Crybabies: Danger Brigade

• Claire Sawers
• 4 August 2019

A zany and chaotic character-filled romp

If you've not sat in a basement bar at the Fringe with one other audience member for company, been assigned the bit part of 'Greta, child-torture liaison' and watched as the man onstage in pants says a painful goodbye to a broken mop, well, you've probably made some good life choices.

This zany WWII romp hits peak Fringe about three times in an hour, if you can stick with it long enough to savour its absurdist high / low points. In fairness to the devoted, manic Crybabies cast, they double down and inflict their Inglourious Bellends plot on an unwitting (underpopulated on this day) audience, building a chaotic storyline around dysfunctional, attention-desperate, schoolgirl-chasing baddies, trying to right wrongs done to them.

Chester Daggerboot, son of self-adoring, emotionally unavailable thespian Gammon Daggerboot, has a gaping hole in his heart which he tries to fill through cabaret performances at the Wine Bar Republik. Meanwhile, Skipps McCoy is using his sex obsession to keep his mind off that incident at a football match where he let his young child die in very unusual circumstances. Jumpers for goalposts, table legs for nipples, and three actors in four-character scenes won't bring back McCoy's bitter ex-wife Susan, but it will create indelibly strange new Fringe memories.

Heroes @ Boteco, until 25 Aug (not 14), 4pm, £5 in advance or donations at the venue.