Fool’s Paradise review

Apr 17, 2024

Summerhall, EdinburghBritt Plummer is waiting to get married to fellow clown Otto in this playful and wistful comedy

Clowns at the Edinburgh fringe are proving that banana gags are far from overripe. Bill O’Neill’s pulpy sideshow The Amazing Banana Brothers finds the best newcomer nominee set out to slip on a thousand skins. In her haunting late-night gem, A Retrospection, fellow Los Angeles absurdist Claire Woolner picks up a banana-phone and chews it, peel and all. And on the way into Australian comic Britt Plummer’s wistfully playful hour, we scoop up mini plastic versions of the fruit.

They’re confetti, Plummer explains. The concept for Fool’s Paradise is that we are guests on her wedding morning. Pachelbel’s Canon plays, the bride is in her dressing gown and a bow-wrapped heart hangs from above. Plummer has always longed for a clown wedding, complete with pratfalls in the aisle, and any minute her Swedish fiance – fellow clown Otto – will arrive to make that dream come true.

It is not just the bananas cherished by Krapp that evoke Beckett as Plummer rewinds through their relationship. Waiting for Otto, we hear how their long-distance romance blossomed through lockdowns that alternately kept them apart and confined them together.

Starting by using two coffee cups with hand-drawn eyes, the lids resembling jaunty hats, she wittily re-enacts their story. Otto is then evoked by a mop wearing a suit jacket and the pair’s days and nights, scored to Nico’s aching These Days, pass in a blur of card games and dinners, punctuated by blackouts for some noisy sex.

There is a melancholic moment when Otto-the-mop is removed from the stage to catch his flight and doubts set in about their relationship, which Plummer constantly measures against romcoms and love songs. The winding descriptions of their time together occasionally feel monotonous but it’s a relatable tale, including the mountain of paperwork they face to settle in the UK. A bit of business where we are asked to write supporting statements for that process becomes a distraction.

This often whimsical story, directed by Jess Clough-MacRae, escalates when Plummer takes a flight to see Otto, dousing herself in hand-sanitiser. Her poise drains away powerfully and one or two earlier cracks in her veneer might give the story an extra spike.

In a touching, bittersweet script, Plummer describes Otto as corduroy and herself as velvet, setting up a scene where her fiance’s gift suggests their love is doomed. You will never have seen a panda Oodie look so poignant.

At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 27 August

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