Soho Theatre

This review is from the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe. ‘Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz’ transfers to Soho Theatre in November 2024. Nathan Queeley-Dennis pretty much had me at the word ‘Bullring’. His debut play ‘Bullring Techno Makeout Jamz’ isn’t simply a starry-eyed paean to his (and my!) home city of Birmingham. Nor does it actually have that much to say about our iconic shopping centre, other than observing it would be a bit of a skanky place to start a date. But it does use the Second City as a sort of swoopingly romantic backdrop to his tale of a young Black Brummie’s escapades on the dating circuit.  Other cities form the backdrops to these sorts of stories all the time. But it’s rarely the case with Birmingham, a city so pathologically self-effacing that apparently a slogan under serious consideration for last year’s Commonwealth Games was ‘come if you want’. And it’s a joy to hear a giddy coming-of-age story that takes in raves in Digbeth, the seemingly millennia-old MacDonalds on the ramp leading into New Street Station, the roof of the Rotunda; a crowbarred in reminder of the fact that Birmingham has more canals than Venice… It’s perhaps also a reminder that extremely normal people come from Birmingham, because you could strip the geographical specifics away and still have a pretty buzzy coming-of-age drama about Nathaniel, a young Black man who - via a combination of society’s low expectations, and his own - has failed to really build on his promise and his fine art degree

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Clown princess Natalie Palamides first came to Fringe attention with ‘Laid’, in which she memorably committed to the bit of playing a woman who laid an egg every day, followed by 2018’s landmark ‘Nate’. A hysterically funny but weirdly poignant hour, in it the (topless but with chest hair drawn on) Palamides played the eponymous mess of a man, a pitiable dumpster fire of confused sexuality and toxic masculinity with audience interactions to die for. Picked up by Netflix for a special, it turned her into a hipster global name. Now finally here comes ‘Weer’. A natural evolution from ‘Nate’, its core concept is that Palamides plays both halves of a fractious young couple – Mark and Christina – at the same time, with her outfits and wigs divided asymmetrically down the middle (Mark on the right, Christina on the left) and her flipping from side to side depending on who’s speaking. Add to that, it’s a parody of ‘90s rom coms: it’s set in 1996 and 1999 and the pair are a Gen X couple who meet cute in the most ’90s way possible (I think also Palamides simply wanted to have the opportunity to have Mark repeatedly say ‘it’s Y2Kaaaaay’ in a stoner voice).  It is another virtuoso piece of batshittery from Palamides: on a technical level some of the stuff she’s doing is truly remarkable, especially when she’s mostly playing one character but being the arm of the other. It’s like that thing where you pretend to make out with yourself

‘It is possible to be desperately sad and have fun at the same time’ declare Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole in Sh!t Theatre’s Or What’s Left of Us, and what a mantra that proves to be.  Their first Fringe show is since the pandemic is the wilfully shambolic alt theatre duo’s ‘Nebraska’ or ‘On the Beach’ – a stripped back, folk-inflected work made in response to heartache that is, nonetheless, an essential part of their peerless back catalogue.  At several points, they reference the title – which is best read as Sh!t Theatre (Or What’s Left of Us) – in saying that this isn’t ‘true’ Sh!t Theatre, because things have changed. But when your oeuvre takes in a show about Dolly Parton and mortality (DollyWould), a show about expat culture and state-sanctioned killings in Malta (Sh!t Theatre Drink Run with Expats) and most recently one about Eva Perron and the duo’s doubt about their future (Evita Too) then their latest’s blend of folk music and grief is hardly a stretch.  Indeed, superficially it’s classic Sh!ts, featuring the duo in costume – sort of mediaeval peasant garb with occasional ‘Wicker Man’-style animal heads – and singing songs while regaling us with some recent japes they had (that inevitably take on a deeper meaning as the show wears on).  In this case, they were sad so they really got into folk: much of the show is based around their account of a visit to a legendary Yorkshire folk club, plus various spin off events from their ‘folk revival period’: going to a

This review is from the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The big word-of-mouth comedy hit at the 2024 Fringe is this outlandish yet perversely enjoyable late night gem from newcomer Huddersfield comic Joe Kent-Waters. Kind of like the degenerate, basement-raised offspring of ‘Phoenix Nights’ and ‘League of Gentlemen’ - not to mention Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ - the nominal premise is that 24 years ago, Rotherham working men’s club owner Frankie made a pact with infernal powers: they offered him a wish and he asked that they preserve his club exactly how it was - immune to the outside world - until such time as they would return to drag him into hell. I would say that one hundred percent explains what happens in this show, but that’s kind of beside the point. Lumbering on in thick white face makeup that dissolves throughout the sweaty set, Monroe seems part infernal himself. Acting as emcee, he presides over a series of bizarre games, guest acts (all played by Kent-Waters) and audience interactions that do not in any way feel like they would have seemed current in the late ‘90s, or probably the early ’70s.  I was, er, delighted to find myself the participant in one of the interactions: early on Kent-Waters/Frankie – who is a pretty big lad it has to be said – demanded I hand over my wallet. Throughout the remainder of the night I was given a series of absurd, rigged opportunities to win it back – like guessing which marigold glove was filled with scampi fries. That sort of thi

  You have a nagging problem in your life, who are you turning to? Your friends? Your therapist? What about your favourite agony aunt? Ultimately, the concept is flawed because it’s impossible to expect some celebrity journalist to sort your life out. Getting a clown to do it makes just as much sense, really.  Julia Masli’s widely acclaimed live agony aunt show was a runaway hit at the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. On its opening night at Soho Theatre, the Estonian comedian comes out in a kind of deconstructed pantomime gown, bowling shoes and on her left arm, a full-sized mannequin leg with a microphone at the end. Beaming a light from the bike helmet on her head like a kind of ‘X-Files’ alien, she approaches audience members with laser-focus, asking, ‘Problem?’. The idea behind this wonderfully odd setup is that a problem shared is a problem halved.  A clown by trade, Masli’s 2022 show ‘Choosh’ traced a migrant’s journey from Eastern Europe to the US through Chaplin-style slapstick. This nonsensical humour underpins her style of stunt comedy, yet you can’t escape the sense of real earnestness coming from our hipster host. She plays the part of an innocent, otherworldly naif with aplomb.  The show is part-meditation (our host enters to the slow voiceover of ‘ha, ha, ha,’), part-group therapy session. And the direction of it is completely determined by the audience. Tonight, the issues range from the mundane ‘my dog barks at foxes’ to the all too relatable ‘my boss is shit’