Bost Uni Plues

• Claire Sawers
• 23 August 2019

This article is from 2019

Clowns get the blues after learning

This is a hyper cocktail of modern clowning, thumping techno and goofy, cartoon slapstick humour from Liverpool's Ugly Bucket Theatre. Offering a speeded-up flashback through the clown trio's university years, from the admissions letters to Freshers Week, nights out clubbing on pills, to graduation, it leaves them rudderless, and feeling lost when it's all over.

There are lip-sync sequences in the Creature Comforts style, mimed skits that seem like Pingu having an existential meltdown and a sequence in which the Mario Brothers drop in for a race. It's primary coloured, excitable fun with sock puppets and lots of gurning, but with an underlying message about the sham sometimes created by the carnivalesque fun. Voiceovers from students are cleverly dropped in to reveal what's really going on behind the Instagram stories or rounds of sambuca shots.

The trio are talented, rubber-faced grafters who work hard in this debut hour at the Fringe and have timed their super quick mime and dance steps to gel very well together. Although the humour gets a bit far fetched in a few places, and the 'bloobly blah' baby talk rubs the wrong way sometimes, they convey the loneliness, identity crises and stress of university life, all while wearing neon clown makeup.

Greenside @ Infirmary Street, run ended.