Anna Burnside reviews a production that has parts that land but as a whole doesn’t gel.
Johnny’s skinny jeans droop below his Calvin Klein pants. Topless, he has a six pack and a towel round his neck because he has just been to the gym. He waggles his Johnny Rose eyebrows and hands out mints to get us through the show.
Johnny is a character created by Tessa Parr. And here’s the first problem with this show - I don’t know who she is lampooning. Johnny is a dreadful performance poet, beat boxer and breakdancer. He has a strong regional English accent but not one I can place.
Johnny’s masterworks touch on his childhood - aged eight, he wanted to marry Princess Diana - and his Tommy Hilfiger bed linen. At one point he rhymes shrill with George Foreman Grill. These are painful rather than painfully funny.
There’s a singalong to the long-forgotten jingle of a children’s toy advert and a gherkin interlude, which leads to the best visual joke of the show. Parts of it land but as a whole it doesn’t gel.
Parr is fully committed, whether doing the worm or reading out a list of Johnny’s best friends. Her costume is an impressive piece of engineering: the towel does double duty as a bra and does not shift once.
But to work as a commentary on masculinity, Parr needs to be much clearer about who Johnny is and what he has to say.
I Am Johnny is part of Summerhall Arts Festival programme. It performs at 18:15 (60min) in the Red Lecture Theatre space until 31 August 2026 (no performances 17th or 24th). For further details, go to the website.
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