Evelyn Evelyn

Part comedy, part freak show, and part Americana folk, this act from Amanda Palmer (she of Dresden Dolls fame) and Jason Webley presents, as our host Thomas Truax claims, the world’s first conjoined-twin singer-songwriters. Born in 1985, the twins are connected at the side and have between them two legs, two hearts, three lungs and a single liver. They also look very much like Palmer and Webley (the goatee’s a giveaway). They’re very shy, only encouraged on stage with applause, but once they get started, they entertain right up to the encore.

Singing in close harmony and sharing instruments, the twins perform a series of songs that detail the highs and lows of being conjoined. Their opening sad piano tune about their everyday dilemmas has the two singing alternate halves of lines such as ‘Should we be firemen? Can we be astronauts?’ It’s funny – even they can’t help laughing – but their melancholy is moving too, and it’s easy to fall in love with their individual personalities and various quirks, like their insistence on wiping clean each instrument before playing. We hear about dating problems and issues of personal space as they move from drums to accordion to ukulele, culminating in everyone swaying to their lighter flames for probably the most bizarre rendition of ‘love will tear us apart’ that the Fringe has ever seen.

Assembly George Square, Run ended