Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

Cabbage the Clown, the alter ego of Eliza Nelson, is a drag act that sent me scurrying to Wikipedia to do some research on the concept of drag, as Cabbage doesn’t so much exaggerate gender as dodge the issue altogether, appearing in ghostly white and green clown makeup and a series of interesting but certainly non-binary costumes that are based around things you might see in the cinema.

There’s a gown made of binbags, a massive slushie cup and two separate janitor’s boiler suits, plus a treasure chest’s worth of accessories and props. The outfits are sometimes deployed with accompanying jokes, but more often than not it feels like the outfit is itself the point. It was not a surprise to discover that Nelson’s academic background and day job is in theatrical costume design, as it’s certainly the area of the show that feels like it's had the most professional attention.

Which is not to say that they have no juice as a performer. On the contrary, Cabbage is kind of a small-scale charisma bomb – not overbearing but fascinating with ease, often without saying anything. It helps that they’re a nifty little mover. Graceful, almost balletic movements are integrated with lots of rolling around on the floor, which is all slightly more entertaining than you might expect, owing to the aforementioned charisma, but does prompt intrusive thoughts about how all the writhing is papering over the areas of the show that are low on ideas.

The show takes place in an imaginary cinema, but this is no nostalgic Cinema Paradiso. Cinemadrome is a seedy, down-at-heel national chain, where dedicated employee Cabbage is ordered from concessions to bathroom duty and back again by a disembodied manager. 

If Cinemadrome is about one thing, it’s about trying to stay buoyant under the heel of capitalism, something that Cabbage reaches for through play – messing about with popcorn, brooms and the screen itself in a series of homages and parodies. 

If it’s about more than one thing, it’s also about being gay, and the highlight of the hour is a lovely mime of a courtship between Cabbage and a suave lesbian played by a flannel shirt on a stick. You may have seen the same mime done before by Tom Walker, Trygve Wakenshaw, or maybe even Buster Keaton, but Cabbage makes it their own to a certain extent.

Finally, after a series of minor hits and gentle misses, the show concludes with a drawn-out expressionistic climax in which Cabbage spends a lot of time flitting around the stage slightly aimlessly. It’s draggy in both senses of the word, and a frustrating ending for a debut with plenty of heart and some good costumes, but an intermittent lack of fresh ideas.

Review date: 2 Aug 2025
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Underbelly George Square