Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Elaine Malcolmson: Joik
Elaine Malcolmson
Genre: Comedy
Venue: Gilded Balloon Patter Hoos, The Penny
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Award-winning comedian Elaine Malcolmson’s newest show connects memory, grief, and reindeer in a way that is laugh-out-loud and unexpectedly educational. Foregoing current comedic convention, she puts the sad bit up front, tying her reindeer adoption experiences and existential issues back in a way that is hilarious and thought-provoking. The dry observational humor she is best known for is on full display in Joik.
Review
The Sami people, I now know because of Elaine Malcolmson’s comedy show, have one thousand words for reindeer. Malcolmson admits a bafflement to this wide glossary, struggling to find terms for her own emotions. She may be a bit of a eaidánis, or a reindeer who avoids others.
Malcolmson has foregone the new trend of a comedy show that’s forty-five minutes of jokes leading up to a sad bit, as made popular by Hannah Gadsby. She’s decided to put the sad bit up front, telling us about her mother who died alone during Covid the same week as the wine and cheese party at Number Ten. As a comedian, she was unable to shy away from the news, and ignore what was going on and still happening. Her job was to not only stay current, but to joke about it. It’s a difficult atmosphere for jokes, she reasons, when everything seems like the John Lewis Christmas ad before the happy bit comes in. It’s all enough to make one feel a bit like a goallá (a female reindeer who never gets antlers).
Lucky for us, Malcolmson is able to still make jokes despite the state of the world, and Joik is full of the sort of dry, self-deprecatingly observant humor she is known for. The show revolves around the best gift she has ever received: a reindeer called Berlin. Reindeer are Malcolmson’s spirit animal, her love for snow and jumpers making them the obvious choice. Her thoughts on reindeer alone make this a funny and unexpectedly educational experience that gave me a better appreciation for our hoofed holiday mascots. Peppered throughout her experience of reindeer adoption are observations on how we no longer know how to properly say thank you, advice on how to get great cheap kettles, and how to not help a dying vole. Malcolmson has an easy, endearing quality that lends itself well to her sense of humor. A quiet silliness and a sense of genuine curiosity made for a very enjoyable night of comedy for this ruoššajievja (fat reindeer with short legs), and I think it’s worth your time as well.
Joik is at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoos Penny until 26th August at 5:40pm.
