Edinburgh Fringe 2015
Totes Inappropes!
Totes Inappropes Productions
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Cabaret, Comedy
Venue: Laughing Horse @ Jekyll & Hyde (Venue 259)
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
“Three actresses are set to premier their play about Tinder. When one of them doesn’t turn up, the remaining two must continue on with the play whilst trying to find a replacement on Tinder. Throughout the course of the play they will reveal their own personal experiences with the weird and wonderful characters on Tinder. It is Waiting for Godot, with more Tinder. Come along and give them a right swipe.”
Review
Totes Inappropes! are Annalea Doyle and Rebecca Darmody. And there was supposed to be a third – but she didn’t show up. Really. But the show must, of course go on. And it does, at the Jekyll and Hyde – impressively and, often hilariously for just under an hour.
There’s precious little surreal comedy at the Fringe this year, so this was a nice surprise. Bordering on performance art and what I have decided to call “conceptual comedy”, this show is packed with madness and wit rooted in a lot of fizzy ideas – both physical and vocal. Here we have fair maidens on a quest for love whilst coping with the gaps in the show created by their absent third performer.
Absurdist, Beckett meets the Boosh, Brecht gets targeted and, of course, Sarah Kane, these are performers fresh out of training, loaded with creativity and with no respect for limits or rules. Ironically they make full use of many of the skills they have learned and they have a magic wood block of love. What more do you want?
Two self-empowered performers make use of improv, physical comedy, verbal knockabout and storytelling to bring an hour of material that races by in parts, and slows to hilarious intensity in others.
Some of the audience interaction was hard to hear and that was the only major problem of the piece. They deserve a better venue. They’ve claimed this space as their own very effectively and I recommend you sit near the front to get the whole package. But this is a show that deserves better visibility for the audience and better lighting. It felt gloomy and badly shaped as a venue for what is a fairly visual feast of surreal comedy.That gloom and lack of staging, even for a looser cabaret style, limits the achievement a bit.
Comparisons with The Pyjama Men are to praise not criticise. I enjoyed this hour and was hugely impressed by the talent of the performers and creativity at the heart of the script. If madcap, surreal comedy is your thing, this has to be one of the comedy gems in the Free Fringe. Next year I want to see it in a better performance space. As it is, it is still well worth catching.