Every year when the Fringe Guide is unveiled, you can quickly ascertain with a few page flicks which shows will have mass appeal; the glitzy, big budget arena circus spectaculars that will offer one hundred and twenty minutes of choreographed wonderment.
This show, presented by Acrobat, is the antithesis of the people-pleasing mega-circus. The two performers, Jo Lancaster and Simon Yates, arrived on stage in makeshift clown garb, impressing with an array of bicycle stunts.
They then proceeded to feign appreciation of the audience’s affection; they were not there to be adulated. Events would incrementally descend into anarchy; male child birth, singing off key, gruesome suicide simulation, gender politics and a Cossack dance scene that reduced me to snivelling fits of tearful laughter.
From moment to moment, it was impossible to predict what you would see and subsequently how you would feel. It is the kind of show that typifies what Fringe once meant, ending as it does with two mud caked semi-nude artists.
It is a show that rebels against the easy laugh or the spoon feeding of comprehension. It is a show where some will walk out, some will seek refunds but then others will stand and cheer.
Populism, in art or politics, necessarily involves a dilution of substance. This show is so substantial that it is as thick as mud.
★★★★☆
