REASONS

REASONS YOU SHOULD HURRY UP AND SEE HOIPOLLOI’S FLOATING

The performers are Welsh

They are completely adorable and you will love them

The show is as funny as anything you’ll see in the Comedy Festival

They create the highest level of audience anarchy I may have ever witnessed: audience members talking back, heckling, taking toilet breaks, cracking jokes, talking to each other during the performance. During THEATRE

They make this happen without making any of it seeming intentional

They also tell a cute magical realist story, sort of, about an island off Wales that floated free of the mainland

The story perfectly mirrors the form of the piece, though – both are about connection and disconnection, crossing over, and breaking down not just the fourth wall of theatre but every other wall as well

Like Tristram Shandy, the digressions are kind of the point

There’s an ace bit of super-8 footage featuring a middle-aged man dressed as a turtle

There is also a song about the third-longest town name in the world

There is a man in socks and undies wearing a life-preserver made of oranges

There are lots of lists

You will be asked to close your eyes at one point, and it is worth not peeping (I didn’t)

You will get presents as you leave

You will not want to leave (everyone just hung around after it was over, and the main performer explained that he was still talking only because there were still people in the audience)

You will be happier after leaving than you were on entering. I think that even the deeply resentful audience member who looked very nonplussed at the incessant interruptions to the “narrative” might have finally found some enjoyment from the piece. Anyone less than 100% curmudgeonly will surely do the same (I consider myself about 87% churl, personally)

They are Welsh, as previously mentioned

You will love them, as previously mentioned

I think this show has already made my top ten list for 2009 and I don’t even make top ten lists. In short, this show is the kind of thing I like beyond words. Think the spirit of Elbow Room’s There, the controlled chaos of Black Lung, the charisma of the best Brit comics, the fabulism of Lally Katz, the media-muck of NYID, the silliness of the Melbourne Junkyard set and the shows I always invent in my head while watching other shows I’m not enjoying so much.

I enjoyed this a lot.