This hit comedy show is performed by a cast of famous … horses
Ten years ago, when British comedian and director Elf Lyons was studying clowning at the famous Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France, she was desperate to be liked.
Her teacher, the legendary 82-year-old founder and master clown Philippe Gaulier, sensed this straightaway.
'He said, 'No, this is not going to happen',' Lyons recounts. ''You don't want to be beautiful, you don't want to be liked. You need to be a bitch. And you need to be a horse.''
So Lyons got up in front of her class and, after playing some bitchy characters, pretended to be a horse. She loved it. Her classmates laughed. And Gaulier, in his famously reserved way, was pleased.
'Philippe was like, 'The asparagus is not bad as a horse',' Lyons says, explaining the asparagus nickname came from her height. 'And I started to find something really confident in me that I hadn't had.'
A decade later, after a career of creating, performing and touring her own comedy shows in the UK and beyond, Lyons' latest work, Horses, part of the Sydney Comedy Festival, is her most successful show yet.
The one-hour solo piece has scored five-star reviews and a slew of awards at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Adelaide Fringe.
Using mime, sketch scenes and audience interaction, Lyons plays a cast of famous horses sourced from myths, legends, wars, sport and more.
Equine characters include Pegasus, the Trojan Horse and Seabiscuit along with a narrator horse called Treacle. Each gives a first-hand account of their time in history.
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