Colchester Fringe Festival 2026
DENTATA
Julia VanderVeen
Genre: Clown, Comedy, Feminist Theatre, One Person Show, Performance Art, Puppetry, Satire, Solo Show
Venue: Headgate Theatre
Festival: Colchester Fringe Festival
Low Down
A strange and bewildering absurdist clowning comedy about women’s bodies. It’s freaking weird (and an absolute delight).
Review
The 10:00 PM shows of Colchester Fringe are always a delight. There’s something special about that evening early-drunken hysteria that only Fringe can bring. Put thirty clowns in an audience and you have the best damn (and hardest to control) audiences out there. It is the only time I meet audience members louder than me. But the ringleader of them all, the clown to rule all clowns, tonight was Julia VanderVeen. As she said in a cool quip to one unruly audience member: “Now, don’t be funnier than me.” I don’t think VanderVeen had anything to worry about really. It is near impossible to be funnier than her.
DENTATA is a series of character sketches that explore women’s bodies. Many of them are nonsensical, partly improvised, and feature incredible costume and prop work. Like most good clown shows, what begins revelling in absurdity eventually makes way for thought-provoking explorations of the show’s central themes. That said, at no time is the show boring to watch. Even when Medusa is screaming at you for looking at her eye breasts, you cannot help but think: damn this is smart. Familiar women, Medusa, Sirens, Georgia Pageant Queens, and Witches, take the stage. Each section is a fresh breath unlocking new depths of humour and thematic exploration.
The sole fault of my performance was that the transitions between scenes ran far too long. DENTATA has elaborate costumes, but those do take time to get into. There were many times I sat in the darkness wondering if this was part of the show (or if a malfunction backstage had occurred.) These finer transitional pacing issues dropped the energy down between scenes. But because DENTATA is so damn funny, the show likewise needs pauses for laugh curves just so the audience can calm down and VanderVeen can speak. Maybe that’s again at fault of the late night fringe audiences who never shut up but if the worst thing a comedy show can boast is that it’s too funny, then I would say its doing its job pretty damn well. With faster transitions (or more videos to fill the dead space), the show will have a consistent rapid-fire impact.
With so much room for interactivity and improvisation within the show, it likewise makes an engaging experience through every moment. Julia VanderVeen commands each moment she is on stage. She’s mischeivous, devious, and thoroughly tongue in cheek. Many of us in attendance were looking at the ground just so we could control our laughter and get a moment of relief from the bright star that is VanderVeen. This is a masterful clown comedy and is one I for one will want to see again.
