Created by Stolen Table and Pat Rascal

Review by Orly Benn

Underbelly Cowgate – Iron Belly

Stolen Table and Pat Rascal return to the Fringe, continuing their chain of beautifully unserious and gorgeously absurdist clowning feats to bring us Space Gravy: the freshest chain in an infallible string of good-night-outs. As all good narratives start, three of Yorkshire’s finest families watch the Olympics, basking in the glory of Yorkshire’s triumphant performance (as is made inescapably clear, Yorkshire, if considered an independent state, placed 12^th overall in these specific games).

Obviously, this leads to the next question: what if they were the first to Mars? The rest of the show is almost inexplicable and, yet, totally unforgettable. The incredibly skilled and sublimely comedic ensemble effort of Anisa Khorassani, Matt Blin, and Rob Davidson seamlessly transports us from a nondescript Yorkshire town (decidedly NOT Bradford) to a progressive, queer-saturated, white-linen-absorbed Greece, to, of course, space (with many intervals in between).

With a rough laughter count of 3000 giggles per minute (totally scientific), Space Gravy sets the comic-timing ideal that all should aim for, and is a flawless defence for the immortal value and delight of clowning and commedia dell’arte. One laments that any such piece of theatre should come to an end; when the whole show is so absurd, there is of course no ending that can do it justice to finish it.

The fact that the three friends at the centre of YASA (Yorkshire Aeronautics and Space Administration) do eventually make it to Mars, overcoming death, American yee-haw spies and train-trampled pets is almost unwanted and premature as the audience yearns for 5 more hours of the next-most-completely-ridiculous-surely-that-can’t-be-thing to happen. If clowning were an Olympic sport, Pat Rascal would place first on my podium of the Fringe.

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