It’s rare you see a show which spans the themes of existentialism, veganism and toilet humour. It’s even rarer that such a show is presented by a purple puppet named Randy Feltface. With Randy Writes a Novel, however, that’s exactly what you get.
The premise is that this devilishly clever, deeply disillusioned and potty-mouthed puppet is not content with winning several comedy awards and has embarked upon his first novel. Throughout the course of the hour-long show, he intends to share excerpts of it with the crowd to gauge our reaction, but keeps getting side-tracked by his own insecurities and foibles. The novel itself sounds like a dour and melancholic affair, treating with the subject of a man who walks from the south of Scotland to the Isle of Skye on its northwest coast carrying a dead beaver.
Thankfully, we never hear more about the questionable plot than this brief synopsis, since Randy’s ramblings about Ernest Hemingway, Harper Lee, the morality of killing animals and the perils of purchasing furniture on Gumtree take centre stage. Indeed, it soon becomes clear that the novel is nothing more than a thin construct to tie the show together and allow an outlet for Randy’s eloquent frustrations.
The writing is vitriolic, incisive and incredibly intelligent, but retains the ability to veer off into the kind of low-brow humour which stabilises shows like South Park and Archer. In this respect, there’s something which will appeal to everyone, and though not everyone will like everything (the preachier elements raised audible complaints from some of the more narrow-minded and inebriated audience members), Randy rescues the show from resembling a sermon by dropping liberal swear words and relying on his identity as a puppet to undercut the self-righteousness.
Philosophising on such weighty themes as the legitimacy of human legacy versus interpersonal morality might seem a bit too much for a night-time comedy show. Rest assured, however, that there are enough silly jokes, interesting snippets and superb story-telling vignettes to keep you riveted for the duration. See Randy’s show and it’s highly likely you might just learn something… but if you don’t, you’ll at least laugh out loud on multiple occasions.