Edinburgh Fringe 2017
Funny Stuff For Happy People
Martin “Bigpig” Mor
Genre: Children's Theatre, Circus, Comedy
Venue: Laughing Horse @ Counting House, 38 West Nicolson Street
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Master clowning and silliness from a practitioner at the top of his game, technically tight and jolly good fun.
Review
Entertaining a bunch of noisy, excited under-tens in a big space, with no seat raking seems like a big challenge for any performer. How do the kids get to see? How do you get them involved? How do you attract their attention in the first place?
Simple. Start very, very quietly. Wear an eccentric looking costume. Sport a wonderfully luxuriant beard. Have a silly hat. Possess a face that contorts into weird and wonderful expressions. Act like the local cleaner, shoving your broom around the feet of the front row. Then “catch” a child’s shoe with your brush and start waving it around as if it’s the smelliest thing on the planet.
Then get a couple of gullible parents on stage and, with more mime, get them to do something daft, ensuring squeals of laughter from the junior end and much guffawing from the upper end of the age spectrum. So by the time we were five minutes in, we had kids standing on every free chair to see what was going on, or being hoisted onto parents’ knees to get a better view of the action.
Eventually Martin “Big Pig” Mor switched to speech and his booming, commanding baritone voice quickly engaged just about everyone in the packed Counting House venue down in West Nicolson Street. By then, his audience was hooked. Completely. And whilst this show is aimed squarely at the 4-10 year old range, it was hard for Mor to stop the adults sticking up their hands as stage volunteers.
Mor’s extensive background as a clown, mime artist and circus performer is perfect for his show. He’s very adept at handling the audience, particularly the quirks uninhibited young volunteers can throw into proceedings. His patter is infectiously amusing. And he knows how to get children really laughing. Which child doesn’t laugh at farting jokes, things to do with bottoms, bogeys, pee and poo? Mind you, which adult doesn’t either? Getting a parent and child up on stage and making them do silly things is a great way to break down barriers. I mean, wouldn’t you like to whack your Dad over the head with a sponge stick to make a yoyo bounce around? Of course you would. It’s funny!
This was a very well-constructed, physically clever and genuinely funny piece of theatre. Mor is a master of his craft, technically very proficient at clowning and mime, quick witted, misses no opportunity to get people involved and has this magical way of relaxing his young audience.
Mor really does know all the buttons to press and exhibits such a sense of fun himself that he will brighten the lives of any who turn up at this free Fringe show. Go along to it, and release your inner child. Or take one with you as an excuse to get in and have a really good laugh.
