Hancock's Last Half Hour @ The Assembly Rooms

Pip Utton returns to the Edinburgh Fringe once again, in the one-man show Hancock’s Last Half Hour, written by Heathcote Williams. Utton stars as the hapless Hancock, a once-famous comedian spending his final hours cooped up in an Australian hotel with several bottles of vodka, the sole solution to drown away his regrets. The ensuing rant for the next hour demonstrates, through the powerful acting of Utton, that his despair has reached unbearable levels for him to continue coping with his existence. For a play that seems to have potential, it is a shame that the slurred speech of the actor strains the ears of the audience as they attempt to understand the messy dialogue that tumbles from his mouth.

The lack of diction, combined with the constant name-dropping of historical figures, makes the play rather incomprehensible to the average theatregoer. While a select few members of the audience will chuckle contently at Hancock’s witticisms, one will have to have had the required knowledge to appreciate the play to its full extent. The moment a script assumes that the audience is aware of obscure facts or events, it tends to lose its appeal, or at the very least alienates certain individuals who do not have the entirety of history inscribed on their foreheads. Therefore, when Hancock proclaims in expressive gesture, “I don’t know any jokes,” this appears to be the only comprehensible truth of the entire play.