list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL COMEDY
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MR SWALLOW AND THE VANISHING ELEPHANT Another Swallow spectacular ●●●●●
LOUISE REAY A plight made worse by ploughing on ●●●●● INGRID DAHLE: WINGRID A positive show about an unconventional upbringing and fridges ●●●●●
The wilfully irritating but curiously loveable Mr Swallow has performed some amazing feats of wonder during his time on the Fringe, from incredible memorisation to perilous Houdini-inspired water-based escapology. But now he’s in Edinburgh to attempt the biggest one of them all: to make an elephant disappear before our very eyes! Except the practicalities of making such a preposterous illusion work every day means that there really is no elephant in the room (or is there . . . ?).
Instead, Nick Mohammed’s creation throws
together a cornucopia of magical delights, with more memory games, a floating table and an attempt at sawing himself in half. The appeal of a large-scale Mr Swallow show such as this is twofold: there are the tricks and illusions which, in the main, come off brilliantly, but there is also the character himself.
An uptight, over-enthusiastic, crisps-obsessed man who always stays just on the right side of having a meltdown in a public place, the laughs are always of equal importance to the spectacle. While the gags aren’t as plentiful as in previous shows, Mohammed as Swallow as an over-the-top Liverpudlian psychic is a delirious success. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, until 26 Aug, 7.30pm, £11.50–£14.50 (£10.50–£13.50).
Normally, when a comedian is reading from their notes on stage, it means they’re still in preview mode and working out whether bits of their new material should stay or go. It’s not often that a stand-up is clutching a script that has been approved by their lawyers just two days before the start of the Fringe. But due to ongoing legal proceedings which resulted from Reay’s last hour-long show, she’s been instructed that she cannot improvise in case she spills something out that can be used in court against her and that there are only a certain number of topics she can broach. Weirdly, they all appear to start with the letter ‘p’, such as pregnancy, pets and pizza.
What Reay is left with is, well, zilch. With a jolly hockey-sticks demeanour and a bodyguard / tech called Michael (a woman with false moustache and wig), she powers through on energy alone, but the joke-free atmosphere becomes highly claustrophobic.
It isn’t the Ingrid Dahle of the present that opens this show, but the Ingrid Dahle of the future. Appearing from behind a colourful blanket to a tinkly sound effect, she tells us of her confidence in a wildly successful future, with not one but two American- style fridges. But her story starts back in the present before she has those things. She’s an incredibly warm host, with bags of
energy. Her debut show is an exuberant affair as she wonders how we can recapture the joy we have as children. This is the time before other people’s opinions of us matter, and when we’re still riding about on an imaginary horse. Originally from Norway, Dahle regales us with some brilliant tales of her dorky childhood being ‘bored in the fjord’, from joining the Jesus revolution to her weird family and unconventional response to romantic rejection.
It’s easy to sympathise with her plight, but given The jokes thin a little as she moves onto the realities
her planned show was not deemed fit for public consumption, Reay could have brought back one of her old shows or cut some losses and pulled out completely. Instead, she’s left with a 50-minute ‘show’ that’s a waste of everyone’s time. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Laughing Horse @ Cabaret Voltaire, until 26 Aug (not 14), 4.15pm, donations. of working as a stand-up comedian but we share in her triumphs along the way. Wingrid is such a joyous show that Dahle’s positive outlook should make you believe that you too can find your childhood horse. (Rowena McIntosh) ■ Heroes @ Bob’s BlundaBus, until 26 Aug (not 8), 9.20pm, £5 in advance or donations at the venue.
NINA CONTI IS MONKEY Skilful and testing work from UK’s best-known ventriloquist ●●●●●
It seems a shame to mention how Nina Conti appears on the stage at the beginning of her show but if I don’t this review will end pretty much here. If you thought the ventriloquist’s act with her legendary filthy simian sidekick Monk couldn’t go any further, you’d be wrong. This time Conti has actually become Monk. Yep she’s got an ape suit and she’s going to wear it.
And uncomfortably at that. Whether the awkwardness will be in the show near the end of the run, who knows, but it would be a shame to lose the fun to be had in the sheer impracticality of wearing a massive monkey outfit. Lumbering clumsily about the stage, the only way Conti can breathe is to occasionally open Monk’s mouth so he momentarily pauses, gob agape, staring vacantly into the upper circle. The conceit enables Conti to push further the contrast between
her sweet stage personality and that which she projects onto Monk. The filthy, inappropriate, crude monkey is simply part of her, having always enabled her to say what is deemed inappropriate for a girl, and to be all those things that we know girls are as well (crude, dirty, animalistic), but are expected to hide. Then, halfway through, when we see the lithe and beautiful Conti emerge from the hairy-assed chrysalis, donning a little skirt and heels, she embraces her femininity again content in the knowledge that we know that’s not all she is. The show’s remainder is more conventional but serves to display Conti’s brilliant ventriloquism skills to great effect. She’s had the masks that make an audience member into a life-sized dummy out before, but her skill at controlling them and responding to the body language of three people at once places the depth of her abundant skill into sharp relief. (Marissa Burgess) ■ Underbelly Bristo Square, until 27 Aug (not 13), 7pm, £16–£19 (£15–£18).
8–15 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 53