Review from: Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 1st Aug 2024
When I last reviewed them in 2019, I wrote “I’d go see Laser Kiwi again in a flash”. And, money where my mouth is, they were one of the first shows I signed up to during my brief stint in Edinburgh this year. I wanted to see if their oddball sketch show format still held up – and boy does it! On paper, it might not look an obvious choice for my usual tastes but, in person, it’s an hour of hilarious nonsense that makes me say again, “I’d be back in a flash”.
It’s honestly like nothing I’ve ever seen before on the circus circuit, with aerial and object manipulation melded into a bizarre framework of gags and comedy skits, held together by an increasingly amusing olive theme. When we enter, the church-space interior of the Assembly Roxy venue is venerably lit to glorify an altar, grandly ceremonious, housing a giant jar of pimento stuffed olives. Tiny olive voices start to speak. We realise that we are included within their number. We are the olives (and, later in the show, this becomes more physically realised too!).
The trio of Imogen Stone and brothers Zane and Degge Jarvie are way ahead of us. They have already, helpfully, played the critic’s role and scored all the elements of their show out of ten, and listed them for us on a handy cheat sheet. Trying to figure out which parts of the show match up with the given titles is part of the fun. I score the ‘Brine Odyssey’ and ‘Pop C-Yawn’ sections higher than they have, while ‘Block From The Bottom’ and ‘Bounce’ come in a little lower (although handbalancing on Jenga towers is pretty fun, and it’s certainly the first time I’ve seen anyone bounce juggling in a foothang before). ‘Where’s Wally’ starts off scoring low, but accumulates extra points as the show goes on. I still have no idea what ‘$548’ was. Overall, my points tally even higher than those they give themselves, and I enjoy having the structure of shifting dynamics laid out for all to see. With 24 different sections in an hour-long show, there is certainly no time to get bored.
At one point, shots of extreme vulgarity in the script make the absurd nonsense even funnier; at another Imogen’s aerial rope skills add a level of sophistication to the smorgasbord, looping the rope for her body to move through with slow control to a sound scoring that made me think of Nathan Geering’s Rationale Method of audio describing movement. The next thing you know, someone appears in an olive costume.
The Kiwi crew have something special in their endearingly awkward comic presentation. They’re also presenting a non-circus based gameshow at Edinburgh Fringe this year, which I’m sure is similarly entertaining. But, with the physical chops to pull off their circus discipline segments too, for a comedy-seeking audience, Rise of the Olive goes above and beyond expectations.
