Jamie Finn: Nobody’s Talking About Jamie (Taylor’s Version)

Edinburgh Fringe – Underbelly

Friendship break-ups are more common than we think and we don’t talk about them. In Nobody’s Talking About Jamie (Taylor’s Version) Jamie Finn blows the lid on this topic, brings it into the light (onstage), and explores the idea how someone can be the most important part of your life to suddenly not having a role in it. 

This is more of a theatre piece/ monologue with dry jokes peppered in rather than a full stand-up set. We’re being taken through a memory, a story, and Finn does weave a little magic through it. There is perhaps a dream-like element to it if we look closely. He’s a good narrator, making the odd nudging quip that makes us chuckle. We don’t perhaps initially understand the significance of his stage dressing- the stationary bike, candles – even if they are a curious mix of objects to bring together, and Finn gives them meaning that lends a certain pathos to these otherwise ordinary objects. 

“Finn does weave a little magic.”

It’s a shame that Finn doesn’t bring out his guitar more, he writes songs in a way that is completely out of the ordinary for this genre of music, touching on ideas that haven’t quite made it into the back catalogue of many musicians. The songs are funny and it’s just something a little bit different in a story that relies on Finn talking and describing events or feelings to us. 

Finn’s narrative layering is pretty thin, and doesn’t particularly go far in creating this world or story in front of our eyes. The other characters that he introduces us to – whilst have their own defining characteristics – aren’t particularly big or have a presence to the point where we can them for ourselves or that we know them in any meaningful way. We become less involved in the story that way, and an emotional reaction to Finn’s words is less likely to be triggered because of it. Even though Finn uses lights, sound design to try and replicate these intense party atmospheres that become regular over the course of the show, this itself becomes a little repetitive. Finn does take us to the edge, he does try and create a moment deep enough for us to reflect on our experience perhaps, but the story doesn’t quite achieve that.

Ultimately, the lack of immediacy and intimacy means that Finn holds us at an arms length the entire hour. Whilst there is a solid narrative here, we don’t feel involved, we’re not drawn in. We’re not immersed in this world of sounds, characters and emotions. And maybe that’s a sense of Finn’s rationality over the piece, which  attaches a coldness or even a timidity to Nobody’s Talking about Jamie (Taylor’s Version). 

By Katerina Partolina Schwartz

Photo Credit: The Other Richard