Claudia O'Doherty: The Telescope

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Having revealed the truth behind comedians' early careers—that they're all trained and released into the world by an academy called The Nuthouse—it turns out Claudia O'Doherty's contract isn't getting renewed. However, she's contractually obliged to do one last show but nowhere does it stipulate that it has to be a comedy, so she's written a multimedia and tech-heavy piece of upsetting theatre called The Telescope.  Think Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, but with O'Doherty deftly performing all the parts herself.

So far so good, until O'Doherty falls out of sync with the pre-programmed, computer controlled special effects. O'Doherty is wide eyed and panic stricken as, for the next forty minutes, she attempts to entertain the audience over the top of the absurd play ploughing remorselessly on around her. It ensures the pace barely dips; her attempts at standup are constantly interrupted by varying intrusions from The Telescope, from video to snow machines, resulting in a brilliantly cringeworthy finale. A repeated trigger provoking her to reveal personal information doesn't quite work as a running gag, but on the whole this is a masterclass in crap film-making, hammy acting and how chaos comedy should be done. 

However, you can't help wishing there was more of The Telescope before everything begins to crumble; this would allow the audience to settle into more of a rhythm, lulled into a false sense of "security" (albeit a fairly bonkers one), giving the eventual descent into madness an extra kick. Despite this, The Telescope remains an ambitious, accomplished hour; she aims higher than most and the result is a refreshingly different, wickedly funny must-see show.