George's Jamboree is a monthly cabaret night - a mixture of music, comedy, and poetry - hosted at the Jam Factory. George Chopping, poet, raconteur, and compère, got the night off to a flying start with some verse (which occasionally slipped into song). Wry, playful, and rooted in modern England, one might compare his writing to John Hegley's. If you get a chance, his collection Smoking With Crohns is an excellent read...
The Jamboree had a relaxed atmosphere - one in which forgotten lyrics were met by prompts from the audience, and lights were adjusted mid-set. Musically, the standard of the night was far above the norm - as the audience walked in, one of the performers was sound-checking by playing Duelling Banjos! The evening was multi-instrumental, featuring guitar, mandolin, piano, and egg-shaker. There was a wide variety of performance styles on offer, from the high-energy musical comedy of Ben Champion, to a calmer interlude, when Steve Hay (who might be recognised from Short Stories Aloud) read out a surreal short story about super-glue.
Accordingly, the night functions a little bit like a variety pack, a chance to sample acts who have upcoming shows in and around Oxford. The Albion Basements, for example, have future gigs at the Wheatsheaf, while Steve Larkin’s TES will appear at the North Wall on the 14th of May. Indeed, the bill resembles a cross-section of the Oxford arts scene - with Larkin representing Oxford's chapter of Hammer and Tongue, Riley the Firry Mic, and Hay Short Stories Aloud (which has just celebrated its third birthday, outgrown its home at the Old Fire Station, and moved to Blackwell's).
The sets are relatively short, and before long we’ve moved onto the headline act, The League Against Tedium himself, mister Simon Munnery.
Munnery has donned many mantles over the years – from the sheepskin-jacket of Alan Parker: Urban Warrior, to the darkened cardboard box of the Fylm Makker. Endlessly inventive, he tends to tread the line between alternative comedy and conceptual art - and tonight is no exception, as he sings the works of Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher. Pitching the delivery somewhere between Kenneth Williams and Johnny Rotten (all anger and enunciation), the passages are delivered, then deconstructed. It’s experimental, erudite, and genuinely funny. Munnery’s real skill is in the selection of the passages – quips on celebrity and satire, musings on ‘the present age’ which resonate and entertain as if they were purpose-written for the occasion. Quite a feat, for material almost 200 years old, translated, and not intended for performance.