Brouhaha, the all-women clown trio, have a great reputation: winners of the Prix d'Or for their previous show Fish Soup and LIMF participants for the past three years. This was the first outing for their latest show Light at Night, and their first collaboration with Paul Hunter of Told By An Idiot (formerly the John Wright Company) as director.
Instead of conventional red nose clowns, we had long nosed, top hatted, sinister undertakers who appeared throughout the show as ambiguous, moral caretakers, the consciences of the characters. A story unfolds of three sisters who have ‘accidentally’ killed their fourth sister, Mandy, but have lost her body. Journeying in her coffin to try to find her, they discover a baby and their odyssey develops.
Although it takes a while to get going, and dips in the middle, the tale is witty and inventive, twisting and turning through unashamed cliché and visual jokes. The performances were all strong, and the coffin was fabulous, being turned into all manner of things.
The show needed cutting and tweaking but I'm sure that this will happen in the course of their forthcoming nationwide tour.