BEARDYMAN: ONE ALBUM PER HOUR | COMEDY PREVIEW
Few comedians can boast having invented a £30,000 piece of machinery to keep up with their comic ideas, as Darren ‘Beardyman’ Foreman has done. The ever-evolving Beardytron 5000, now in its MKIII incarnation, was developed by Foreman to create looping tracks from sounds he records live on stage.
Currently comprising two keyboards, an array of iPads, and bespoke software built by some of the world’s leading developers of music technology, the Beardytron 5000 allows Foreman to live mix weird and wonderful looping tracks from a whim or, in this show, suggestions from audience members. Throughout the hour long show Foreman takes the audience through a meandering, eclectic mix of genres and styles challenging you to come up with song titles.
Foreman’s background is in the beatboxing scene. In 2006 and 2007 he became the first person to win the UK Beatboxing Championships twice in a row, earning himself a role on the judging panel in 2008. Beardyman, a name he plucked out of the air in a hurry when a show flyer necessitated a stage name, uses his skill of creating realistic instrument noises using only his mouth to weave between genres, styles and decades, creating soundscapes without ever needing to call upon a traditional instrument.
Nowadays musicians working with looping sequencers aren’t uncommon due to the growing availability of off-the-shelf loop pedals. What sets Beardyman apart is that he takes phenomenal musicianship and song writing ability and combines it with his own whimsical sense of humour to build a comic act that is unlike what anybody else is doing in the UK.
He exhibits a level of talent and wit you feel you ought to be jealous of, but you’re too busy laughing at the fantastical compositions he produces faster than you could whistle one.
Beardyman: One Album Per Hour, Glee Club, Cardiff, Wed 11 Nov Tickets: £18. Info: 0871 472 0400 / www.glee.co.uk
words MARCUS HUGHES
photo POSSAN
