Fringe comedy reviews: Lady Bolognese | Gutter | UNDERGROUND MONK SHOW | Megasquirt
In his round-up of late-night comedy at the Fringe, Jay Richardson is impressed by a show about a pair of menacing and grotesque dinner ladies and enjoys the party atmosphere whipped up by a queer-coded comedy duo’s mix of high-energy songs and filthy sketch comedy
Lady Bolognese: Class War ★ ★ ★ ★
Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 30 August
Gutter ★ ★ ★
Underbelly, Bristo Square (Venue 302) until 30 August
UNDERGROUND MONK SHOW ★ ★ ★
Assembly George Square Gardens (Venue 3) until 30 August
Megasquirt: Fully Loaded ★ ★ ★ ★
Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61) until 30 August
The Fringe is packed with every type of comedy, running from morning through to evening. Yet for the most bizarre, creepy and downright outrageous cuts, you're best venturing out late at night.
The most arresting freaks I've witnessed this festival are Lady Bolognese, two utterly menacing, grotesque dinner ladies inexplicably placed in charge of a class of children – us, the on-edge audience. Stalking the room, luxuriating in their newfound power, the horrible Veronica and Barbara bark instructions and humiliate any transgressions from their arbitrary commands. “What's Mum got what we ain't got?” is the demand to any kid brave or foolish enough to express a preference for packed lunches over school dinners.
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The ungodly crones are properly intimidating but somehow compelling. And their interaction with the crowd flows easily because of the formidable performance of bouffons Tanika Lay-Meachen (all triggered annoyance) and (the growling) Matt Straker's agile, improvisational wit, their willingness to roll with whatever response they receive, and their adroit skill in manipulating the room's tension.
They're clownishly twisted, a spectacle for sure. But the universe they create is impressively immersive as we all await the arrival of “Mummy” in an apocalyptic finale that has them salivating for the end of the school day. There is a considerable amount of relief any time you're passed over to be one of their marks. But there's also a scale of rebellion that you can choose to slide up if you're feeling brave enough, which only compels the malevolent duo to greater heights of disturbing behaviour.
Somewhat similar, Gutter is a mixed-bill, and dare I say, a mixed-bag night of clowning that begins with three contorted and distorted, black-liner-wrapped figures emerging from a bin. Tom Greaves, Claire Parry and Riss Obolensky don't tend to say much. But they compel with a depraved gruesomeness that evokes pity as well as fear. Resistant to any one of them breaking from the pack and crawling out the gutter, the other two mock Greaves for his entry into therapy, with Parry's sung lament a keening delight.
They also introduce guest spots, with the highlight a preview of what will no doubt form part of Luke Rollason's next show. The wild-eyed but accessible physical performer is exploring adherence to Remembrance Day and the wearing of poppies in particular, dressed in a motley jester's outfit festooned in the flowers, repackaging respect for the fallen as cruise ship entertainment. Selling the tricky high-concept premise with an energetic song-and-dance turn, the character's lack of belief in his own conceit is overridden by a desperate sense of stiff-upper-lip, keep-calm-and-carry-on Britishness.
By contrast, Sohrab Hagverdi may have earned plaudits at the festival for the US-based Iranian's so-called “anti-comedy clown show” Foriegner. But in a short spot, unheralded, just getting virtually naked and dancing, he sank like a turd, prompting quite a few walkouts. And so it was left to Tilly Fletcher, in the guise of her excitable television producer to resurrect the energy in the room for the Gutter trio to close the night, sweeping around, pressing flesh, connecting people with her drug dealer and promising them the world. It's not a subtle characterisation but it has a whirlwind charm.
After that, UNDERGROUND MONK SHOW feels positively wholesome, an extended session of make-believe that quickly casts aside its monkish habits to produce something rich and strange. With the cult pedigree of American performers Max Baumgarten, John Norris, Claire Woolner and D Marcucci, expectations for this clowning supergroup are high and they mostly deliver.
The setup is that the quartet have found a pensieve of holy water that each takes turns to dunk their head into, transporting them to a fantasy scenario in which they are indulged and harassed by their counterparts, appearing as different characters. Spanning sex, death, fairytales and much else besides, they're inventive, surprising and the quartet have an easy chemistry, metaphorically and literally supporting each other, right up to the moment they turn on one another in aggressive malice or unexpected ultraviolence.
The limited crowd involvement feels a little gratuitous and rather clogs the flow of the piece a bit. But the four are seasoned-enough improvisers to incorporate reluctance into the show's narrative and you intuit that it might fly better on some nights than others.
Finally, rather less clowny than the aforementioned, much more of a postmodern, apocalyptic celebration of energised club culture, Megasquirt are a queer-coded clash of self-aggrandising diversity, hardcore beats and sketch comedy.
Hailing from Brooklyn, Ashley Blair and Drew Reilly are like the naughtier, brattier younger siblings of Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears and Ana Matronic and they rule the stage with their high-energy tunes and tennis-like conversational back and forth. Musing provocatively on the various meanings of the word “hole”, their opening number, about basic bitch best friends in a life-changing situation is uproariously hilarious and affirms their own closeness too.
The songs are tight but the double entendres are copious and filthy and they can react to the energy in the room, bouncing off it, rejecting conservatism and orthodoxy with aggressive non-conformity. Such is the hurricane of their performance, the dirtiness of their subject matter and the party atmosphere that they whip up to the rafters that you could be forgiven for overlooking their writing. But there's a fine streak of ironic and self-aware humour in there as this avowed “gay guy and confusing girl” smash it out of the building and into the small hours.
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