Show Rating:

Deliciously dark, mindbendingly inventive and incredibly funny, the Absinthe Monologues deserves a starring role in this year’s Fringe.

Both silly and sublime, a cast of just five breathes new life into the humble sketch show with unwavering professionalism.

Compered by the absinthe-addled Cad, a parade ofwarped characters burst forth onto the stage like creatures freed from Pandora’s Box.

A sinister lost five-year-old lures unsuspecting adults into his trap, while a delirious desert island castaway queasily narrates his day. There’s the internet dater with the substantial tic he forgot to mention online and the Victorian freak show owner, delighted at finding a child that smells like Marie Antoinette.

More Big Train than Little Britain, it’s defiantly weird and winningly refreshing.

The territory is often familiar (insurance adverts, chat shows, paedophilia and religion), but the topsy-turvy approach shows them from a whole new perspective.

Bitingly sharp, the show swiftly cuts down political correctness and mocks modern sensibilities in the most unusual ways.

The Sex Offenders’ Olympics sketch in particular deserves special praise for being one of the most fabulously grotesque and cringingly realised notions you will see this year.

Everything in this show has been polished until it shines; the script mercilessly edited to leave nothing but the best, the acting awe-inspiringly excellent.

It rolls along at high-speed, like some out of control juggernaut, leaving audience members gasping for breath in its wake.

The free Absinthe handed out as you go in is a nice touch but totally unnecessary - the show really doesn’t need gimmicks to sell it, word of mouth should do the trick. Don’t miss this!

Reviewed by: Nione Meakin