There’s a good show trying to get out of Eine Kleine Storytime (A Little Bit of Storytime), which has great production values and a very talented cast, but somehow just never comes together. The tale, narrated by two German gargoyles (with the help of a cool cad of a pigeon named Rudolph), tells the story of ‘Mouldy’, a patch of mould on one side of an orange that inexplicably forms a consciousness, is adopted, abandoned, adopted again, and goes on a quest that takes him from Canada to Scotland as he searches not just for the love of his parents, but also his place in the world.
If this sounds like a wild flight into absurdity, it barely begins to scratch the surface of the surreal and fantastic universe created within the show. The story loosely ties together a series of short sketch comedy acts, with all of the parts played with by one of the three excellent cast members Max Rapley, Edan Lacey and Nick O’Donnell (of whom the latter two also wrote and directed the piece). While many of these sketches elicited a few bemused grins on behalf of the audience, out-and-out laughter came rarely throughout the set, and many of the sketches were more confusing than amusing. One sketch, for example, was played almost entirely in Japanese, and was hence quite literally incomprehensible to most of the audience. But there were certainly some diamonds in the rough- the swordfish fight between a British spy and a member of the Québec Liberation Front was extremely memorable.
The performers cannot be faulted, and fans of the absurd, the fantastic, and the surreal will find much to delight in over the course of the hour, but those heading to Eine Kliene for a solid hour of comedy may ultimately come away disappointed.
Visit the comedy festival website for bookings and further details