Wot? No Fish!!

Danny Beaverman best sums up his poignant one-man show right at the beginning—when handing out gefilte fish snacks — liking it to the accompanying horseradish and beetroot relish called chrain. He then mellifluously recounts the tale of shoemaker Ab Solomons, who drew a doodle on the weekly wage-packet he gave his wife, Celie, between 1926 and 1982. Beaverman’s relaxed delivery of what is simultaneously a study on outsider art, the history of the Jewish East End and a  meditation on life, can’t help raise a smile and bring a tear to the eye. The show is, indeed, just like life and chrain, “Bitter, sweet and indelible.”

The Old Market, 20 February 2014
Rating:
Tim Pilcher