Sean M Whelan & The Mime Set

Jade Monkey
Sat 17 March
season closed


Chilled side-street bar the Jade Monkey was the scene of a startlingly effective melding of performance poetry and rock. Sean M Whelan's visions are unique. "What kind of girl could make you fall in love so hard it knocks all the fillings out of your teeth?... An unexpected one." On waking, the protagonist discovers them "surrounding his head on the pillow like tiny silver meteorites." This is mesmerizing stuff.

Whelan looks like Tom Waits, his battered pork-pie hat clapped to his head, glancing up truculently as he addresses his audience in an uncompromisingly broad Aussie accent. His poem LCUK: Falling In And Out Of Luck is amazing: there's humour, and thwarted love, and unexpected conjunctions amid the weird soundscape of Andrew Watson's keening violin; Justin Avery's supportive guitar; passionate, atmospheric drumming from Chris Chapple; and singer Sam Wareing's exuberant laughter. All provide a vivid contrast to the poet's deadpan descriptions. A girl logs on to the webcam leprechaunspotting.com to view a field where they are "rumoured to cavort", and shares "lipstick-smeared Trivial Pursuit cards" - compellingly weird images that leave you wanting more.

The Mime Set, who Whelan describes appreciatively as "These god-like creatures around me," are multi-talented musicians, each playing a range of instruments from eerie, droning thumb piano to plastic tubes whirled around to make space-age whooshes in an ode to astronauts. They have performed successfully both to rock audiences and literary festivals and are unsurprisingly much in demand. This is something rich and strange which should not be missed.

Rosie Clarke