Peter York is best known as, for want of a better description, a style guru. The man who chronicled the Sloane Ranger. Now he is offering us advice on how to be better and nicer people. How to select the correct dress shirt and the most apposite compliment.Perhaps don’t take it all too seriously.Most members of the audience at York’s latest show don’t, although he says he’s deadly serious and adopts a lecture format.At Soho Theatre, there are a constant stream of deadpan one-liners, not all-out hilarious but enough to produce plenty of knowing smiles. “Edit yourself” before writing or speaking, he says.The event’s title is the wrapper for an amusing series of musings (and I know Peter will probably hate that phrase, I am trying to edit myself here) on the general theme of style. There’s little about Sloane Rangers this time and a lot of from his 2014 book “Authenticity is a Con (Provocations).”In all, expect an hour-long diatribe of waspish putdowns, sharp wit and strong opinion.How to be nice? Some seems nasty. The scripted rant has plenty of personal and sometimes easy targets. Kanye West is the first of a host of famous people to be dissed, along with Gwyneth Paltrow, several times.York works in some topical digs at “old Islington Trot” Jeremy Corbyn, with a picture of the UK’s new Labour Party leader: “One wonders at the genealogy of the hat: John Lennon? Pete Seeger? Worzel Gummidge?”Another UK politician, Nigel Farage, is in trouble because he doesn’t drink much unless it’s a photo opportunity, claims York. Technology gurus Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and his successors are lampooned for their dull tee-shirts. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch gets it for his tracksuit: sporty clothes on men of a certain age who aren’t sporty are unacceptable in York’s book.Also among his targets: The house-sharing website Air BNB; hipsters, especially those with beards; the George Foreman Grill, and Lycra. Plus any event held in a converted gasworks in Hoxton or similar with expensively-stripped bare-brick walls and reclaimed flooring: “there is an enormous global trade in bashed-up, authentic-looking old floorboards.”York sets out a list of words to avoid, starting with “creativity.” “Stop it right now,” he says. You don’t have to be a Groucho Club member or “the Shoreditch massive” to be creative. Even people in “industrial catering in Hartlepool” claim to be creative.“Spontaneity” is also to be avoided – the sort of thing best left to small children and dogs apparently. Don’t call yourself or anything “vibrant” because “people will assume you are estate agent.” And don’t use “authentic” because the word is the basis of a lot of scams.On the other hand, he likes words like “Elysian” because it is elitist. “Stoical” is also an acceptable adjective, with its British byproduct, the “Keep Calm and Carry On” tea towel.York does a straw poll of the audience about those who have proper dress shirts and confesses he has 600 and is running out of space. “I need a shirt lifter to come and steal them.” He adds a briefing on how not to be embarrassed by your shirt on the first day at the investment bank, moving on to show a £200 hedge-fund-manager shirt which comes in peacock colors such as orange.York has been developing the show from talks at literary festivals, and the lecture also went to Edinburgh. As those who have met him can attest, he has enough knowledge to expand any of the themes to full show or a book chapter: the best shirts, the worst words, the nicest people, good etiquette. Each is worth hearing even though most people would know the basics without needing to go back to class to learn it.“I am just saying things you know in your own secret hearts,” says York. Yes, but he does say it rather well. Peter York’s “How to Become a Nicer Sort of Person” is at Soho Theatre, Dean Street, London
↧