Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Sex Idiot
Bryony Kimmings
Genre: Installation Theatre
Venue: Zoo Roxy, The Den
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Every reviewer waits for the show that they come out of and cannot wait to tell everyone about, the one review of their time in Edinburgh that is an absolute joy to write. After sixteen days and about twenty shows, I was beginning to think it wasn’t going to happen, that this year I’d leave lackluster. I was wrong. Sex Idiot is by far the best thing I have seen at the fringe this year and is probably the best piece of performance art I have seen, ever. Thoroughly brilliant, beautiful to watch and the listen to and also totally insane, go and see this show now.
Review
Bryony Kimmings, performance artist, caught an STD in the past year. Through the mediums of poetry, dance and song, she tells the stories of her past loves, her past mistakes and her present lament of her behavior.
Before I go ahead on my five hundred words of praise, I will point out that this show is, in parts, shocking, a little crude and as the title would suggest, quite ‘blue’ in content. Nothing is performed to merely shock, it all has a purpose, but equally it is not for the faint hearted. Luckily, I don’t shock easily.
Costume is beautifully designed: Bryony spends her time onstage, when not naked, looking as though she should be plonked onto the stage of a high class cabaret. The set is minimal, but so eccentrically wonderful and quaint that I would quite like to have all of it casually littered around my bedroom. Her work is a visual piece of art, a piece of art that can only create emotions of sheer joy and happiness.
As a performer, Bryony is so endearing that each member of the audience almost immediately falls madly in love with her – and it’s not just because you are met with jelly sweets at the beginning of the performance. She is cute and ditzy, smart and witty but most importantly of all: brutally and refreshingly honest. She doesn’t beat around the bush about her past behavior and, although the title would suggest that she was an ‘idiot’ for contracting a disease, we soon realize that it’s not the physical damage that made her an idiot, by the emotional she has caused instead.
The songs she uses are hilarious and well written, the dances – which usually reflect a story – are performed well observed and executed sharply, the poetry is heartwarming and breaking at the same time….
I’m actually going to stop here. The review is in danger of tipping into monotonous praise which would be embarrassing, and I don’t want the performer to take a restraining order against me, as I would quite like to be her friend. Everyone who isn’t afraid to be sexually liberated in an hour and who doesn’t find the use of harsh profanities offensive, cancel everything, lose ticket deposits, trains home, miss partners’ birthdays and see this show. You cannot leave Edinburgh without seeing it. It’s absolutely wonderful.
