Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel: a stripped-back performance that’s sharper than a serpent’s tooth

Battersea Arts Centre, London

★★★★

9th March 2023

Tim Crouch’s deliberately contradictory one-man show questions the endurance of theatre in an increasingly digital world.

The stage is empty except for a mic stand and a stool holding a pint of water. The house lights are up. Tim Crouch enters for this relaxed performance of his one-man show, Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel, a thought-provoking and playfully paradoxical rumination on the state of theatre and society. 

Crouch points to audience members he can apparently see through his VR headset: a “chancer” who has nabbed an empty seat in the stalls, the “pre-theatre dinner man” who is suffering from a bout of heartburn, the disinterested corporate sponsors. Using only words, he lifts us from this purposefully barren performance space and transports us to an elaborate theatre where a production of King Lear is in full swing. The Fool has left the play just before the plot descends into barbarity, “when the jokes fail us.” 

Crouch insists there are no jokes in this play, yet he intersperses the Fool’s narrative with darkly funny stand-up sets, removing his VR headset to comment on our world and implying it isn’t so different from the one Lear’s Fool has left behind. He points to societal inequalities and mocks the belief within left-wing echo chambers that the world is becoming more tolerant and empathetic. 

There’s a bitter melancholy beneath the humour, as Crouch pays particular attention to his own art form, suggesting that the state of theatre is as scorched and desolate as the heath on which a distraught Lear staggers. He suggests that the arts are now mainly the preserve of the wealthy, represented by the bored, rich audience members he calls out in the VR theatre. In the post-pandemic world, he wonders if there’s even an appetite for live events when most of them can now be streamed at home. 

This is the play’s central paradox. At first, the VR headset seems to symbolise the encroaching metaverse and a broader implication that digital platforms are replacing live experiences. However, Crouch is quick to point out that “there’s nothing in [the VR headset], by the way”, removing its power from the storytelling process and cementing the writer, his craft and his imagination as the driving force of the play — not technology. “Look, see with your ears”, he implores us.

And we do. We are held captive by Crouch’s embodiment of the Fool as he takes him back to the world he has deserted, only to find blindness, destruction, and cruelty. With recent cuts to arts funding and a brutal cost of living crisis, we’re left wondering how we can better protect each other, and the precious shared experiences that have the power to unite us.  

Accompanied only by Pippa Murphy’s haunting sound design, Crouch proves that the spoken word, delivered live in a shared space, is still electrifying, and doesn’t have to take place in the grand theatre of his VR headset. His innovative show demonstrates the ever-evolving nature of theatre and the enduring demand for live performances, even as budgets tighten and the future remains uncertain.