Coffee and iPhones and printers and festivals and hammocks and hypothetical letters.

The Aldi middle aisle?

Maybe, but also just a few of the topics that singer/songwriter, satirist, Chris Tavener treated us to at that glorious little theatre space upstairs at The Kings Arms last night.

Thanks to my outrageous decision to spend the first week or so of this year’s Greater Manchester Fringe in another part of the country, this was my first show of the season. And it was a treat.

Chris Tavener is Faking Cool is a one-man musical comedy show that features a whole host of satirical songs and a central theme exploring what it means to be faking cool.

Satirical songs, intrusive thoughts and one big poser…

Not my ever so slightly shady words, but those of the promotional material for Chris’s show.

My words are actually sort of similar but without even a soupcon of shade (that’s a weird phrase, isn’t it…).

I’m not going to wax lyrical again about how much I love fringe theatre. My previous blog posts make that clear. But I do. And it’s the venues, the freedom and creativity, the generosity of the spotlight beyond big-buck productions and the star of the show meeting and greeting you at the door checking names and tickets.

Actually, there is an exception to that being just fringe-specific. In a galaxy far away, in a studio on Quay Street, in an old job of mine, my life was Stars In Their Eyes for a good while. Ponder the wonder of that if you will. And as studio audiences arrived to recordings, they were met at the door by Mr Matthew Kelly, carrying with him a tub of sweets and a cheery disposition, much to the thrill of those filing in. If it’s good enough for Mr Kelly, it’s good enough for the rest of you, and it’s all part of the charm of fringe.

Another part of the charm of fringe is being exposed to artists with talent that you wouldn’t necessarily have had chance to come across.

Chris Tavener is a man with a guitar and a repertoire of self-penned satirical songs that tick all the boxes. They’re irreverent, topical, funny, biting, satirical and actually really catchy.

I’m always there for that and yes, people, I’ve seen Flight of the Conchords live so, you know, deal with that. I’m not messing about with my fondness for a daft ditty, you know.

That said, a common panic of mine is that no matter how much I enjoy a show, gig, exhibition, play, my memory is going to fail me on the specifics when it comes to putting my experience down on digital paper. I’m scared I’m going to go all ‘thingy was good, when they entered and did that thing where it was funny about that thing., and you know, stuff.’ I blame COVID.

Well much like going to see a series of shorts, this was going to be a series of songs with a series of subjects and what on earth was I going to do?

But whilst the melody of the tunes may have left me overnight (I had cheese and dreamt about a work colleague who scares me, which didn’t help), I definitely had earworm in the Uber home (yes la-di-dah).

Chris essentially plays a two-hander with himself and his internal thoughts. As we see the man striding onto the stage, sunglasses on, ‘faking cool’, we hear his inner voice (yes it’s a recording but let’s not get technical), betraying his anxieties and truths as those pesky inner voices do. And it works and it’s funny and the timing as he interacts with his alter-ego is spot-on.

Audience interaction is good and performed knowingly. He knew that any tongue in cheek suggestion of ‘join in…’ is usually met with mortification. Perhaps what he may not have known (although I’m sure all gigs go this way), is the enthusiasm this would actually be met with, each song going down a storm.

Favourites of mine – the ode to the woman who he suspected only loved him for access to his printer (not to mention his juicer), his love letter to the millennial eternal travellers by way of their hypothetical letters to ‘old people’, and his intense suspicion and derision of those unfamiliar infiltrators, intent on bringing their incompatibilities into our towns, villages and corner shops – yes, the iPhone users (himself team Samsung).

Chris is taking his show to Edinburgh Fringe next month and if this preview is anything to go by, there’ll be nothing fake about his success.

For more details of what’s coming up at this year’s GM Fringe, visit https://greatermanchesterfringe.co.uk/

For more information about Chris Tavener, visit https://www.christavener.co.uk/