Sooz Kempner: PlayStation****
PBH’s Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth (Chamber Room) (Location 156)
Sooz Kempner has been making waves for a while with the live comedy and cabaret scenes (including a memorable role as a body part in the All Star Brexit Cabaret) but she reached a whole new level of recognition during the pandemic, thanks to her social media content. Kempner combines a range of talents, her sharp wit, great timing and strong facial expressions, complemented by a trained singing voice, a deep-rooted understanding of what lands well online and the technical knowledge to make it possible. All that plus a willingness to spend what she admits an unhealthy amount of time and energy on digital bickering with right-wing trolls (and invariably giving them their asses on a plate).
These skills are all used directly or indirectly in Play station, a show supposedly about feeling that at age 37 Kempner still hasn’t really learned to be an adult. This continuing line is tied to the title’s Nintendo console and the sense that Kempner is in a sense stuck in the year she and her brother got one, 1998, as if they were stuck in an elevator with Lara Croft and Tony Blair. She turns this off and uses on-screen images and videos to provide observational material about different generations of video games and material about her troubled family relationships, her adventures in online comedy and the challenges of life in lockdown.
Arrested development isn’t exactly new to stand-up, and Play stationThe structure feels more and more baggy, with detours to film reports and political TV coverage. But Kempner has funny bones and, for someone who describes himself as mere “Internet success,” effortless audience reporting. There were a few technical hiccups when I saw the show, but thanks to her self-reflexive quick thinking, neither the energy nor the laughter hit the mark. Ben Walters
Lucy Hopkins: Dark Mother****
Blundagardens: Blundabus (Location 212)
She has shiny gold and black eyes, these, and a black tongue. Lucy Hopkins is the dark mother. When she gets on the bus, her womb, the lights go on and off. She brings the darkness, she brings the light. She sparkles with candles, Christmas lights, a lantern. The mother is elementary. She creates us and because of her we are here or not here.
We sit in the dark on the top deck of the bus. The dark mother asks us what we want. Are we sleepy, hungry, disturbed by the noises outside. We are little kids again, totally dependent on her strength, and she has whims and strange mood swings that scare us.
Hopkins cooes, speaks softly and reassures us. But her hands are flying around doing invisible things in the dark. We don’t understand. We laugh because we’re scared, because we recognize ourselves as little people, and because our siblings ask stupid questions in the dark.
A legend among Gaulier’s clowns, Hopkins is unparalleled in her ability to create atmospheres, work with the energy in the room, and make you laugh in the strangest of ways. She looks extraordinary, a punk rock Edith Sitwell in a fitted waistcoat and top hat. Elegant, beautiful and terrifying. Finally, the dark mother tells us a story. A strange tale of a little mermaid who falls into a jar of black, shiny jam. It’s not the story we wanted. But then it never is. We are us and our mothers are themselves. We are special people – although we often forget that.
This is a new creation and still evolving, but Hopkins has created something special, powerful and healing. Before the end of the Fringe I will go back to see it again. Claire Smith
Anthony DeVito: My father is not Danny DeVito***
Just the Tonic at The Mash House (Just the Bottle Room) (Location 288)
Anthony DeVito is a New York club comedian to the bone, a loveable Sicilian-American who habitually deals in witty jokes and self-deprecation of his heritage and relationships with women. But at the root of that persona is his exceptional backstory, which he’s been making up since he was a kid, yet came too late to come to terms with and now shares the truth in his first full-length show.
Raised in a highly matriarchal household, DeVito’s father died when he was seven months old. And his sense of the man was pooled from what little his mother revealed about her husband. But slowly, the legend that established DeVito to walk his own arduous path to manhood, including a period of rough sleep even as he made his television acting debut and excessive devotion to romantic ideals that doomed his relationships, came hard against the truth. . about his father.
Suffice it to say that the whole story is not pleasant. But the comic draws a lot of humor and tenderness from it, especially for his long-suffering mother, but to some extent also for his old man, born into a difficult way of life with few choices. The trauma of his cultural and even genetic legacy is rescued with the gratitude that DeVito was able to create a structurally haphazard but consistently funny, compelling show about it. Jay Richardson
Jon Pearson: What have you been up to***
Just the Tonic in The Caves (Just Out of the Box) (Location 88)
Having just released a stand-up show on hip American label Comedy Dynamics, Midlands-based Jon Pearson has opted for a more down-to-earth approach to his Fringe hour.
Cynics might suggest that doing an hour of mostly audience work is a way out of the platform the festival provides, or the last refuge of an act that hasn’t written enough material to fill the time. But the big man is candid about his intentions and a decent compere, informing his stash of the professions and relationship statuses of his audience members with more unexpected, quirky lines of inquiry that keep the conversation bubbling across the room.
In the course of gathering information from those before him, he reveals a little about his failed marriages, with a little insight into his second impending divorce. He also explains the practicality of a six-foot man showering in a dorm and his experience modeling plus size clothes with Freddie Flintoff.
It doesn’t come down to a huge mound of beans. But Pearson tries his best, delivering a small, undemanding hour of chuckles leading up to dinner. Jay Richardson
Séayoncé: Res-erection ***
Mounting Roxy (Top) (Location 139)
Despite its RuPaul-ready look, this spiritist-themed drag escapade has an endearing end-of-the-pier feel to it. That’s partly because our host, the sinister medium Séayoncé, greets us in the guise of one of those coastal coin machines that tell your fortune. And partly because much of the comedy stems from glorious groaning puns and puns of the sort that could have proudly graced a music hall stage.
The show’s greatest joys come from the way this talented act interacts with the audience with (often obscene) words and their confident manner. With bowed brows and mischievous features, they give an air of a daring Noel Coward character being unleashed. There’s also an oddly charming rapport with keyboardist Robin Theyfellow onstage, whose running accompaniment keeps things atmospheric, even as their character adds a gleefully rough edge.
However, the show is on less confident ground with its rather convoluted plot and songs. There’s a drawn-out setup involving interaction with demons and lost souls, leading to body-swapping shenanigans, and some songs that don’t quite scan or land as well as they could. Meanwhile, the inspiring message of self-love and self-determination feels genuine but on the nose. Still, it’s funny and charming, with dirt and heart. Spirits will be resurrected. Ben Walters
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