Back into weird world, we join Luke Rollason in the 10 Dome for an hour of clowning about fairy tales. Again, another show I didn’t know much about going into, but I know Luke reputationally through Alasdair and if I can’t trust that, who can I trust? (Chortle, The List, The Scotsman, Beyond The Joke, The Guardian…)
I do like clown shows - big fan of many of them. And I did enjoy this, a lot, but something in it just didn’t connect for me for some reason. Some little bit of it just felt distant and I can’t put my finger on it (luckily, it’s worth remembering, these are not reviews, just recollections of my own thoughts. I have no professional or moral obligation to make sense of my feelings about these, and we should all keep that in mind).
The gear is good, though - broadly built around set pieces of fairy tales absurdly brought to life, often using toilet roll in some form, there’s some really inventive stuff here that I think does work on the micro level.
A slight problem tonight, perhaps, is the audience (something Rollason acknowledges towards the end). Too often, audience members relied upon for interaction are not doing the job, which is very simple and more audiences should learn this - all you need to do is respond normally and obviously; the comedian will do the job of making it funny. Trying to be funny yourself is not advisable. The result here is some set pieces not reaching their full potential, and it’s a shame.
Obviously the point of clowning is that you own the chaos and the failure of intention etc. etc., and Rollason is very good at that here, still helping hold it all together. He’s putting his back into it, and the facial expressions and physical mannerisms are all playing a crucial if understated part in it (with a couple of oddly Mr Chonkers-esque expressions).