With his absurd stories, Wim Helsen offers blissful escapism

‘That’s fair!’ When life once again gets bogged down in total chaos, with all its windfalls and setbacks, you can always compare it to a fair. Yes, anyone who visits a show by comedian Wim Helsen always comes home with some freshly learned Flemish words and expressions.

Wim Helsen is back in the theater, and how! In Not my monkeys, not my circus shows Helsen again why he is the master of absurdism. Unlike predecessor You are being listened to (2016), which was certainly funny but lingered too long in the set-up of ‘man leads chaotic funeral’, Helsen is again much more abstract and unpredictable here. As in his best shows, he treats the viewer to a completely inimitable story. Not only are the situations themselves witty, but so are the side paths and weird details with which Helsen stuffs it. It is also very cleverly and visually acted, full of beautiful language.

This time the story starts in Wim’s own street in Antwerp, where a parking fine leads to a difficult telephone conversation with a government agency. That seems futile, but with Helsen this quickly becomes a Kafkaesque story full of frustrations with the eccentric, clumsy character he always portrays in his theater work. It quickly becomes very funny, for example, when Helsen thinks too long about the slogan that appears next to a disabled parking space: ‘If you take my parking space, take my handicap too’. Or if in between he forges the code on his parking ticket into a bizarre song. Why does he do that? Just because you can, probably.

Before we know it we have arrived at a city walk where Wim is chased by both a police officer and a goat. Yes, that goat (‘A Belgian country goat with long hair and a goatee’) plays an important role, because he appears in Wim’s dreams about his father. The goat can sometimes suddenly talk, delivering one-liners such as ‘There is no such thing as guilt’.

Absurdity and humor predominate, but there is seriousness underneath. Helsen copes with the difficult relationship with his father, who died five years ago and with whom he could not talk about feelings. The goat and the father clearly have a connection, and there are more demons that Helsen struggles with. He invents enemies that are not there, but at the same time asks himself: what have I got to say without enemies?

The psychological background is a strong addition to Helsen’s unique style of cabaret making. But the most appealing thing about his show is the escapism it offers. It is wonderful to be drawn into such a completely different world in times of pandemic and war. Wim Helsen succeeds in this, with his fantasies, his silly dances to loud music, and his explanation why the ‘i’ is the happiest of all letters.