Counter Culture

Milton Jones, Lion Whisperer

Assembly Hall,Mound Place, Venue 35

MILTON JONES is the king of one-liners and absurdity. They just keep coming out of the man so fast that it’s hard to keep up. If you’re too helpless laughing at the last one, you might miss the next one.  Introduced by ‘his grandfather, the warm-up man’ who shuffles onto the stage in long coat, flat cap and shopping trolley, any latecomers arriving get told the same joke; ‘I had a nephew who lived in Leith. He doesn’t trust banks so kept all his money under the mattress. He reckoned that nobody will look for it in the front garden.’

After ‘granddad’ Milton bounds on to the stage in a strikingly loud shirt. He keeps up a steady stream of one-liners, enlivened with a few props from the shopping trolley and one of those large jotter pads on an easel you see at earnest meetings and seminars.

Some of his lines falls into a pattern, so the audience can anticipate what’s coming and still enjoy it; ‘Not all horses are Trojan horses… I know that now… That was a messy afternoon’; later, ‘Not all pigs are piggy banks…’ and ‘Not all ducks are toilet ducks…’  It’s wonderful surreal stuff. Milton Jones is just the tonic you need after a stressful day.

Reviewed by David Kerr

***** Five Stars