Deceptively sweet, Lazy Susan bring a cheeky malevolence to their character-driven sketch comedy. The double act has a cute, compact aesthetic, complete with breeches and theatrical make-up. They’re also ruthless, making them
The show is entertaining on many levels, and we are treated to some brilliant songs and even tap-dance.
Freya Parker kisses a whistling toy duck, only for Celeste Dring to shoot it in a later scene. A ‘highly driven but utterly passionless’ TV presenter interviews a cheery but disgustingly dirty surgeon. An endearing pair of Texan youths sings violent rehashes of popular songs in order to pay for their medical treatment. Through all of their sketches the pair’s outrageous imagination make Lazy Susan a stand-out act amongst such high-class sketch comedy at this year’s Fringe.
Parker and Dring specialise in the long-form sketch and build up a cast of zany but believably centred characters. The quirks of these creations lead each scene’s action, and rather than the punchline ending of traditional sketch comedy, they often exit the stage still nattering away in character. This means that the show avoids feeling overly contrived, and the outlandish scenarios feel remarkably naturalistic.
Accents abound, with Australian and Geordie perhaps the most frequently used. ‘It’s the same old story, you come into some money, you buy some micro-pigs’ a Geordie woman smilingly tells us. Parker and Dring are sublime at male characters too, in an understated way. They excel as Aussie teenage boys playing would-you-rather. Dring is surprisingly good at capturing a sense of haggard male longing for his lover Perchango, as the Texan one-eyed cowboy. Parker is equally convincing in this scene as an advice-giving dog.
The show is entertaining on many levels, and we are treated to some brilliant songs and even tap-dance. Poetry is cleverly manipulated in a hilarious rewrite of Auden’s ‘Stop all the Clocks’ in honour of the now-deceased life-coach from an earlier sketch, Jackie Sanchez. Starting with ‘turn off the fridge’, the added lines proceed to get funnier and funnier.
Lazy Susan have a unique take on the sketch show format and are certainly worth a watch. Theirs is a comedy which celebrates the crazy misfits hidden away in various subcultures of society.
