★★★☆☆
Ange Lavoipierre and Jane Watt hop between jazz, a bucket of blood and Bunnings in a deftly performed but slightly unfocussed sketch show. Here’s our Jazz or a Bucket of Blood Fringe review.
A pair of Australian comics are on the hunt for a theme for their sketch show. Ange Lavoipierre is obsessed with a bucket of blood she “found” somewhere. Jane Watt wants to make a show out of something funny, like jazz (her favourite jazz song, incidentally, is Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’).
In an attempt to find the mid-point between the two, the pair take the audience on a rambling, perplexingly inventive journey through motherhood and an emerging obsession with Australian retail chain Bunnings.
Both Lavoipierre and Watt are clearly excellent performers, hilariously awkward in somehow completely different ways. Their haltingly delivered lines, often at the same time as each other, have an improvisational feel that’s consistently entertaining to watch.
It’s a show well-suited to its venue, too: The Wee Coo in George Square provides a tent-fabric-y black box theatre which only heightens the sense that the only two people you can see are taking the audience on a thoroughly odd fever dream.
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Unfortunately, the show never quite becomes as weird as the topic or performances suggest. Though the idea of “two characters in search of a theme” is a fun one, it does present a real risk of making the show feel a little unfocussed. All too often, punchlines are given which feel a bit more ‘quirky’ than laugh-out-loud bizarre, and occasionally jokes will sort of peter out before reaching their complete logical extreme.
But still, it’s always refreshing to see a pair of clearly very talented comedians go for something different with an Edinburgh show. Jazz or a Bucket of Blood might not have entirely clicked in the end, but there’re so many ideas on display it’s hard not to leave feeling a little impressed.
Jazz or a Bucket of Blood is playing at the Underbelly on George Square at 20:50 until 27 August. You can view our comprehensive guide to the entire Fringe here.
