More on Six Thinking Hats: The (Non)-Musical

Quick follow-up to my previous posts (here and here) on Asher Treleaven's Six Thinking Hats stand-up comedy routine.

First, the Guardian reviews Edinburgh fringe. Of Treleaven's show, they say, "Not many comics could get away with introducing their show as 'like a comedy TED talk', but Treleaven always walks a fine line between the intellectual and the physical – he sums up his show as 'Daddy issues, juggling and ball cancer'. It's a slick blend of physical comedy, beat poetry, circus skills and some nicely crafted lines – he describes a fellow performer as 'the sort of woman who would try to give you echinacea for Aids' – but you can't help feeling at the end that you wanted to know more, or at least to see beneath the carefully polished surface."

Second, the Independent gives Treleaven a column in which he muses about art vs. sport, or the decision to attend Edingburgh fringe vs. the Olympic Games. He also summarizes the different hats, although I fear he rather makes a hash of yellow and black. It's completely wrong to call the yellow hat "speculative creativity," whatever that means. Regular readers of this blog know that the yellow hat represents benefits and positive outcomes, not creativity (whether speculative or otherwise).

As for the black hat, Treleaven calls it "the Black Hat of critical thinking and decision-making," which is both imprecise and flat-out wrong. The statement is imprecise in that the black hat is "critical thinking" in the sense of "criticizing" or "identifying problems," not in the larger sense of "logic and analysis" (which in fact is a property of all six hats). Furthermore, the statement is wrong in that the decision-making hat is the Blue Hat, which controls the thinking process and determines next steps.

On balance, however, I'm still endlessly entertained by the idea of a Six Thinking Hats stand-up routine (or, for that matter, a Six Thinking Hats musical), and I do hope to catch a performance sometime. Has anybody seen the show? I'd love to hear your thoughts.