This is Jem Rolls 93rd Fringe Festival. He hails from Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. He worked the Fringe lines hard here in Orlando pointing out to anyone who would listen that the flier’s back had an austere simplicity. It was blank. The show offered a solid hour of poetry, at times funny and at times mystifying. This wasn’t a performance that gave any linear narrative. His subjects were all over the map. His energy and enthusiasm are contagious.
One rather funny poem was titled, “We split up because the sex was too good.” He claims to be working on the sequel which will be, “We stayed together hoping the sex would get better.” In one poem he personified words that resisted his every attempt to wrangle them into a poem. He grimaced and leaned towards the audience to show how determined, selfish and difficult words can be. He recited a poem about how the British always win. “We won! We Won, Wewonwewon, we Won!” He blamed the American Revolution on the fact that Germans were doing the fighting not the British.
The poems came out so fast and furious that at times I didn’t know how to react. Bikini Katie sat across from me. Craig’s Lust had purchased ad space on her bare mid drift. Fried cheese curds had an ad on her right thigh and I believe Ship Happens had prime ad space above her cleavage. I could only squeeze a small bit of Lust into the sketch.