Review: Marcus Brigstocke's Vitruvian Mango at the Festival Drayton Centre
Marcus Brigstocke arrived at Festival Drayton Centre carrying a framed image of the ideal male form -- Leonardo DaVinci’s iconic Vitruvian Man. With a touch of the renaissance master’s cleverness Marcus calls his new show Vitruvian Mango, "a version that is sweeter, softer, seasonally available and, when ripe, delicately perfumed".
He opened with a handful of up-to-the-minute political jokes and a spot-on impersonation of Donald Trump. It brought much laughter and served to portray a kind of poisonous manhood far from Marcus’s Mango. Throughout the show he would punctuate the comic musings of his sweeter self with darker versions of what it means to be a man. He included a particularly effective put-down of Andrew Tate, alongside an apology for even mentioning the name.
As well as being highly intelligent Marcus Brigstocke’s humour is also broadly inclusive. His exploration of Mango-manhood was progressive, supportive, and above all non-patriarchal.
"Male friendship is very important", he insisted. "The world is a complex, nuanced place." All this and then a hilarious scene with a man from the front row cajoled onto the stage and asked to pose as a giant ovum while Marcus swam his microphone tadpole-like towards him to demonstrate fertilisation.
On AI: "Men are going to be the most affected since up to now they’re the ones who monopolised going on about stuff at length without knowing where it comes from". On being amazed that suicide is the major cause of death for men aged 25 to 40: "It ought to be parkour!" That led into: "Okay, we’re going to talk about our feelings and our mental health."
There were exchanges with people in the audience about ADHD and autism that were both sensitive and funny, followed by Marcus saying: "I’m dyslexic. It’s the chicken korma of neurodivergence."
What Mango-man really needed to function well in the modern world, Marcus insisted, was a clearly defined task, a chance of success, and the promise of approval. He explained how it worked for him during his nine months working on an oil rig, in his marriage, and as a father travelling solo with his three-year-old, earning plenty of laughs along the way.
The blurb for this tour asked: "What are men for? Do they still serve some useful function?" In the particular case of Marcus Brigstocke one obvious answer is: ‘To make people think and to make people laugh.’
