Gordon Jones reviews "An Evening with Uncle Val" (The Telegram)

Move fast to see Uncle Val

Theatre reviewBy Gordon Jones

... An Evening with Uncle Val" is a double narrative. The letters of Uncle Valentine Reardigan to his friend back home around the bay are intertwined with the metatheatrical Andy Jones narrative, in which the author-performer comments on the Uncle Val component and also provides a good-humoured, anecdotal account of becoming a performing artist in Newfoundland, while paying tribute to the traditional story tellers in whose footsteps he is walking.

... Tales and yarns are generally extremely funny, as Jones and Uncle Val philosophise and fabulise, and as the narrative is extended to include the denizens of Jones's imagination - dead parents, Queen Elizabeth, the Beatles, President John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe.

Performance feats include mimicry of Kennedy and Smallwood, miming a codfish and a whirling dervish of a dance performed in the persona of a werewolf. Quips and comic trouvailles include a throw-away line about zen driving licences for the legally blind and a running joke about Danes.Sometimes impishly mischievous, sometimes earnestly intent; now straight-faced, now wild-eyed, Jones's performance is versatile, but always open and candid...

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