Edinburgh Fringe comedy review

A lot like a classic Pixar movie, Zoe Wohlfeld’s clowning show Dog Funeral begins in tragedy, explained to us via a short film about a sweet relationship between a girl and her dog that comes to an abrupt end when the dog eats a whole chocolate cake.

Wohlfeld’s hour takes place in the aftermath of that event, cleverly using the performance of grief as an access point for her most childish and petulant instincts. 

Dressed in mourning clothes with a mascara-streaked face, Wohlfeld is forever on the verge of bursting into tears, prone to collapsing on the floor and staying there, sulking, until someone from the audience comes to check on her.

If she was just playing a stroppy kid, this approach would probably become annoying, but the fact that it takes place at the funeral of a dog (imaginary though it may be) has the audience rushing to indulge her. It feels genuinely satisfying when, as a group, we please her enough that she cracks a sad smile, and then devastating when we inadvertently offend her and she bursts into tears for the umpteenth time. 

‘I think that everybody hates me just because I’m sad!’ she wails at one point, hiding under a table. ‘No no no!’ we say, ‘We love you!’ Maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Wohlfeld performs this character brilliantly, her malleable face communicating waves of emotion without many words being needed. She’s especially striking when she’s in a kind of spectral terror mode, drifting towards punters with an eerie silent scream and an accusatory pointing finger.

Her clowning tricks, especially the way she likes to rib and embarrass her audience, may be familiar from many other such shows over the last decade, but she performs them to a very high standard here, with many lovely moments of creativity that keep the show feeling fresh. 

It’s the kind of show that not only is likely to suck a few new people in to the world of clown, but also beautifully illustrates a particular feeling in a way that hasn't been done before.

Review date: 27 Aug 2026
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Underbelly Cowgate