BRUCE Bane is a new breed of pulp-fiction anti-hero.

He may be inspired by hard-boiled detective stories and clasic film noir, but he belongs to the modern age of Hollwood blockbusters too, as much Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis as Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe.

Created and played by former film and drama student Joe Bone, he doesn't wear a hat – he leaves that to guitarist Ben Roe – and he prefers a baggy black T-shirt and a frayed winter coat to a white shirt, loosened tie and rain mac. Rather than cool in the mode of Raymond Chandler's gumshoes, Bone's Bane sweats profusely. Winter coats under theatre lights have that effect, of course, but then so does playing every character in this rapid-fire, hour-long one man and his guitarist show.

Make that three hour-long shows because Bone has three Bane episodes in his speak-easy repertoire of pulp parodies. You can see any number of them and in any order as they are all self-contained, although collectively they build up pulp-friction.

In his movies of the imagination, Bone uses no props; his only accompaniment is Roe's guitar, a musical running commentary equivalent to a Greek chorus.

The rest is pared back to Bone, who holds the world record for playing the most characters in one theatre show – there are no fewer than 43 in Bane 1 and 136 across the three episodes – and delivers them with a sense of economy that would surely have impressed Gordon Brown in his days of prudence.

Bane 1 was the story in hand on Wednesday night, when Bruce Bane was out for bloody revenge for the murder of the only woman he ever truly loved. Bane is a darkly comic creation, where Bone speeds from narrator to anti-hero to myriad characters, managing to stand both inside and outside Bane's head.

This means we can see him for what he is: the warts-and-all loner who shoots from the hip, asks questions later and has a hard-bitten world view where all women are hot for him and have more curves than the California coast and every bad guy is fair game for his gun.

Bone, meanwhile, shoots from the lip with his gift for mime and mimicry, making every noise from sparking up a lighter to all manner of gunfire, while carrying off a repertoire of American accents that is breathtaking. Physically, visually and vocally, everything is impressive, and the show is laden with atmosphere too, but if there is one failing, it is in dazzling from a distance, grabbing you by the throat more than the heart.

Coming next will be a fourth Bane story, the first to be premiered in America. He really has beome the Bane of Bone's life.

Bane, Whitebone Productions, Harrogate Studio Theatre, until December 23, including Sunday; times vary. Box office: 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk