Barry Smith Babybook: someday all one-person shows will be this good

Barry Smith should run seminars on how to construct and operate a one-person show. His stripped down presentation is a model of the form: one man, a microphone and a multi-media show run from his Mac Book.

He has a cool confidence on stage and does not resort to silly voices, animal impressions or playing 45 different characters. He doesn’t jump up and down and he allows the stories to flow seamlessly from one to the other and even loop back on each other. Smith is so far above the competition I’ve seen this year that it’s almost like he’s playing another sport altogether. And – to top it all off – he put his name in the title so I know who the hell he is – smart man that Barry Smith.

As benefits both our confessional times and our seemingly unquenchable thirst for something authentic, Smith draws from his own life and I’m okay with that when it’s done so effectively. Smith isn’t compared to Spalding Gray in the guide notes but I’ll make the comparison gladly. Like Gray he keeps to a narrow thematic focus with his work. Sure he ranges over his entire life – literally from birth to present day – but it’s all through the lens of his obsession to horde the physical evidence of his existence on this planet (in the main, photographs, but literally everything that has come into his possession). Smith jokes about this – and even shows a review for a previous show that notes his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Maybe he does have OCD (he was adamant after the show when I spoke to him briefly that it was all true, all the hording and obsessing) and certainly the image of him in his home surrounded by piles of documents from his life waiting to be scanned is quite nightmarish.

This is the other quality I admire about Smith. He’s unflinching. He mentions his mother’s death – which took place when he was thirteen – not as a way to unlock profound meaning or to solicit mawkish sympathy from the audience, but simply as a stated fact of something that impacted on his life. In keeping with the theme of collecting/documenting, one of the most distressing moments in the aftermath of his mother’s death was how his stepfather simply disappeared with all the photos his mother had, except for the few Smith managed to secret away. His mother’s death also gave him a good excuse for slacking off at school.

I’m wrong. This isn’t a one-man show. This is storytelling at its finest: it connects with the audience in an uncluttered way. I don’t compare Smith lightly to Spalding Gray because, well, really he’s that good.

And if Barry ever wants to get into the seminar business, then he should feel free to contact us at Plank Enterprises.

For more information on the show and to join in the public debate go here.