A cabbage-packed cabbage patch of Gen-Z clown about the stupidity of minimum wage jobs and the need to get back to what’s important: our silly, trashy little popcorn dreams.
For Cabbage the Clown, the Cinemadrome is where young dreams go to die. It is also where she makes a living doing a shite minimum wage job constantly picking up (and doing fun things with) a whole lot of trash.
From tempting us into playing MadLibs to singing a song about getting sucked while dressed as a blue slushie (and then getting sucked, as requested, by a member of the audience), Cabbage the Clown does what she can to make her job – which she repeatedly claims she “loves” – palatable fun and not worth hanging herself over.
This seems like a relatable enough premise. However, as much as Cabbage asked us to love and attend to her, I never got the sense that she would do the same for us.
She’s clearly an incredibly talented clown, and the fact that she’s brought this show back from last year’s Fringe is a testament to her promise as a rising Gen Z star in that genre. However, this ninety-minute campy romp shows that she’s still in her, shall we say, salad days of clown mastery.
Overall, I tragically couldn’t feel much empathy for her, which made some of her bits long and difficult to get through. At one point, toward the end, she gets so overwhelmed by her boss’ requests to pick up trash, go to the customer service counter, greet guests at the welcome desk, that she simply shuts down. For what felt like ten minutes, she made us watch her tidy the stage. At over an hour in and still without much tying my own heart to her struggle, this was a bit difficult to sit through. I felt like someone was willingly wasting my time and secretly laughing at me while they did it.
Perhaps this was all a means to reflect the ways in which creative folk waste their time working at poorly paid jobs for managers who don’t have a clue, let alone care, what gives their creative little employees joy. There’s nothing quite like being made aware of having your time wasted by someone else to reveal how much you brainlessly waste your own. I still just wish she could have gotten on with it.
Show Listing: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/cabbage-the-clown-cinemadrome
LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Venue: Belly Button, Underbelly Cowgate
Dates: Aug 5th -17th
Time: 18:25 (90 mins)
Ticket prices: £15.00 / concessions £14.00
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / http://www.edfringe.com
Suitable for 16+