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Udderbelly at Underbelly, George Square
There’s a particular kind of joy in walking into a show completely blind, and …Earnest? at Udderbelly, Underbelly’s big purple cow at George Square, delivered that joy in shovels. I had no idea what I was getting into, and that made the surprise land even harder.
The premise: a “traditional” production of The Importance of Being Earnest gets underway… until the lead actor fails to show up. The director walks down onto the stage, full of apologies, and does something few shows would dare… pulls an audience member up to play the part. And I mean a genuine audience member, not a plant. This is real, seat-of-your-pants audience participation, as thick as it gets.
Here’s where it got personal. The director narrowed it down to two potential candidates from the crowd, and I was one of them. Cue a barrage of questions about my knowledge of the play and, bafflingly, my height. I have never been more terrified in a theater seat in my life. Thankfully (or perhaps not, depending how you look at it) the director went with the other guy, and I sank back into my seat more relieved than a relieved thing.
The man who did step up deserves his own paragraph: a 27-year-old, strikingly handsome butcher from Huddersfield with a taste for pies, pints and football. He turned out to be a comedy natural, carrying the role, and the chaos that followed, with real instinct. I won’t spoil what happens for anyone new to …Earnest?, but suffice to say it just keeps going wrong in the best possible way, and by the end the whole room was aching from laughing so hard.
He even stuck around afterwards to meet the audience! A legend born, right there in George Square (every day!).
This is genuinely one of my highlights of the Fringe this year, and I’ll be pushing to go back for it every season from now on. If you’re stuck on what to see, or you’re a complete Fringe novice unsure where to start, make this the one. It’s fecking brilliant.
PS: to the poor souls pulled up on stage every day… you’re the real stars of this show.