Nina Conti - Dolly Mixtures

• Kirstyn Smith
• 21 August 2012

This article is from 2012.

Pic’n’Mix show leaves audience with too much choice

Midway through Dolly Mixtures, Nina Conti’s granny puppet, arguably her most famous, states the obvious: ‘These puppets bring out different parts of your personality,’ swiftly tying together what Conti has been doing for the past half an hour. Debuting four new characters, she employs them to dip in and out of various aspects of her psyche, whether it’s a precocious, depressive young girl representing the shreds of her childhood wonderment; or the old man, not long for this world, who encapsulates her fear of senility and death.

While there is no denying Conti’s vast talent for voices, juggling herself and her alter egos with laughable ease, this is a show that feels as though it still hasn’t quite found its feet. Too much is packed into an hour, including an impressive but pointless piece of Derren Brown-style mindreading which only serves to highlight the disjointed air. The finale is a cute piece of poignancy and solidifies the show’s interesting philosophy, but more focus on the puppets and less on the audience would leave the crowd’s hunger suitably sated.

Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 27 Aug, 8.30pm, £13–£14 (£11.50–£12.50).