Phoebe Bakker
A gentle whirring is the soundtrack to this show. Shredder transcends, dangling the absurd and performance art in front of us. In a time of more information than ever, can we really let go of the things we hold dear, the mundanity of life or does their impact leave a larger impression than we could have possibly imagined?
The premise is simple, the dissection of the show however, is not. David Mcgovern shreds everything, no matter what it is and that’s as much context as you get. What you want to make out of that is up to you. This piece centres around relationships rather than plot focused narrative and McGovern’s own feelings about what he is shredding are shrouded in mystery. We sit in bafflement as a projection of numbers appears behind. Numbers count down as he circles the shredder. Childhood pictures, recipes, diary entries, AI slop, bills, birthday messages, but it’s not just physical things, “everything I was so sure about gets shredded too”. As we speed ahead, the numbers turn to zero, the room scattered with shredded, wadded up paper. Remnants of a life that has been lived. The floor feels more like a museum than it does a site of battle.
McGovern’s boldness has me delighted to no end. He is fearless in his taunting of us, prancing round the audience and playing them expertly. It’s reminiscent of a comedian’s crowd work in the way he carries his confidence. It permeates through, and I trust him completely giddily, even if I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m watching, and the sentiment is returned tenfold. It takes a strong performer to sit in the silence. But he does so with an ease, taking breaks frequently. Observing us, observing him. I wanted to sit in it more. To watch how the audience dissect their feelings longer but he gets the job across, giving us space to sit with our thoughts. Dangling this false sense of agency and even being as daring as to leave the theatre entirely.
In between the moments of shredding we break out of this realm into something more fluid. Desperation clings from either McGovern or by the video that plays behind him as he naps is a reminder of the ties and connections we seek out, or still have even after we attempt to move. It’s one thing to physically remove something from existence but it’s a different thing to actually have that connection severed. The people on screen lust after the shredder like something one would see from a very different x rated show. I wanted more of this, moments of peace or calmness that really contrasted the harshness of the image of a shredder. Theres beautiful lyricism that flows here, which could have been pushed further into the show at different points to break up some of the staccato elements. I would love to have seen what that would have looked like embodied within McGovern in the shredder realm as we have glimpses of it with these beautiful curtain like drapings of kitchen roll shredding.
You definitely leave this show with more questions than you enter, and that is by design. I find myself here sifting through thoughts and feelings still, but it is what you make of it. To me, this show is a symbol of how we try to let go of the past, but those connections, no matter how we try to sever them, important or not important still live within us. We are all archaeologists, and living means to dig up what we have buried beneath.
Shredder has now concluded it’s run at the Dublin Fringe 2025.
Image Credit: Amanda Braide
Jake Mace
