Review by Steve Bennett

Expectations are high with anyone associated with producers Invisible Dot, who have a reputation for being at the vanguard of the new generation of alternative comedy. Ellie White is among their current Fringe stable, but although clearly talented, her debut character showcase is solid but unmemorable, rather lost in a seas of similar shows.

She has some nice tricks – projected words standing in for her own preamble, for example – and many of her creations have a slightly disconcerting edge. It’s enough to intrigue, if not yet give her enough to completely stand apart from the crowd.

Her first character is a motivational speaker, and how the heart sinks at hearing this over-used comic device. There are probably more fake comedy motivational speakers than there are real ones. In this half-Australian guise of Aileen Gas, White spouts the usual corporate feelgood nonsense while slowly revealing her business success isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, nor is her mental state. So far, so boilerplate, but White makes a convincing persona… and when Gas returns at the end, she does at least provide a suitable rousing, slogan-filled finale.

Her sole contestant in the Mrs Harringey 2014 beauty pageant is so nervous and timid that I missed her name, quietly whispered, before she rapped uncomfortably, fulfilling many of the tropes of the now-prevalent awkward comedy character. She, too, returned, the second time around as cabin crew doing a version of the safety announcement, amusingly half-cocked. Another character, a misguided young political poet, offers a modern-day twist on Rik Mayall’s ill-informed Kevin Turvey.

But the clear highlight is a middle-class Mum, nervously babbling away while giving a speech at an 18th birthday party she’s clearly not welcome at. The characterisation is superb, while the full picture, when it finally emerges is a lot more bizarre than you could imagine.

White is strong on detail – all these creations have quirks played without over-exaggeration that makes them convincing – but inconsistent in her ability to convert offbeat detail into solid laughs. But hey, it’s a relatively unhyped first show in the unlikely setting of a Mexican restaurant’s basement (which she makes frequent wry references to), and there is plenty of promise on display.

Review date: 10 Aug 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Viva Mexico