The third edition of John-Luke-apalooza this Fringe, and sadly the final. But all good things must come to an end. For this one, it’s JLR’s 2017 show Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair! (All In Caps), a show I saw in preview at ARG all those moons ago. All I really remembered from it was it beginning with an extended scene of a naked JLR as Geoffrey Chaucer, and then absolutely nothing of the remaining 53 minutes or so of it. So this is a pretty opportune show to revisit.
It feels in many ways like a turning point for JLR, although maybe that might more accurately be Builds A Monster, the previous show, if I recall correctly. It feels like it’s the show where the absurdism starts taking on a different form, structurally superficially looser (compare, e.g., Stdad-Up, two shows before this, and All I Wanna Do etc., the show after it; the former a full throughline of a single extended premise, the latter a seeming hodge podge of ideas and bits - “seeming” being the operative). There’s lots of bits that don’t fully gel together - if they’re even supposed to - which are all still incredibly funny in their own right.
It’s interesting, then, that this is both a) a show that JLR explains is him looking to make something significant, yet b) arguably his least “significant” show in that regard. There isn’t really anything here on the level of Stdad-Up or A World Just Like Our Own, But as personal expression, nor All I Wanna Do etc. as philosophical expression. Builds A Monster I think probably likewise, but without the pretence. Probably a good lesson to learn of not being able to force it. Should take note of that.
There’s further evidence of JLR’s penchant for coming up with lists of things he can just sit down and bash out - in Look On My Works, it’s predicting how people will die, which is another lovely conceit for it.
It’s also fascinating to note that two shows (and, indeed, years for OG JLR) later, there’s still Dad stuff bleeding into his work - the character who goes through the audience predicting deaths is not explicitly his dad, but the same Birkenhead accent rears its head, and in another segment of the show, JLR barks at an audience member to apologise, then telling them to do so like they mean it. This is gone by All I Wanna Do, which again, turning point.