Review by Steve Bennett

The blurb for Beesquit promises so many highfalutin artistic concepts, it’s surely likely to scare off more potential punters than it woos. And if that isn’t offputting enough, the fact he uses an accordion might just swing it.

The truth, though, is that this is a often-funny physical and visual show that can be enjoyed simply as some off-the-wall nonsense.

Our clown initially appears is a man of improbable girth – and even more improbable moustache – rather like the corpulent over-eater in Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life. Instant reaction to this chubby caricature is likely to define the rest of the show, and luckily for Beesquit, he had a gang of gigglers in the front row, giving him something to react to. Later, he capitalises on latecomers, offering a fast-forward recap of what they missed in another winning moment of semi-spontaneity.

Once the fat suit is shed, he gets into various gracefully awkward scrapes with props as simple as a half-inflated child’s rubber-ring, as he attempts some dry-land synchronised swimming. When he speaks, it’s as a benign but bewildered foreigner, a naïve Manuel trying to get his tongue around the English names he’s introduced to.

The audience interaction is brief, though – a major point of difference from the increasingly popular Dr Brown, to whom his antics are stylistically similar. Beesquit – which we can only assume is a phonetic French pronounciaton of ‘biscuit’ – is more vulnerable and affectionate, too.

His results are hit-and-miss. Sometimes the repetition never makes the leap from the annoying into the funny, but equally as often some silly image will make you chuckle. It’s a definite oddity, but a generally enjoyable one, even if you don’t get the promised reminder ‘that the lives we haven’t yet lived are so many’.

Review date: 16 May 2012
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton Hobgoblin