Simon David brings Dead Dad Show to the Fringe this year and it is insane, an absolute piss-take, but also very emotional.
A show of endless spoofs
In a show of endless spoofs, David begins the show as a northern boy in a skirt who can’t stop pointing out that he’s in a skirt; a hilarious parody of a musical about a northern boy who wants to do drag.
Then we somehow segue into a drama; then to a gay porn movie; and back and forth to different genres of performance to the point where I can’t remember what is reality.
David’s persona is fame hungry and somewhat vain and utterly chaotic. At one point in the show, David completely strips off (and I mean completely), first lunging into the audience and then going back to one of his northern drama scenes as if nothing has happened.
David plays out these scenes using the death of his father as the main climax. This may be part of his character, but in actuality David’s father did unfortunately pass away. We see clips of his father’s own 2018 show that he performed at the Fringe – it is a very different show to Simon’s, with his dad’s show seeming philosophical and more emotional, given that he wanted to do his show before he passed.
Amongst all the chaos, nudity and complete absurdity, is a boy who does miss his dad. David cleverly continues to share his father’s show through his own; inserting a fun and light-heartedness to an otherwise quite upsetting ordeal. Watching the clips of his father’s show, I couldn’t help but tear up a little bit.
Of course the performance can't be allowed to end on a sad note. David goes straight back into comic heights with a final piece which is high camp but also so unbelievably dumb, before finally prancing out of the door.
This show is so zany and I sometimes find it hard to follow with all the scene changes, but this show is so hilarious I would go again!
