Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

‘I know this is a challenging piece,’ says Claire Woolner after one of her typically intense and bizarre sketches. ‘My intention is to raise questions.’ 

The most common one is surely: What the actual fuck? 

Did she really just give an avatar of her grandmother’s corpse a water burial, leaving just the spine? Yep. Did she just instigate a series of increasingly raunchy flirtations with audience members, just one layer of perspex from being a sex crime? Yes again.

A Retrospection is an undeniably odd hour from this fearless American performer – a clown, but one whose nose is only red because it’s been smeared with blood following another primal scream of a scene.
The interplay between artist and audience is key. Sometimes, the crowd encourage Woolner to do disgusting things, sometimes she’s pushing us out of our comfort zones. 

Her opening scene, in which she keeps asking one punter gently but insistently to ‘hit me in the door knob’ – although no such ironmongery on display – is fairly typical of Gaulier-style clowning but with a melodic twist. But things escalate very quickly.

The passion and potency of her performance are mesmerising; such commitment to each absurd bit brilliantly funny. But only if she wants it to be, as she can spin the mood on a dime. As the show goes on, she becomes increasingly extreme in her interactions, fuelled by a virulent self-loathing and possible mania.

Between skits, she takes phone calls from her id, giving  literal voice to her insecurities. Does she beat herself up over the accessibility of her work? Hell yes. ‘Unsellable obtuse trash’ that critical voice calls it. ‘Burdensome’, too. Those thoughts are harsh. It’s not commercial, that’s true, but here in the room it’s a roller-coaster ride with wild thrills mixed with laughs of incredulity that she went to such extremes, and laughs of relief that the danger is artificial. Probably.

Eventually, she turns on the fruity messenger of her ominous thoughts, letting out a lifetime of frustration over thwarted dreams in one rage-filled outburst. It gives fierce outlet to every obsessive Fringe performer’s exasperation, furiously railing about how this awful, demanding month is the only time she feels at home, despite all the pain it causes. Why can’t all of life be this cauldron of creativity?

At least some of this is billed as a tribute to the Serbian performance artist Marina Abramović, 50 years after her genre-redefining Edinburgh debut. But it makes no difference if you’ve never heard of her, just know that she put everything on the line in the name of her art.

So inspired, Woolner has created a bold, bizarrely funny collection of memories that will stay with audiences long after they’ve left the intense Edinburgh basement.

Review date: 24 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: PBH's Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth