Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Sonnets from Suburbia
Penny Peyser
Genre: Comedy, New Writing
Venue: theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Lady Penelope is stubbornly clinging to what must be the world’s longest Covid-19 quarantine. Taking isolation as an apparent excuse to speak only in iambic pentameter, she slowly excludes everyone from her life. But what is she running from?
Review
Lady Penelope is stubbornly clinging to what must be the world’s longest Covid-19 quarantine, her needs in life apparently served by the innumerable services aimed at delivering to your door everything required by a city-dwelling, determined recluse. And she’s created her own personal exclusion zone by electing never to wash herself or her clothes. But her self-imposed exile conceals a dark secret.
Her Ladyship, the alter-ego of Penny Peyser (splendidly dressed here in an extravagant costume redolent of the Elizabethan era by which she lives post-Covid), now speaks solely in sonnets, her life engaged in the creation of perfect iambic pentameters. And why not? Surely a poem without a rhyme is like a chip without a dip? Or a sail without a breeze? After all, no rhyme, no reason. And rappers are rhyme dependent as an absence thereof would simply destroy their very rhythm.
So begins a tale told in rhyme, surely that is no kind of crime?
After all, this is the Fringe – where on iambic pentameter one can binge
But best to call a halt right now, or cause you, dear reader, a raised eyebrow.
Those pathetic little efforts of mine at least give you some idea of the style of Peyser’s show. But completing a full review in iambic style would take me until Christmas.
This is a wordsmith’s dream, an exquisite hour of sonnet and song from a writer/performer of the highest class. There’s a veritable tsunami of words, formed from Peyser’s extensive lexicon, one that seems to know no bounds. Lyrics are just sublime, words flowing like a waterfall or a river in full flood, whether spoken or sung.
We have a lament to her departed therapist, apparently driven move to far away Idaho to escape this demented soul of a client. Then a song about cutting out the siren calls of social media. And a hysterical one with a dark twist about death. But eventually all her friends have deserted her, save perhaps one, leaving her with just her thoughts for company, cut off from the outside world, existing only on rhyming couplets.
Each piece in this enchanting hour of entertainment would stand on its own, and collectively they tell a tale that is as amusing as it is poignant, witty as it is sad. The moving denouement was as touchingly delivered as it was unexpected – a twist it was hard to see coming but welcome once relayed.
Peyser is a peerless poet and performer, engaging easily with her audience who are soon hanging on to her every perfectly enunciated syllable. And her adept changes of pace help reinforce the emotion inherent in each piece, be it humour, pathos, poignancy, anger or a combination thereof. She’s as adept at song as she is at speech and her characterisation is totally believable, creating a bubble you don’t want to burst.
It really is an infectious hour of theatre, in the best possible way. Highly recommended, especially for Bard loving wordsmiths.
