You are in an auditorium made of mirrors. A man who says he is a Doctor (though somehow you know he’s not) appears onstage and casts an imperious eye over the crowd. ‘Welcome to Twilight Worlds,’ he says in a sultry voice, ‘Everything that will happen this evening happens at night.’
Combining snappy stand up with culinary ingenuity, this is a whistle stop tour of the best hotel room inventions from a most affable saboteur.
You have entered the third act of the Cabaret of the Mind, a series of ‘mental’ events organised by the bewitching proprietor of the Catalyst Club, Dr David Bramwell.
First to the podium is George Egg, anarchist cook and tickler of funny-bones, and he’s here to ask you a few questions. ‘Can you crush nuts in a Travelodge Bible?’ he quizzes. ‘Have you ever made ricotta by straining curds through a pillowcase?’ Egg claims to make a mean steam iron pancake, and yes, he’s very happy to show you how. Combining snappy stand up with culinary ingenuity, this is a whistle stop tour of the best hotel room inventions from a most affable saboteur.
‘Flippin’ good!’ your Fringe companion exclaims as the second act struggles onstage with a curious collection of items. Who could she be? And what’s that peeking out of her bag?
Enter Tilly Gregory, author of werewolf erotica. Gregory tells the true tale of a Californian prisoner who, after requesting one of her books, instigated a US court case as to whether her work had literary merit. The only woman in the world with a document declaring her work to be ‘more than a sham,’ Gregory is hilarity at its most personable. And when she whips out a golden phallus from the Erotica of the Year Awards, the audience erupts into relieved laughter. At last, a cock joke!
So perhaps it is a tribute to the talents of the previous performers that Graham Duff’s exploration of film dream sequences falls a little flat. In his chronicle of dream tropes Duff brings little personality to what is essentially a string of carefully curated YouTube clips. His talk lurches, half-dressed, through Hammer Horror, Hitchcock and The Avengers and let’s be honest, the male fantasy gets a bit tedious after a while.
The lights come on just as you start to wonder, ‘When do I get to wake up?’
