The Groggy Squirrel

The Begetting of a Galant Heart is a long form story show in which Craig Annis tells the tale of his relationship with a girl named Lara. It documents the meeting, romance, attempted break up and eventual parting.

This show was personal stand up and storytelling to the extreme. He was able to describe the many details of his life all the while finding humour in the minute and important details. A great many detours were taken over the course of the story but all were of equal importance and relevance. While on the surface some seemed to steer him far from the path of the tale, there was not much in the way of filler. He had an interesting way of structuring the story into chapters, with the physical turning of a book page at the conclusion of each. While not exactly divided into clearly defined chapters of his life, they did occasionally end on a sort of cliff hanger that had us eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Craig relayed the material with abundant energy, bouncing all over the stage like an excited puppy. His enthusiasm was infectious and keep us glued to his words. He was obviously trying his best to come across as your best friend and attempted distancing himself from being a crude comedian in spite of some colourful references early on in the tale. He needn’t have worried as his stage persona was friendly with a touch of larrakin. In fact he lapsed into a Dave Hughes voice at one point, a comedian he sometimes bears a passing resemblance to in terms of vocal delivery, and was able to joke about it as well as creating a clever call back.

It seemed as though Craig was worried that he was venturing into too serious material at times although in a show such as this a bit of light and dark is inevitable, even welcome. In a bit of self correction he did a few spots of wacky dancing to lighten the mood which showed off his skills in physical humour. Even the backing music to these interludes were comedic with their abrupt endings that said “Enough of this silliness, let’s get back to work!” It was good to see that he was enjoying the show as much as we were with lots of laughing at his own material. This would normally be the sign of an unprofessional performer but in this case it added a nice casual mood to the show and didn’t detract from his relaying of the material in the slightest.

The words he spoke were clearly the main focus of the piece and Craig added an extra dimension with some hilarious deconstructions of linguistics that were threaded seamlessly into the text. As well as the verbal aspect he included visual humour with some props from his “Emotional Baggage”, the highlight being the serenading of a puppet.

This was a brilliant show that tugged at the heart-strings as well as the funny bone.

Visit the Fringe Website for booking details.