Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Stephanie Laing combines dance and comedy in Rudder but doesn’t do justice to either.

She’s been a stand-up for more than 15 years but is a newcomer to the world of movement, having persuaded the Arts Council to pay for her to learn the art form.

Rudder is based around a handful of techniques she’s learned such as Graham, named after an American choreographer, and Chance, in which a dice throw determines the sequence of moves. 

I’m not qualified to comment on the quality of the dance, which she performs with a straight bat, not for laughs. But although she’s no New Art Club – a duo who have been combining contemporary dance and physical comedy for more than two decades – she seems on top of her movement. One audience member with experience in the field does confirm she’s doing OK.

However, another routine in which she acts out the emotions of being gleeful, bereft and content in a cycle seems almost indistinguishable from mime  – and there are certainly a lot more talented mimes at the Fringe who make a full, absorbing character-led hour from their talents. Comparatively,  this seems like dabbling, while the set-up using cue cards that autistic children use to help express themselves is overly long.

Likewise, with all the high-end, glamorous and provocative burlesque shows at the festival, Laing doing it in a black T-shirt doesn’t cut the mustard.

There’s a sense she’s doing these routines more for herself than for us. A subtext of the stand-up between them is that she took up dance to get a better relationship with her body, which she – and, disturbingly, other people – did not always respect. 

Sexy is ‘off-brand’ for her, she explains as she sets up a belly dance. Her stand-up certainly gives off a more awkwardly boyish vibe, nervous laughs tagging many punchlines, but it’s clear she is finding new confidence in herself through dance.

The hot, respectful boyfriend she can’t help but tell us about probably helps, as does her therapist – and some of her comments about ‘sitting in her feelings’ and a ‘healing process’ seem to come straight out of their sessions. All this has helped her get to a much more contented place.

Tonally, the hour leaps around like the most energetic ballerina, pirouetting between earnest dancing, vulnerable storytelling and dumb jokes. The best anecdote of the show, about a bizarre incident after she went wild swimming from an Aberdeen beach, doesn’t have any real connection with anything else. 

Her journey to happiness through dance is heartening,  but she’s been less successful parlaying that into a must-see show.

Review date: 22 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square