straight.com review of An Evening with Uncle Val by Andy Jones

An Evening with Uncle Val
By Kathleen Oliver
(straight.com June 12)

By Andy Jones and Michael Jones Sr. Directed by Lois Brown. At Presentation House Theatre on Thursday, June 5, as part of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. No remaining performances

Poor Uncle Val. The septuagenarian is trapped in St. John’s, having been forced to leave his outport home to live with his daughter, her loathsome husband, and their children, who don’t behave anything like kids did in his day. “Children ran messages,” he explains, “and in return, they were allowed to sleep indoors.” It’s a lonely life, till he befriends a 90-something neighbour who claims to be pals with both the royal family and the Beatles, meets a new girlfriend, and becomes the kids’ favourite babysitter.

Writer-performer Andy Jones has been doing Uncle Val for some 30 years, and in this show he also plays himself, offering explanations for his own wildly digressive style of storytelling. “I used to feel bad about it,” he confesses, “until I realized—it’s cubist theatre! It’s like I’m flattening out my brain.”

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Letters from Uncle Val written and read by Andy Jones is available as an audio CD or digital download from Rattling Books.