I am going to assume that I wasn’t the only unsuspecting member of the audience at the Ovalhouse in this hour of insanity, hippies, music and art that all starts in the hands of Jamie Wood and his co-director Wendy Hubbard. This hour in the company of Wood’s one-man show is entertaining to say the least; he ensures that the hour will be so out-of-this-world that no-one in the audience could forget it.

As we enter the auditorium we are calmly introduced to Wood, dressed in a kimono with chimes over his ears and arms, culturally introducing us to the Japanese Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s long-time partner. Individually we are asked to ring these chimes with a hammer, supposedly creating a scene of serenity for the show to begin. This initiates the intimacy between Wood and his audience that is enhanced as we delve further into the foolishness that ensues.

We are guided through the different stages of the piece through a voiceover, revolving around John Lennon and Yoko Ono in relation to Wood’s own life, exploring love and politics. After a sequence in which Wood “repeats the word until dawn”, the audience is faced with a collection of ironic rules that introduce the structure of Yoko Ono’s artwork to shape the production.

Wood himself is a representation of almost everything and everyone: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, some sheep, or whatever your imagination can make you think of. The rest of the time it is the audience that represents anyone he needs, providing some spontaneous and ridiculous moments. Throughout the piece the audience is required to do a collection of different activities, some weirder than others. The first is to cut sections of Wood’s clothing off and, with an imaginative and daring audience accompanied by Wood’s reactions, this leads to some hysterical moments. At another instance, Wood plays with pieces of wool representing sheep, which are then formed into two clouds. Two members of the audience are encouraged to personify these and, along with the ‘sun’, are allowed artistic licence to create something obscenely extraordinary.

Perhaps the weirdest and most comedic moments come towards the end of the show, where one audience member is asked to accompany Wood in taking off their clothes inside a bag, or when the audience is asked to make a connection through touch with all the lights off. The finale just completes the manic, psychedelic production I had just witnessed as, as an audience, we create a microcosmic world. Our voices and various other insane instruments creates the Earth, air and life. We have come full circle to the psychotic serenity of the beginning of the production.

Amidst the comedy that remains at the forefront of this production the, gunshots – presumably representing Lennon’s assassination – are relevant and prominent. We are given a background to his life with Yoko Ono and see that the world really did mourn for his death.

This one-man show would be nothing without the creative team behind the scenes. While Wood is entertaining and bewilders the audience, Dominic Kennedy’s sound design enhances the hippy movement and brings us into Lennon’s era with well-known songs.

I can see this one-man show doing phenomenally well at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this year, as the audience is guaranteed an hour of mayhem. However, there may be some benefit in giving some reasoning behind the whole production. Although I was engulfed in the madness, I craved some logic and something that would spark an idea rather than just the manic atmosphere, however entertaining it was.

O No! is playing at the Ovalhouse Downstairs until 24 May. For more information and tickets, see the Ovalhouse website.