Mike Wozniak The Bench - Assembly Hall - Review

When a local memorial bench is discovered destroyed after a heinous act of arson one morning, a sleepy sector of Exeter comes alive with suspicion, accusation and curtain twitching. The neighbourhood watch are up in arms, the hearsay is flying and whilst the police have been notified, there is another prepared to piece together the evidence,  comedian Mike Wozniak, who has strong ties to the area.

With Mike Wozniak: The Bench, a busy house at the beautiful Assembly Hall are treated to an hour of who’s who meets whodunnit as Wozniak talks us through the possible suspects in an investigation led by who the audience wants to hear about next. Through a number of tangents and several ‘just quickly thens’ as he frequently and comically checks the time, we are introduced to a cavalcade of characters from heads of the neighbourhood society and local business people and invited to put on our sleuthing hats.

With his rapid thinking out loud style where carefully put together scripts are made to feel like a conversational she said he said with more characters introduced throughout it could be quite tricky to keep up for some. Here is where I found myself at an advantage, as I live just a short distance away from where the bench incident this story revolves around took place. Therefore, whilst I may not know the exact people who were being referenced, I understood the type of people; the curtain twitchers, the gossipers down the high street, the various club members and those who worship their weekly night down the local pub in a community where everyone knows everyone. It worked for me, but perhaps not for others who didn’t click with the location based Devon living references and characteristics.

It feels rare for a stand up performance to focus entirely on one topic of conversation, with many jumping from subject to subject. Here, Wozniak stays focussed on the bench with his many tangents somehow eventually circling back to the crime being investigated. For an hour, this style of stand up worked but in a longer night of comedy I imagine that the story of the bench would instead be a section rather than the entire thing.

A highly entertaining hour in which Wozniak paints a picture of the events that seem small but are huge to the people around them, with comedic anecdotes and funny asides.