Mitch Benn: Don’t Believe a Word Stand 3
He had a big success with his show last year – “Mitch Benn: the 37th Beatle” which revolved around his lifelong love affair with the music of his famous fellow Liverpudlians, and in 2012 his show “Mitch Benn : Reduced Circumstances” covered his then obsession with losing weight.
He could have taken the easy option of reprising either of these shows this year. Instead he has gone for a brand new one, and for inspiration he asked himself what other “obsessions” did he have and the answer was clear – he loves annoying religious people on Twitter and generally debunking religion.
For good measure he also adds in other pet hates such as astrology and homeopathy. Cue for the first song “Sceptics” then a diatribe against religion and intelligent design leads into the very funny “You wouldn’t say that about the Muslims”. He is on an evangelical mission to convert us to atheism but he does not want to offend religious believers, indeed he assures us he has only written one deliberately offensive line in the whole show (and believe me, you will recognise it when he gets to it!) He rails against lazy thinking and, with clever use of a phone voice recorder, harmonises with himself on “Logical Fallacies Rumba”.
References to Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum and the Cosmological argument took me way back to my days of studying Philosophy – he certainly doesn’t dumb down his subject matter for his audience. Be warned, he doesn’t pause for breath and you have to keep your wits about you at all times to pick up all the cracking one liners – he isn’t going to stop and explain it to you. It’s well worth the effort though, an entertaining and enlightening hour.
Irene Brownlee