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David Elms Describes a Room

 
Victor Black Review by Victor Black 4 Published: 23 Aug 2025 Pleasance Courtyard Show Dates: 30 Jul 2025-24 Aug 2025

Before David Elms can describe a room, he first has to build a rapport with his audience, and he does this with expertise and grace. He appears on his bare stage and explains the novel premise before bringing each of us in to contribute to the development of his surroundings. With each person he approaches, asking us to suggest what item is inside his room, he follows up with thought-provoking questions to eke every ounce of potential from what may initially seem like mundane ideas. But one man’s list of 50 mundane ideas is another’s philharmonic orchestra.

One man’s list of mundane ideas is another’s philharmonic orchestra

One thing that struck me about the format and execution was the incomparable ratio between low quantity of laughs (often multiple minutes of engaged anticipation between them) and high quality (full room-wide belly laughs prompted by passing ad libs or facial expressions outranked the number of titters – no mean feat). Never before have I seen a comedian attempt to garner so few laughs and achieve such high success rates with each foray from the theatrical nature of the show into the comedic interludes.

Among the inclusions in the unique room described for and by Elms today are an aggressive, aging cat; coat hanger artwork; Tetris on a Gameboy; and an ancient musket. After 40 minutes, the collaborative effort is fully unravelled, and Elms embarks on a mostly mimed journey through the labyrinthine room, incorporating every detail of every item into a seamless narrative with epic callbacks (after multiple teasings, the cat finally dies), audience participation (seriously, how do children still know the Tetris theme?) and a bloody, murderous finale. One gets the feeling that with an unadventurous audience, the mime could turn out quite tame (indeed, Elms gleefully tells us it usually is, but not so today), but we lucked out in maximising the joy that could be extracted from this unique room.

While it’s great to have the room kept in our imaginations, I was also curious to see it visualised and was half-expecting (even hoping) Elms to announce at the end that he would have the room generated by AI to keep a gallery online, both prolonging memories and boosting engagement. But for now, the memory of our bespoke room and the horrors that unfolded within it will remain purely for those fortunate enough to witness it.

This is one of those few Fringe shows that benefits from repeat viewings, so make sure when you go, you test Elms to his limits and give him creative and out-of-the-box suggestions to work with, and you too could be part of creating invisible magic.

Amir Nisi

Victor Black

Victor Black has been performing magic since childhood, and enjoys working on cruise ships and in light entertainment platforms across the country. He has worked as a cabaret producer, comedian and entertainment consultant, as well as being in the audience for hundreds of Edinburgh Fringe shows.

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The Blurb:

Following its sell-out Soho Theatre run, the cult hit comes to Edinburgh. Together with his audience, veteran improviser Elms 'builds a comedy mind palace before your very eyes. You'll want to move in for good' (Phil Wang). 'Funny, original, different every time... You go there and bathe in it and try not to be jealous you didn't think of it' (Tim Key). 'You'd have to be dead not to enjoy it' (Katy Wix). 'Staking out his own comedy territory' (Guardian). As seen in Nick Mohammed's Swallow shows.
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