28
TIME:
Laughing Horse @ City Cafe 5:30pm – 6:30pm 4–28 Aug, not 15
TICKETS:
FREE
VENUE:
Now bearded, married to a sometime model and living in LA, things are going pretty swimmingly for Eric Lampaert, a man who, as an FBI interrogator in one of this show’s enjoyable video skits suggests, looks like “Heroin Jesus”. Lampaert currently feels attached to three countries as he’s French, was brought up in England, and has an American wife. So one weighty issue has dogged his year: immigration, which turns out to be a major headache even if you’re
Kate Lucas Whatever Happened to Kate Lucas HHHH VENUE: TIME:
TICKETS:
Pleasance Courtyard 10:30pm – 11:30pm 3–28 Aug, not 15 £8 – £12
“Come in, come in – we’re just talking about death,” says Kate Lucas with a grin, as a couple of latecomers wander into the bunker and wonder what they’ve let themselves in for. Lucas is a wolf in sensible clothing; nice with an undercurrent of nuts. Her full repertoire of sinister weirdness takes a while to fully emerge here, but it’s pretty evident from the outset that Whatever Happened to Kate Lucas is not for the easily offended. As our
genial-looking host explains, the show has a running theme about her fear of death, and the songs explore dark variations on it. One early composition involves her angrily haunting a chap in the audience who dared to move on after she died; which is fair enough, given how it mythically happened. Lucas won a prestigious best newcomer award earlier this year, and a fair bit of her material isn’t particularly nasty, just plain funny; both her songs and general repartee resound with fine wordplay. Although perhaps those more-accessible moments are just there to soften us up for the verbal uppercuts to come. There’s a song about a self-built boyfriend and dead celebs that screams ‘too soon!’, while an increasingly intense tune about wasting your time with someone boring contains one of the most
shocking lines you’ll hear all Fringe. The reactions are fascinating: belly laughs and wide-eyed did-she-really-say-that horror. It’s Lucas’s apparent normality that really gives these moments such clout, and though that theme holds this show together impressively, it does still end with an uplifting message. Don’t have nightmares, folks. ✏︎ Si Hawkins
Comedy venue like stars in the night sky, but there’s none of the awkwardness that such a scenario sometimes provides. Lampaert is evidently enjoying every minute of this ideapacked hour, and the enthusiasm is infectious. It’s probably the best intergalactic immigration party you’ll be invited to this year. ✏︎ Si Hawkins
Credit: John Griffiths
Alien of Extraordinary Ability HHHH
a citizen’s husband. And without a UK passport, Brexit confuses things even more. It’s a topic that’s understandably high on the Fringe agenda this year, but Lampaert takes it in unique new directions. Into space, in fact, as he’s developed a serious interest in astrophysics recently, and embarks on some enlightening big-screen cosmos chat here. An Eric Lampaert TED Talk? Well, only briefly, as he’s got a galaxy of brilliant silliness to cram in too. Even the dark matter is rich with comic potential: his therapist’s measured response to the voices in his head (“It’s the best place for them”) leads to some fine physical comedy capped by a fabulously crap pun. Now that’s how to write a bit. He’s working with a relatively small audience on this boiling afternoon, punters dotted around the
Credit: Steve Ullathorne
Eric Lampaert