Sometimes the Fringe can be an unrivalled platform for niche performers to showcase experimental work. Other times, it can feel like being locked in a room with a schizophrenic clown. Alice Mary Cooper’s show is both. When a seminar on post-modern theatre goes hideously awry, her alter ego Fifi ends up improvising. Using lecture notes and the contents of a handbag, she deconstructs comedy, clowning and theatre into a messy farce of anticlimax and extreme literalism. Cooper is a smart, committed performer, but this show is stilted. Relying on uncomfortable audience interactions, it soon dissolves into a sticky sludge of tea spitting, tampon eating and Nutella smearing. Ultimately, this is more puerile than charming, and less challenging than it thinks.

Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters, 2-26 Aug, 2.05pm.
tw rating 2/5 | [Dave Fargnoli]