2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mr Chonkers review – you never know what's going to happen next
With his show and persona Mr Chonkers, American clown John Norris scored a cult hit on the fringe three summers ago – and now a booking off comedy's beaten track, at anything-goes alt-theatre hub Summerhall. He'll fit in, because his is a show (seemingly the same one he performed in 2022) that marches to the beat of its own drum. The upside of that? You never know what's going to happen next. The downside: with little by way of theme, narrative or structure, there's not much left to hang on to when the laughs abate.
A portion of the audience will be giggling too giddily for that to be an issue: Norris is the kind of act who, if he gets under your skin, doesn't get out again. After a dotty prologue as a faceless monk, he offers us a supposed showcase of his recently acquired performance talents – in poetry, comedy and theatre. With a Janus-faced manner that twins eagerness to please with disciplinarian tendencies, he then serves up a tenuous film star impersonation (that wraps up the comedy section), some verse (including a standout about 'horny wives in your area') and – the bulk of the show, this – a theatrical act-out of a Sicilian family drama.
Frustrated he's not getting it right, Norris performs that scene over and again, in (not very) different ways. If you're barely amused by the arresting sight of him, in character as a little Italian boy, retreating his head into his neck, this looping scenario may test your patience. It did mine. There are strong stand-alone sections elsewhere: a none-more-clown sequence about his ever-shrinking headgear; a gestural dumbshow of the apologies we make in company when we're detained by a phone call.
Strongest of all is Norris's existential angst as his gig collapses, leaving him exposed to the chill winds of post-show, pining to return to his imaginative world. Whither your self-esteem when you can't even get a performance with no rules right? I cherished this playful glimpse into the jester's abyss, delivered (like everything here) with a wonderful alertness to the moment, albeit in a show that may drive you to distraction as well as delight.
At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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