I found my favourite Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, and tickets are just £15

This show is the best, even if there aren’t seats

I joined a cult at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

There’s a comedy-horror show called Jill’s Tupperware Party, and it’s very weird, camp, surreal and amazing. In short, it’s total genius.

If I was a proper festival reviewer, it’d be a straight five-stars for me, and chuck in a Fringe First, Perrier Award, Cheez-It Crisp Award and whatever other mantelpiece crockery is available these days. The low-fi show is like Stepford Wives meets Midsommer, via Roald Dahl’s The Witches, Vic & Bob and a John Waters film.

The main characters, played by Coral Bevan and Ricky Hunt of interactive theatre and comedy company Asparagus Mousse Productions, are simultaneously creepy and endearing.

When we left the scuzzy Underbelly studio in the deepest darkest Cowgate, my cheeks hurt from laughing. Anyway, such a thrill does not happen to this finicky and jaded Edinburger very often. I’ve seen hundreds of shows, but it’s been a long time since any have left me feeling quite so giggly. Usually, I would be in a huff because I had to STAND through the hour-long show - “we can’t afford seats this year,” said Jill, as she ushered us into the venue - but all the cavorting and disco-dancing meant that my circulation didn’t seize up.

Also, they do have a few chairs available, should you need one.

At the end, they said they’d had no press coverage, and that the full house that afternoon was down to word of mouth. Indeed, I only went because Graham Norton mentioned it in his live Virgin Radio stint along the road at Greyfriars Hall - does that count as press, or WOM, I’m not sure - and it had sounded up my street, so I’d bagged a ticket for one of the 2:30pm weekend shows.

The experience felt like a strange therapy session. I think that’s partially because it was so immersive. I’ve seen lots of excellent theatre and comedy shows this year, but I have a concentration problem. While watching I can’t stop thinking about bus routes, or what’s for lunch/dinner. My brain will no longer commit to one subject.

At Jill’s Tupperware Party, I was constantly in the zone and wondering what the heck was going to happen next, and if I had been thinking about food, it would’ve been devilled eggs, or entrails made from spaghetti. I just let the chaos sweep me along. Perhaps I have been fun-starved, and this was just what I needed.

I had strange dreams that night. Flashbacks, though, if you haven’t seen it yet, you might call them spoiler alerts. Look away if you have not been, but want to go. You still have an opportunity, though it looks like they’ll have left town on the 31st.

While waiting in the queue outside, we'd been given a stripy goodie bag that contained a sticker that said, “Hello, my name is Jill”, which everyone stuck to their tops.

We were also each provided with an individual ice-breaker question. Mine was the incisive “If you were a condiment, what would you be?”, and, after asking about seven people, I was very disappointed in the amount of boring old mayonnaises and mustards I got. Not a single piccalilli or mint jelly.

My husband hates any audience interaction-based shows, but he seemed to slip into the role of Jill quite easily. I think he discovered his alter ego. He even put on the green hairnet that was provided. Incidentally, post-show, when heading along the Grassmarket, he forgot that he’d left his name sticker on his chest, and a man in the street said, “Hi, Jill” and he said it back. He liked that. He has now stuck this label to the fridge, as a souvenir. See, it’s a cult.

Other flashbacks that popped back into my head later that night included the moment when the audience created a Strip the Willow-esque tunnel, so the newly crowned king of Tupperware - a rabbit-in-the-headlights volunteer from the crowd - could race through the middle like he was performing some kind of pagan sacrifice ritual.

They really made use of this civilian, who became the star of the show. He even had to lip-sync and wear a curly wig. I doubt he’ll forget the experience.

We all got so involved that at some points, we were all chanting at the same time. “Jill-Jill-Jill”. And there was a conga line. Of course there was.

Then there was the moment that an over-enthusiastic audience member popped what appeared to be a realistic eyeball in their mouth, before seeming to instantly regret that decision.

I was also transfixed by Jill's conical boobs, underneath her bright turtleneck. (They must both be sweltering, with the tight sweaters and those towering wigs). These appendages seemed to move of their own accord, and got further apart as the show got more manic.

Anyway, it is all very silly. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, but very much mine.

And, if Jill’s Tupperware Party was a condiment, it’d be Tabasco. That’s because it’s spicy, retro and adds a certain je ne sais quoi to proceedings.

You don’t have long left to sample it, so hurry.

NB. When I contacted Jill’s Tupperware Party to ask for a picture to accompany this article, they also randomly chucked in a recipe for devilled eggs. They say that the trick is to use a slightly older egg, an ice-cold bath for easy peeling and swapping out vinegar for pickle juice.