Back by popular demand, quite literally filling a space on the Free Festival, Jon Bennett’s “cock” show contains the most beautiful use of penises since Michaelangelo’s David.  Delivering his material through the medium of a PowerPoint presentation, Bennett is never crude, never sets out to shock, and certainly never whips out his own member as a last-resort gag (although he claims that some audiences need more convincing than others).  He’s simply a master storyteller, regaling the room with tales of his adventures around the world on a journey of enlightenment and self-discovery… but ultimately, a quest to take some pictures pretending really weird things are a cock.

There’s no two ways about it: that is the premise of this show.  And it’s a concept that’s gone viral, since the internet loves this kind of thing.  It’s simple, silly, but above all, inclusive; men, women and tiny monkeys have all been a part of this phenomenon.  And while Bennett doesn’t claim to have created the idea per se, his name is now synonymous with the hundreds of pictures popping up daily, usually in his own inbox.

Bennett seems like a missionary, spreading the word of cock across the globe for several years now, and building an eclectic multi-cultural community of loyal followers who have all set out to see the world from a different perspective.  It’s a journey that began in childhood, rooted in his spite for his brother, who himself had a weird obsession with his own member (and about whom Bennett has written his latest show Fire in the Meth Lab, which he is also performing this year).  Bennett talks of his childhood and how his family shaped him, his minister father’s seriousness, and how in hindsight his upbringing wasn’t as heartbreaking as some people’s.

So – hard though it is to imagine – this show with “cock” in the title actually involves poignant thoughts, moments of realisation and genuine artistic merit.  Bennett has a natural ability to stand on a stage and hold the audience on his every word.  One minute he draws a huge laugh by getting someone really nice to say “cock”, other times he induces a great deal of wincing by describing, in vivid detail, a quite personal and horrible experience while searching for a hot spring in Peru.

But he never falls back on penis jokes to carry it through.  Which is good, because pretending things are a cock is an idea for everyone to get into.  It’s about celebrating imagination and creating a community.  A community of people sharing their own “cocks”.

PS.  There were no actual cocks in this performance.  Or were there?