Review by Tatum Stafford
Garry Starr is inimitable, and easily one of the most engaging and entertaining performers money can buy you come Fringe season.
I’ll never forget seeing Garry at The Blue Room five(ish) years ago, in one of the smallest Fringe venues, and being astounded by his ability to capture an audience with some of the most absurd yet incredible performance art that manages to straddle high and low brow with perfect precision. So naturally, when I saw he was bringing his brand-new show out west, I jumped at the chance to see it.
Classic Penguins has a deceptively simple premise: Garry Starr is going to save books from extinction by performing every Penguin classic novel in an hour, mostly naked, but in flippers. Is that not the best hook for a show you’ve ever heard?
As we enter the venue, we see Garry smoking a pipe with his chair turned upstage. A slow reveal (in a dramatic swivel chair, naturally) confirms the ‘naked’ part of the show teaser, and from there, we’re off on a literature adventure.
As the show unfolds, each Penguin novel is taken off a stacked shelf and videoed in real-time, connecting to a screen to show the audience what’s up next. This is an extremely effective visual gag and often is all that’s needed to accompany Garry’s physicality, props, costuming or audience interaction (of which there is plenty).
The show wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining without its expert tech team and clever tech plotting, so I must give a big shout-out for their precision and hard work throughout.
Garry’s comedy style is absolutely hilarious and hard to put into words. Renowned for his physical clowning work, this show has him running in circles, crowdsurfing (slight spoiler, sit in the front rows for a fully immersive experience here), being actively pelted by fruits and vegetables, and doing plenty more. It’s a feat of both stamina and comedy.
He has an unmistakable ability to bring audiences along on a journey, and this is demonstrated by the ease in which people were willing to trust him with the plethora of opportunities to jump onstage and help him perform these novels. After reviewing the show on a Saturday evening, I bought a ticket to see the Sunday matinee, and was so pleased to see that the atmosphere felt exactly the same by the end of the show - it’s really a universal and wholesome experience to sit in his audience and all share the same show as audience members. A delicate mixture of ‘what the f**k are we watching’, and ‘isn’t it great to be alive and here together’ is a uniquely Garry offering that united us all.
In short, this show is an absolute triumph, and you’d be mad to miss it. I’ve avoided including specific book-related spoilers here, as you must go and see it for yourself and be surprised at his creativity and unrelenting hilarity.
