One Man Riot is an autobiographical monologue that reveals the roots of Jem Rolls' performance poetry and spoken word activism. Rolls' epiphany came during the 1990 Poll-Tax riot in London, where he was swept up by the crowd and found himself facing a line of riot police wielding clubs and shields. Instead of meeting violence with violence Rolls chose to hold up a mirror, in which each man on the line could see himself reflected.
As Rolls tells it, this was a tremendously empowering experience. As he portrays it, in this one-man tour-de-force, it's a breathless chase through the streets...
Verbatim theatre to me is like a documentary or an interview where the names and faces have been altered to keep the people anonymous. The characters in this show were as if you had met them before and listened to their stories. The stories besides the main character, Jackie, are real accounts from elderly people who reside at Emmy Monash Home for the aged.
The actor who portrays the titular character of this one-man show – he isn't introduced anywhere as the performer but I'm guessing either Jeff McMahan or Chris Cook, the two guys credited with 'created by' in the Fringe guide – is a charming, confident and comfortable performer.
When I was growing up, my first experience with death was the death of Heidi, my guinea pig. She was killed by my lop-eared rabbit, Brownie. Of course, this wasn't a planned "hit" or anything. When we were home, we let them wander around the house and they always got along. They even ignored each other. What I gathered from my mother was she had startled Brownie and the rabbit jumped up on top of Heidi's cage.
