Writer and Director: Alan Ho
A giant clock has rendered watch-wearing obsolete, and the old watchmaker’s shop is being sold to make way for a new “StarCups” franchise. Rohan Patil plays the watchmaker, who is as sweary as every other character, with as much dignity and individuality as the part allows. Charlie Aldwynn is his son, Jacob, whose rags-to-riches story forms the main basis of a thoroughly fantastical plot. The actors are energetic and enjoyable to watch, but the script is mostly nonsense.
The story takes place in an unnamed town in an unknown country. Many of the cultural references seem to be American, including repeated mentions of having to pay for expensive healthcare. The main conceptual landmark is the clock. It has stopped and needs repairing. Since nobody has a watch, explains evil mastermind and CEO of Zenith Time, Elliot Sterling, stroking a white cat, the tycoon who controls the clock controls time itself. It’s an interesting idea that is never examined in the play’s overlong 90 minutes. Most shows in the Camden Fringe are less than an hour, and this one could probably have been cut to fit that timeframe without losing too much.
Writer and director Alan Ho also plays Sterling, a pantomimic baddie, who laughs mirthlessly before ordering the summary punishment of his enemies and incompetent underlings. Once a man has become as successful as he is, he tells his lollipop-sucking, silk-clad assistant Abigail (beguiling Kexin Song): “money is no longer earned; it is summoned”.
One of many problems with this theatrical farce is that the script is relatively monotonal. Every character speaks as if they’ve just arrived from a parodied American TV show (“can’t nobody tell me…” “this broke-arse shop”). Lou Giordano and Chanyin Long are an entertaining double act as sisters Sage and Caroline Ashburn, retailers-turned-villainous sidekicks, who say things like “you just ain’t that smart, sister” and “we ain’t got no money”.
Jonas Kobberdal, playing a character called Ivan and a policeman, with wit and conviction, has regrettably few lines but a similar idiolect. He spends much of his time on stage punching people. There are red-lit, slow-motion fight scenes, slapstick, and “stylised physical storytelling” but not much in the way of subtlety or nuance.
Designer Emily Xu’s ingenious set is one of the more original aspects of the drama. It consists of two folding screens with detachable Velcro designs that can represent the mysterious all-ruling Zenith Time Company or the rose-wreathed New Clock care-home that Jacob’s father finds himself in. There are some audiovisual innovations too, with Sterling appearing on a screen, complete with animated drawings to enhance his broadcast.
Along with ubiquitous swearing and clichéd Americanisms, there are sudden shifts of register when the show swerves from comedy to tragedy, pathos to pantomime and back again. Ultimately, it’s not clear what __ In Loss is trying to be. Is it a gangster-themed comedy? A warning satire about late-capitalist loss of control? A send-up of corporate corruption dramas? A folk tale? A mash-up of all four? At one point the Ashburn sisters ask: “Who was that guy? Why was he trying to kill us?” Good questions.
And the title “__ In Loss” is as baffling as the rest of the show. There are obviously multiple possible senses for the word loss: of humanity, of money, of time, of life. But the underscore? Is it a reference to an internet meme? The best way to enjoy the play is to forget its flaws and lean into the fun. Don’t look too hard for meaning, and this is a sometimes-entertaining 90 minutes.
Runs until 18 August 2026
Camden Fringe 2026 runs until 30 August
