Updated: Sep 16, 2019
Rob Auton makes whimsical shows that centre around a singular subject. Before it’s been the colour yellow, hair, faces, talking, sleep, water and the sky. This time, it’s time. I’ve never seen any of his other shows, but I won’t miss the next.
Auton enters the stage, shoulder length hair and beard, clutching a stack of beaten up notebooks and loose paper from which he plucks small jokes, observations, poems, stories about time. What is it? Why do we all use it? What would happen if we ignored it? What if we made our own time? Well, it would be harder to meet up with friends.
He is immediately endearing, with a deadpan voice he asks audience members for the time. Checks who has different time to one another, who’s late or early, people are happy to get involved. Happy to go with him as he provides little tasters of quaint thoughts and suggestions that can be, sometimes, very profound.
Auton's imagination is wonderful, considering what his new-born baby self would think about time if he had the ability to write a diary straight out of the womb. A swirling surreal wind of ideas pushes the show along, with gently comic twists that bring forth bouts of belly laughs from his enthralled audiences.
The final minutes of the show are spellbinding. I won’t ruin them, but I will say he is utterly captivating in his delivery of the final monologue, a stunning trace through experiences so beautiful you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Rob Auton: The Time Show is on at Assembly George Square Studios 5 until the 26th August. Tickets available here - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/rob-auton-the-time-show
