by AMY BARRATT

The play Man 1 Bank 0 begins with a disclaimer projected on a screen at the back of the stage. The gist of it is that Patrick Combs, who performs the piece, is neither an actor nor a comedian, but just a guy with an absolutely 100 per cent true story to tell. Welcome to Reality Theatre.

Man 1 Bank 0 is back in town, having won the Just for Laughs best comedy award at the 2005 Fringe. JFL has programmed it as one of seven one-man shows in a new series called Flying Solo. Not bad for a non-actor, non-comedian.

In the show, Combs tells how he received a junk cheque for $95,000 in the mail and decided to deposit it in his ATM and see what would happen. Instead of signing the cheque, he drew a little happy face on the back, as a sort of in-joke with the teller he imagined processing the deposit. To his astonishment, the cheque went through. The rest of the show has Combs trying to understand what has happened, whether he has a right to keep the money or whether he has in fact committed fraud.

Before seeing it, I imagined Man 1 Bank 0 would be something like Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure (which was here two comedy festivals ago), and it is in that both men stand up and tell stories that actually happened to them. The difference is that Gorman was and is a comedian and he knew fairly early in his adventure that he would be making a show out of it. If Combs says he didn’t have any larger plan the day he put that cheque into the machine at First Interstate Bank in San Francisco, I have to take his word for it, but can’t help wondering why he photographed or photocopied the cheque first (this image is one of many projections).

The show focuses so tightly on the story of the cheque that we find out virtually nothing about who this guy is. All of this happened back in 1995 when Combs must have been about 25. He doesn’t give any indication of what he was doing with his life at that point, but his faded jeans torn at the knees suggest somebody who doesn’t have a “real job.” The story works so well because $95,000 is more money than we can imagine this guy will ever see. He is the nice guy underdog, and you’d have to be a banker not to root for him.

All this to say that this piece may be 100 per cent true, but it’s also really carefully crafted. Combs, as you can read on his Web site, had majored in speech and communications at university with a minor in marketing—not a bad training for a performer when you think about it. Since the junk cheque story won him his 15 minutes of fame with appearances on Hard Copy, Letterman and Leno, Combs has become a motivational speaker and author of books titled Major in Success and Gearing Up (Inside & Out) for a Great Life.

I’m not allowed to tell you whether Combs kept the $95,000 windfall. Let’s just say that, with or without it, he’s doing all right these days.

Man 1, Bank 0, through July 23, 7:30 p.m., at Centaur (453 St-François-Xavier), $25.50, 845-2322, boxoffice@hahaha.com

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