Ben Target review – kooky comic wants to send you to sleep

It’s my dream with this show, says Ben Target, “to send someone in this room – myself excluded – to sleep”. Splosh! is “a mellow comedy”, he says, summoning hypnopompia, the state of consciousness between asleep and awake. And so begins another off-beam show by the career oddball, returning us to the landscape of his childhood (we’re led to believe) in Houston, Texas – where men are men, sports are competitive and unicorns feast on candyfloss.

Target has time only for the last of those; the show is an outright rejection of the others. Clad in turquoise swimwear, he tells us about his cheerleader dad, underwater archaeologist mum (“we only saw her when the tide went out”) and his sister, who joins Ben on the Houston swim squad. Delivered with fluting voice and staring eyes while prowling among his audience, Target’s Speedo-thin narrative never gets near the fast lane, as our host diverts into absurdist quizzes, doodles of fish and invitations to the audience to pelt him with ping-pong balls.

So it is a tonal jolt when Splosh! is recast on a dime as Target’s response to a traumatic incident from his adolescence. It’s hard to know how seriously to take that – not least because he emits mixed signals about the show’s significance. What is certain is that it could be stronger structurally, and some of its material is more kooky than funny. But with its exploration of life’s “tiny triumphs” and embrace of outsider values, Splosh! does cock a quiet snook at Texan machismo. And keeps its audience tickled. I didn’t fall asleep, but I found Target’s imagination a cosy and charming place to pass the time.