WHO HERE'S LOST?
Press Reviews
Spellbinding and surreal hour of storytelling from fringe veteran Ben Moor
In classic Moor fashion, the narrative slips and slides surreally. Maybe the road trip takes five days, maybe it takes five years. Maybe Moor has a son with him, maybe he is alone. Maybe the story is infested with ants, maybe it isn’t. There are some lovely, whimsical images along the way: a museum of display cabinets, conflict resolution on bouncy castles, an Uber for piggybacks, a monster and a garden inside all of us.
Little is certain, but what is for sure is the intricacy of Moor’s story – you could see it several times and not pick up on every little gag he layers into it – and his command of his material. He stands barefoot, surrounded by a few pointed props, in a shapeless green parka, and weaves his spellbinding shaggy dog story with a warm, welcoming grin.
FOUR STAR REVIEW
Fergus Morgan, The Stage, 11th August 2022
A soul-searching road trip in spoken word performed with electric physicality. @benmoor’s sublime lyricism & wordplay demand focus, while thrilling the ears & heart. Direct & meta storytelling alongside elegant tech lend timelessness to this whimsical odyssey.
FOUR STAR REVIEW
Fringe Biscuit 30th August 2022
Ben Moor here combines accomplished storytelling with densely written linguistic humour. It’s a heady mix of excellent direct-to-audience jokes, blink and you’ll miss it wordplay, unresolved one liners and surreal, sometimes poetic, imagery. The piece is glued together as a more than slightly improbable road trip, but there’s much else and the result is in part a wry meditation on the oddity of normality and the normality of oddity. I found there was almost too much to grasp in a show with so many invitations to look at things from a new angle. So the offer of a script at the end felt appropriate: but I’d happily see this funny, acutely observed and ultimately compassionate show again.
FOUR STAR REVIEW
Alan Cranston, Three Weeks, 24th August 2022
Ben Moor is a great storyteller, but his stories are anything but straightforward, as they combine acute observation of everyday life with clever wordplay, touches of surrealism and a few moments of pure philosophy.
There is a thread of a plot holding this all together, but there are so many diversions from it and such a large cast of characters, some merely people to whom he has told his story before, that the diversions are at least as important as the plot.
After some initial anecdotes about him and his girlfriend—he tells us that ice cream is the foundation of a happy life, and who am I to disagree with that?—he gets drawn by his ex-wife into taking his ex-mother-in-law Dilys on a road trip to visit buildings that she once designed as an architect. She is looking for something in one of these buildings to leave to her family but doesn't know what it is. This trip could have taken years of weeks or even days—he is a bit confused on this point.
There is the mysterious mentions of "what happened" that changed his relationship with his girlfriend, some wonderful passing concepts such as the King Lear pinball machine and some more integrated concepts such as his 'could children', i.e. children he could have had, who have real lives and identities within the world of his stories. He also describes in detail his idea that everyone has inside them a monster and a garden in such a way that it makes perfect sense.
Moor has an engaging presence as he weaves together great tapestries of words that are funny, moving and profound, but there is probably too much to take in in one go, so perhaps you need to see it twice and/or buy the book.
FOUR STAR REVIEW
David Chadderton, British Theatre Guide, August 2022
The title of Ben Moor’s latest sharp and surreal storytelling show could be a reference to the road trip at its heart. But it might also foreshadow the need for the listener to stay on their toes throughout, such is the density of imagination, allusion and wordplay packed into the text and the speed and dexterity with which Moor delivers his tale: an unusual odyssey in which the narrator agrees to ferry his ex-wife’s terminally ill mother around the many buildings she designed in her years as an architect.
This is a cleverly conjured world where everyone has a monster and a garden inside them, determining the equilibrium of their personality, where denizens can attend the Pronoun Film Festival (on the bill, Us, Them, She…), enjoy if-it-makes-you-happy hour in The Vague Animal pub, celebrate World Days Day (a day to mark all annual Days days) or take a loneliness test kit. There’s a whiff of Douglas Adams to the familiar unfamiliarity of it all but Moor goes above and beyond (was that not a double-bill at the Preposition Film Festival?) in his giddy strike rate, reeling off a wedding guest list with eccentric descriptive economy. One could easily miss the bigger picture of the point of it all but the devil is in the detail.
Three Star Review
Fiona Shepherd, The Scotsman, 17th August 2022
Ben Moor is an English Wes Anderson. Everything about his playful one man show Who Here's Lost? Exudes Anderson's signature twee from Moor's knitted jumper to the whimsical world of the play itself. . . Moor is a delight to watch. His eyes sparkle with childlike glee as he conjures one rose tinted image after another. His dulcet tones are a paintbrush filling his world with a bright pastel colour palette. His fantastical ramblings may be a long and winding road, but it is less about the destination and more about the journey.
On one level Who Here's Lost? follows Moor on an absurdly long road trip with his aging architect mother-in-law. But on another level is it about exploration, the fragmentary nature of the human experience, and the fleeting relationships between us. Moor presents these fragments are not cold pointy shards, but soft edged, warm, and fuzzy.
. . .So much of the weird and the wonderful is brushed under the carpet of the everyday, Moor wants to pick out and examine with his gorgeously bizarre style. . .
The focus is squarely on Moor. Tech and set are kept to a minimum. He also benefits from the cosy space of the Pleasence attic. The fifty-seat venue lets Moor take a conversational tone with his audience as he opens a window into his world. . .
A sense of melancholic loneliness only ever lingers in the background waiting for its moment in the sun that never comes. But again, it's about the journey and not the destination, and getting lost is part of that journey.
Three Star Review
Alexander Cohen, Broadway World, 16th August 2022
