This unnamed show from Lucy Pearman is a bit of a car smash.
Ostensibly, it’s vaguely about her getting on, or not getting on, an unnamed flight to somewhere; and whether she’s over the permitted weight for baggage or not.
Which starts with her appearing actually dressed as baggage, in a suitcase, with much other baggage, Toblerones, clothes, fake penis (yes) etc etc.
And in the course of the show she gradually divests herself of excess weight, right down to removing her skin and flesh down to a skeleton, in order to conform to the mythical baggage allowance.
This with much audience participation, reluctant or not.
Now, this sort of surrealist approach is no bad idea. The problem here is in the execution, which is awkward and a bit shambolic; and not in a funny way.
She does get laughs now and then, and does manage to find two committed exhibitionists in the audience to help with manoeuvring all the paraphernalia – but the pace is slow; the laughs are few and far between; the visuals on a screen turn out not to work; and all in all this turns out to be a ‘work-in-progress’ that still needs a lot of tightening- up work before it progresses to a finished show.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood
Lucy Pearman performed at the Ring O’Bells in Widcombe, Bath on Thursday 25th July 2019.