Jay Foreman: We're Living in the Future

Jay Foreman is lovely. If he was in your circle of friends any mention of his name would be precursor to a mass "Awww". Then a rather awkward silence. Foreman seems to have cruised on his cuteness all the way to this well-publicised, impressively inane Fringe show in which the doe-eyed 26-year-old worries about his age, frets over technology and plays what must be the musical comedy equivalent of Damien Rice on his acoustic guitar.

We’re Living In The Future is structured around scraps of paper Foreman distributes among the venue chairs which contain some of the tweets he’s received – they also provide the links between his various musical numbers. But the show rather sags from the hooks of its gimmick. Foreman seems to have committed less time to penning new songs for his second Fringe appearance than, say, writing out those scraps. All the quirk of his "hit" ‘Moon Chavs’ has been traded in for a whimsical rake of the middle-ground. “Bad things turn good with the use of ‘colon p’” Foreman childishly intones in one. Internet communication is given another front-ways glance with a chorus of “I remember MSN” (repeats three times) “...and it was better than Facebook chat.” 

Still, Foreman manages to keep his audience amenably chuckling thanks to his inherent charisma and the occasional sweet reference to Microsoft Encarta. It’s no wonder he’s so alarmed by internet innovations though, the closest viral video his song lyrics recall is Rebecca Black. She’s probably pretty lovely too.