Frankie Thompson: Horrible Things review – a show to make you shudder with laughter

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh From Jacob Rees-Mogg as a child to Frank Sinatra’s ego in space, this is a wild collage of clowning and performance art There are plenty of works-in-progress on the fringe.

Frankie Thompson insists (or has the voice of Peppa Pig do so) that her show is a work-in-regress, an expunging of Horrible Things from the deepest recesses of her, and our, recollection.

Thompson, whose brand of clowning-meets-performance art more or less guarantees something interesting will happen on stage, parades these Things as lip-synced audio and audience-terrorising stunts, all marshalled by our brisk and wild-eyed host, brooking no nonsense in a polka-dot dress.

Women in the crowd can relax: Thompson’s Horrible Things are usually male, her victims in the crowd likewise.

The first sketch sound clips an interview with 12-year-old Jacob Rees-Mogg, and if you ever doubted lip-sync as an art form, I offer you Thompson’s performance here as the very junior minister.

As his every word damns the way this country’s ruling classes are raised, her hyper-expressive face and nanosecond-precise timing pass sharper commentary than a thousand satirical words ever could.

At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh , until 30 August.

Then at Soho theatre, London , 9-21 November.

All our Edinburgh festival reviews Continue reading...