A unique, brilliant hour of character comedy for everyone’s inner inanimate object.
The Actors is the best venue at the Brighton Fringe. This is both scientific fact (they won the audience choice award last year), and reflected in their fabulous booking policy, which reaches its zenith over the Bank Holiday weekend. This is winningly dubbed the Queer Weekender and features some of the best alternative acts on the circuit.
Maniura’s Objectified is coming to the end of its run, and it’ll be fascinating to see what she comes up with next, as this is one of the most unique and original shows going.
The title is a red herring, as this isn’t a deep exploration of the problematic male gaze, though problematic men do feature (as they often do). Instead we see a young woman who spends an hour pretending to be an assortment of increasingly unlikely objects, personifying everything from a scooter to the Chancellor of the Exquecher’s dispatch box.
Beautifully, the concept of the show is only explained after the first character, so we get to enjoy a valley girl paper straw explaining how much she’s doing for the environment, with half a room in total confusion, followed by a delightful reveal and a room immediately on side.
The length of each personification varies, Maniura knowing which object is fairly one-beat and which can be spooled out into something more complicated.
Her voice work is immaculate throughout – even with a lamp that is either from Scandinavia or the low countries, she (the lamp) is not quite sure which – and how she introduces each new item with some very gentle and inclusive audience interaction. Side note, but it is endlessly fascinating what people say when asked to describe themselves in three words without any thinking time. ELECTRICIAN. WARMONGER. LOVER.
There is even a narrative arc of sorts, where we learn more about where Maniura’s remarkable and largely useless skill comes from – a near death experience – and a beautiful finale where we discover where exactly all these objects are living.
This feels slightly hurried, and the artist acknowledges the absurdity of the resolution, but she’s definitely earned it.
As these are indeed living, breathing characters. They have been manifested into being, and when the character comedian goes to bed, they all start chattering to each other, and plotting their escape.
Or at least, this would be easy to believe, so assured is the show and so delightful the performance.
Reviewed on 26th May
The Reviews Hub Score
Brilliant Character Comedy
