Once a day at the Edinburgh Fringe, a member of staff at Summerhall has the privilege of issuing a ‘final call’ for a show called Man Sings The Same Song Over and Over Again For An Hour, which itself (presumably – as I was already seated at this point) solicited a range of responses from anyone within earshot, from pondering whether to see it or relief that they were booked in for something else. It was reasonable, at least in my opinion, to have expected some variation in the style of delivery of the same said song. The show’s title is accurate. The venue’s press team ‘politely’ asked (as opposed to what – tersely asking?) that members of the press not mention the song title. So I suppose I can tell you what it is not. It has ‘na-na-na-na-na’ (etc) in its lyrics but it is not ‘Hey Jude’.
As I was accurately prewarned by a Fringe performer who had already seen the show, it’s not really about the song. Being an absurdist piece, it is somewhat left to the audience to determine what it was about – for this reviewer, it was about perseverance to see through something, whatever that ‘something’ is in life, to the end, and eventually reaping the rewards of hard work and difficult challenges.
And so it was that Conk (as Connor Dariol goes by) does indeed sing the same song over and over again for an hour. And because he had an hour (he had a timer on a big screen behind him for the duration of the performance), the audience was either treated or subjected to a few iterations in the same manner before some variation was introduced. Six minutes in, I’m fairly certain I wasn’t the only one thinking: “Uh oh. Fifty-four minutes more of this crap.” Fifty-five minutes later, with much of the audience having taken to the stage in a theatrical equivalent of a football pitch invasion, I found myself joining in chants of “One more song! One more song!”
The Same Song was hollered, it was whispered, it was sung nonchalantly, it was sung melodramatically. It was sung standing, it was sung sitting down, it was sung lying down, it was sung whilst doing a workout, it was breathlessly sung whilst recovering from it. There was an acoustic version. Song sheets were passed around, which could mean only one thing: audience participation. So there I was, stood up, singing, “Na na na na na…”
Repetitive? Well, duh. But never, ever boring.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Man Sings is Australian comic Conk’s deceptively simple, delirious fever dream for al to enjoy. Connecting a room of strangers through a feat of utmost stupidity, the show cherishes the here and now of life and making each other laugh. The main question now is – who will lose their mind first? Conk, or the audience?
Written and performed by Conk
Directed by Casey Gould
MAN SINGS THE SAME SONG OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR AN HOUR
Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe
6 to 31 August 2026
