Elf Lyons delivers an exceptional show that both is and isn’t about horses.
Picture the scene: we’re at the farm. Around us, the great, the good and the galloping of the herd have gathered to take to the riding ring. From entirely fictional to notoriously famous, each steed gets their turn to take centre stage.
Amidst the sections of horseplay, Lyons stands under spotlight to lip sync to recordings of her family talking about what she was like as a child, and their family life. The gestures and facial expressions she chooses often convey a level of sarcasm, or indeed an entirely different story, to the words, making these moments full of humour. We learn about what a young Elf Lyons was like, and how that may have shaped the woman standing before us today.
She loved to play horses as a child. And so, today, she plays once again, but this time, for our entertainment.
Lyons is an embodied character actor, breathing life into what could lay flat. Is there an award for best harrumphing horse noise? There should be, when it’s so beautifully true-to-life. From the grim reaper to a skipping child, each role feels real.
Lyons expands on the exhaustion of being a woman in the public eye, or hell, just being a woman in general. It’s delivered with good humour, but she rightly sounds tired of it. The constant flurry of contradictory, thoughtless and irrelevant comments on her appearance deserve a withering stare. She pinpoints the pressure of being a woman in your 30s who, to use her powerful words, is ‘unwed and unfertilised’, and how we can shake off the reins through play.
We can see that this isn’t just a show for Lyons. She cares about horses, and the details have been carefully considered here. Her spotlight on the cruelty of the Grand National understandably feels weighted. There’s a childlike tenderness to this which taps into this world of play we’re building together. Lyons is that most intriguing fusion of things, somehow managing to be both hard and soft at the same time, and all the more magnificent for it. When she’s angry or freaky on stage, we believe her.
The Old Market is the perfect venue for this show. It’s intimate without being small. Cosy without being close. The ideal location for an artist like Lyons, who breaks the fourth wall so strikingly that we feel like she is among us, she is one of us. She has the ability to command a crowd and the stage with prowess. In the early stages of the show, two chaps on the front row join her for a game, invited to come between her legs and storm the audience, with the usual Lyons undertones. She checks politely for their consent to participate, an energy which is matched when the lads set siege on the audience at her beckoning. They do a visual check-in with each person watching before they pretend to slaughter them. Surety before swashbuckling, here in Brighton, as it should be.
It is criminal to spoil the ending of this show, but what we can say is: imagine a moment when you were happy as a child, bottle it, and you’ll soon find you can join in. It’s playful and poignant, and the audience engage with unbridled glee.
After an interval, Lyons finishes with a stand-up set that touches on her family, offending city councils, ethical non-monogamy (also appreciated by the Brighton crowd) and romancing her girlfriend/sister. She finishes with a very relevant commentary on why she delivers the stand-up section at the end. If you see her as a person first, how will you be able to believe she is a horse? And with this Lyons trots away, ready to bid farewell to each and every audience member at the door.
Reviewed on 29 May 2025.
