Review by Frank Plowright

Toby is a teenager without a great grasp of reality, a dreamer making plans for eventualities arising from his band’s global success when currently none of them can play an instrument. He’s sent along to the Dobbiston council’s offices for work experience, and allocated to Mr. Daniels, who’s been running the council’s lost property office for longer than anyone can remember, and has a reputation for being a little odd. As we learn, that’s a considerable understatement. In his spectacles and staid jumper he looks the world’s most least charismatic individual, but his ideas are wildly unconventional, as is the lost property office.

Aristotle’s Cuttlefish is a title that eventually makes sense, very much reflecting Mr. Daniels’ personality. Matthew Dooley’s art is very clean, simplified and precise, but is combined with an observational writing style that veers in comical directions for laugh out loud moments. These are largely down to Toby’s idiocy, but a dry wit is also apparent, not least in the creation of an environment completely out of touch with reality, echoing perhaps an imagined 1960s administration in a small county town.

Yet that’s not the entire story, as in bringing Toby and Mr. Daniels closer Dooley introduces a pathos. Although of different generations they’re both outcasts, and their awkward bonding is fine-tuned over the lost property office, crown green bowls and a trip to the top of the hill. The main story is punctuated by vignettes explaining how some items ended up in the lost property office, each one a perfectly formed short story.

At its heart Arsitotle’s Cuttlefish is an exploration of loneliness, the ideas and routines people develop without companionship or a sounding board, and what they cling on to. For all the laughs the sadness is never a subject for comedy, and there’s a real tug at the heartstrings to end.

With nuance, good-natured understanding and a warm human heart it’s difficult to suggest how this could have been improved in any way.