Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Phil O’Shea is a gentle comic who creates a delicate alternative world and kindly invites audiences to share it with him.

Obsessed by the titular owls, but not quite sure why, he quietly implores us to submit to the peculiarities of a modestly absurd hour that proudly amounts to nothing. In Sgt Pepper jacket and wielding a bugle and wooden spoon, the comic is constantly raising his eyebrows in a conscious, conspiratorial tic.

There are props galore here, with the audience invited to get involved with the judicial use of the torch of truth and the colander of perception. 

The stakes are very low, for him and us. Asking us to get involved, he urges: ‘Imagine your dream garden… if you want. I’m just here to please you.’

The upshot of this routine is that he wants to ‘plant a seed of love in the garden of your heart’ – the lyrics to a genuine, saccharine, romantic song from 1909, which he sings. A cane and boater make an appearance in the next scene, underling old-school variety sensibilities but given a twist through O’Shea’s uniquely surreal, low-energy lens. 

At some points, the audience are transfixed by the lyricism, at others gently baffled, but trusting enough in O’Shea’s delightful presence that we’ll land on a laugh. 

We meet the bread police, with half-baguettes for the epaulettes on their uniform. In this guise – ‘I’m another character,’ he helpfully clarifies – O’Shea urges us not to feed the ducks, using a winningly convoluted acronym. 

Elsewhere, ‘seeds!’ becomes a catchphrase for us all to shout, there’s anti-observational comedy about the Garfield movie, toy animals on turntables to cover scene changes, and a catchy jingle about cod liver oil.

What does this all mean? Absolutely nothing beyond the quirky meanderings of a gentle man’s idiosyncratic mind… and very charming it all is, sometimes funny ha-ha as well as funny peculiar.

Review date: 23 Aug 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Stand 2