or two long but Doherty makes each one fully rounded. Some of his elaborate vocal effects and physicality were reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s The Mask. High praise indeed.

While Wolf was only on for one night as part of Curve’s New Work Festival Boar, the companion piece, is on next Friday, 25^th October, and is not to be missed.

The New Work Festival runs at Curve til 26^th October and features performances from new artistes along with various support workshops. Full details are on the website.

http://www.lewisdoherty.com/

Curve – https:curveonline.co.uk
First published on Western Gazette