Bane vs Odyssey

Bane is a one man tour-de-force, a story-telling version of a Tarantino film that runs through the clichés and pictures a hard-bitten macho man in full violent flow. It toys with the conventions of the thriller, sends up the absurd edges and dabbles with cinematic techniques: undoubtedly a crowd-pleasing and very impressive monologue. Deliberately lacking depth, it never manages to comment on the casual violence or hyper-reality of the genre, preferring to retreat into humour when seriousness threatens.

By taking a simple format – one speaker, one guitarist – Whitebone have demonstrated how a lot can be done with a little. A familiarity with tough-guy movies or seventies action series would make Banes' world easier to enter, and the series of melodramatic scenes are witty, sparky and sharp. The ironic signposting of plot-points, the flashback sequences: Bane laughs at the obviousness.

Fun and thoughtless, Bane is little more than set-pieces and sketches strung together by a violent narrative. The mixture of jokes and violence make this a good bet for a light Fringe afternoon, and is performed with aplomb and the right dose of irony. And the Johnny Cash cover is hilarious.

The Odyssey, however, is a straight retelling of the Odyssey. It even takes the original's narrative structure, filters it through the Lecoq approach – basically mime with story-telling – and lathers it with exaggerated detail. George Mann plays all the parts, links the stories, hurling himself around the stage and delighting the audience by being intimately connected with the tale and nodding to the crowd with a knowing grin.

Again, the performer becomes more important than the content. It is through Mann that Ulysses comes to life and this age-old epic is reduced to a set-piece that is awe-inspiring and versatile. There can be no criticism of the technique: it is exhausting even to watch. The story insight is given no new spin, and while the content is traditionally adult, the presentation feels, at times, a little too much like story-time for children.

Mann is a remarkable performer: he does the gods, the heroes, the lonely wife, the vicious suitors. Barely a gesture is wasted, and with his arms he conjures an entire Homeric universe. It is enthralling, an expression of high craft and completely engaging. However, such a well-worn adventure responds well to interpretation – that is why it has survived – and the production fails to elucidate the characters further than the original.

The immediacy of these monologues is gripping, and the performers deserve to be congratulated. But, like Plato, I would rather send them to another city until they are able to use theatre to educate rather than just entertain.