FringeReview Worldwide 2025
b i r d
Hot Death Theatre
Genre: Absurd Theatre, character comedy, Dark Comedy, Horror, Sci-fi, Surrealism
Venue: Kvartersscenen 2Lång
Festival: FringeReview Worldwide
Low Down
b i r d is a rare bit of eldritch horror-themed corporate comedy. At times delightfully absurd and other times exhausting, b i r d needs to go further in its surreal humor and trim the bird fat off the runtime.
Review
Hot Death Theatre’s comedy improv show is a strange and absurdist dive into eldritch horror (and birds). b i r d manages to build intrigue from the start. As the audience enters, pre-show “bird facts”, both strange and humorous, are projected on screen. A video introduction opens the show, establishing the bird sanctuary/ research facility and all of its [redacted] areas of [redacted] specimens. There is no doubt that this bird sanctuary is a front for something sinister. To my understanding, it is a cult SCP site for the most feared creatures of all: birds.
Our two tour guides, an Ostrich scientist and birdhandler who once appeared on Blue Peter, bounce off one another brilliantly. The ostrich scientist’s cold and unfeeling remarks play against our birdhandler’s more bubbly energy. I particularly cackled whenever the scientist would remark “yummy yummy in my tummy” to increasingly gross descriptions. When the two b i r d s were released into the audience by our tour guides, you could sense they had complete hold over the audience. We all played along to the absurdity. This opening was tight and silly. When b i r d has tight control over its comedy, like it does at the start, it is a deeply enjoyable experience.
b i r d, on the night I saw the performance, ran roughly thirty minutes over. I feel it should have been forty-five minutes shorter in its current state. Particularly, the ending 45 minutes is wherein my patience for the show wore thin. One scene in which a child with cancer was invited to “make a wish” before they die fell flat. This is the point of the show where the actors most broke character, rambled, and otherwise did not have the tightness of rehearsal. The frequent breaking of character, while at first funny, eventually took away from some of the character work which the actors had developed in the initial lead-up. The overall ending charity scene distracted from the far funnier giant ostriches who massacre families, the bird-mating ritual, and similar extreme dark humor. The more extreme eldritch horror went unexplored. I wanted to have a further understanding of the underground cult, the cosmic horrors inside, the seemingly hourly murder of civilians, and other peculiar oddities.
The show began so professionally done with the right level of intrigue and humor. Yet, b i r d does not hit the next stage of surrealism this genre demands. For literal cosmic mind-melting eldritch horror, it felt plain and grounded. Comedy of this style must take things to the extremes of absurdism. It should feel at any moment as though nothing could top the levels of absurdity- but somehow does. b i r d needs to learn how to make its joke, take it to the illogical extreme, and get out. Even as the audience was applauding believing the show to be over, a video projection continued to play for far too long. Once b i r d is shorter and more absurd, the show will soar across the multi-dimensional planes of the cosmos.
I ultimately left b i r d with mixed feelings. On one hand, it is a brilliant concept which begins strong. It touches on all the horror tropes I love: giant cosmic birds, careless and cult-like corporations, calm serenity giving way to nightmarish horror. On the other, it is far too long and exhausting. The show needs refinement and a tight pace. It needs to be put in the bird pummelling machine, removed of its fat, and be remanufactured. Once that’s done, b i r d should continue its genre-bending tour into this strange and hilarious bird sanctuary.
