Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Low Down
Within the setting of their mundane office jobs, a clumsy clown enters and disturbs the peace of the stubborn clown, causing a ruckus by playing endless games. But when tension reaches its height, in a moment of chaos the two clowns become bound together by a singular piece of rope.
Review
We are greeted by fun music when the show begins! Each of the two clowns take a turn peeking around their black curtain centre stage. This is playful and the black curtain transforms into many uses during the thirty five minute show I attended on August 25th at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. One friendly clown tries juggling and relates to the audience. The other clown looks unhappy because the partner is happy. This is an interesting and common dynamic between devised clown shows of two characters. However, as the show continues its development here at the fringe and beyond, there is work to do. The facial expressions and emotive states of the clown characters might benefit from clarification from the start of the show, then how they each develop and finally, how they end. This would help the physical storytelling, too, which is somewhat interrupted by unrelated skits and sections.
The duo have several sight gags that are amusing, as well as more effective moments when they play with the audience. Both wear attractive white stylish clown overalls with colourful diamond shapes reminiscent of the popular Harlequin character, as well as whiteface clown makeup. These attributes are laudable for their debut show at the fringe and should provide solid experience to take them into their future, successfully. In addition, it is the time after the run that will be valuable for this energetic duo, to analyze their characters, evaluate the need for each skit, to think whether they are beyond basic sight gags with literal music choices – and to generally see what they like and what needs to develop more, what works well and how they could make things work even better. Another way to look at this is to think how the skits and segments they create relate to their clown characters and how can they be more specific in their interactions with each other and reactions to the audience.
Undoubtedly these two clowns have the passion to delve deeper into how they can fulfill their clown dreams and this is a giant step. Their strength in this show is their ease of working with audience members. It is one of the hardest skills to achieve and many never achieve it!
