Dr. Professor Neal Portenza’s Interactive Goat Hour is the latest creation from Joshua Ladgrove and what an hour it was. This show was a hodgepodge of segments that seemed to happen without rhyme or reason, or clear segue. Those who prefer clear and structured narrative in their comedy shows will struggle but it certainly suited the Doctor’s character to a tee. This was an extremely unhinged, schizophrenic person in whose mind this madness would all make perfect sense.
The show relied heavily on the comedy of misfortune, in particular going to hilarious extremes to achieve straightforward tasks. The Doctor threw himself into the most absurd situations by employing elements of slapstick, mime and insane dialogs (often with himself). There were some truly inspired moments that got huge responses from the audience but there were also many bits that fell flat. This wasn’t particularly through errors in delivery, he displayed some great comic skills, but due more to the random nature of the show. Lines that were written to get laughs didn’t have the clear setup-punchline structure and were unfortunately dismissed by the audience as filler and links in this ocean of weirdness. I’m sure he’ll knock the show into shape as the season progresses to milk as many laughs out of the punters as possible.
Clever use of multimedia helped Joshua to create this crazy world. Bizzare filmed segments occupied our time between “scenes”, the Doctor conversed with recorded voices and acted out tasks to sound effects. The show was very prop heavy with most of these being elaborate set ups to his punch lines. Many props sat on the stage as “Chekhov’s guns” while several had no discernible purpose at all.
When we were all handed a showbag containing seemingly random objects, expectations were high that this would eventuate in the interactive experience as stated in the title, but this turned out to be a red herring. The contents of the bags were briefly referred to at the beginning, our only chance to use an object was orchestrated for no apparent reason and no other mention was made of these items for the remainder of the show. His interactions with several punters later on adhered rigidly to a script, so it seemed that this show merely gave the illusion of the audience having some control. Another dastardly trick!
This was a true Fringe show that wasn’t predictable or safe. His website and advertising doesn’t adequately describe what to expect and you will probably still be none the wiser after seeing the show. It won’t be to everyone’s tastes but is certainly worth taking a gamble to see if there is anything within this strange world that tickles your funnybone.
Visit the Fringe website for booking details.