Review: Phil O’Shea: Never Pretend to be an Owl!

If the sturm und drang of Fringe life is starting to get too much, how about a stroll towards New Town and a dreamy chat about owls? And goats. And the dietary requirements of ducks, with a man dressed as one of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for the most part. No? You don’t know what you’re missing. 

This certainly is a unique new offering from Phil O’Shea, who most recently Fringed as one half of the sketch duo Soup Group. It’s a trippy, silly, prop-heavy affair, also including rotating animal interludes and a random music-hall singalong. 

The idea seems to have sprung from an old journal entry, which featured the show’s title, but O’Shea now can’t recall what that meant. So he’s constructed an elaborate fantasy around it, in which he plays a bunch of characters, notably the bread police and what appears to be a whole garden. 

Tone-wise, there’s a big whiff of Reeves and Mortimer, but at quarter speed and with a lot less casual violence. This curious show’s success does rather depend on the audience joining in, straight away, even if just to humour the odd fish onstage who’s obsessed with cod liver oil and seeds. A hoot? For some, for sure.