2011 Edinburgh Fringe
Lady Garden review
Lady Garden - trimmed back to a quintet - bring a new hour of their quirky sketch comedy to this year's Fringe. Although packed full of intriguing ideas and some fantastic acting, their new offering is a bit of a mixed bag. There appears to be a lack of consistency to the sketches which range from the bland and uninteresting to the inspired and hilarious.
The show begins with arguably the best sketch - an almost post-apocalyptic take on a hen night's revelries set to Barber's Adagio for Strings. Such a bold and impressive sketch promises a lot. However, the show struggles to maintain this quality and tone for the duration.
An uncomfortably close encounter with an optician creates a nervous murmur of laughter - a person licking another's face is neither inherently funny nor particularly original or surprising. This sketch just falls a bit flat and seems to be lacking the creative spark apparent at other points in the show. Another which felt slightly weak involved a recurring scene with a sloppy tattooist. The first time it appeared it already seemed unoriginal and obvious and on its third outing I was frustrated that stage time was being given to such a weak sketch.
However, scattered amongst the poorer sketches are some true gems. A human/horse dating website is a clever and unique idea and executed well, especially when it is linked in with a recapitulation of the hen night sketch. It is also greatly enhanced by the projector slides on the back wall and most importantly, it is very funny! This is greatly helped by the acting talents of Lady Garden which are apparent in the little glances, gestures and facial expressions, all of which permeate the sketches.
Regardless of the quality of the acting, there are a few niggling things that let the show down. The props scattered around the stage are, on the whole, irrelevant and make it feel cluttered, not adding anything to the settings they are trying to create. They are particularly at odds with the dark and quirky tone of some of the sketches and generally seem a bit confused. The use of a projector and slides is a nice idea and works well in a few sketches but it is mainly a clunky device for costume and scene changes. If it was handled by someone off stage it could have been a lot smoother, a criticism which also applies to the music, much of which just stops sharply when a scene ends and seems scrappy and unnatural. With better production, this show would be a lot slicker.
Even though these criticisms run throughout the show, towards the end there are some great sketches - the holiday snaps skit proves the high quality they are able to achieve, starting in a fairly mundane way but with a surprisingly dark twist.
At their best, Lady Garden are inventive, dark and highly funny, but there just isn't enough of this side in their new show. It is by no means bad, but I suspect they have much better material in them.