Only Bones

Feet squabble with each other, hands undulate in UV lighting like marine life and a loose head seemingly slides from one shoulder to the other. New Zealander Thomas Monckton manipulates his body into physical comedy that gives every sinew, every joint, a starring role.

Monckton’s training as a clown is clear in his elastic physicality, but what really makes this 45 minutes of lo-fi brilliance sing is its confident, slow build-up: each part of his body gets to explore the world, from unravelling socks to excitedly applying nail varnish. These are mini-character studies that disassemble anatomy into laugh-out-loud moments.

Somewhere between Pixar’s famous animated lamp and Rowan Atkinson’s innocent abroad, Mr Bean, is where Monckton rests – his head mostly obscured by a hoodie or the bowl of a low-hanging ceiling light. He’s a scarecrow figure, with fellow New Zealander Gemma Tweedie his playfully impassive technical operator and occasional co-performer.

The gradual awakening of limbs, to body, to face—a fantastically manic one—keeps everything shifting and evolving. Monckton engages with the audience well, and just enough, while not stepping out of the small circle on the ground that contains his performance. His physical prowess is a lightly handled, wonderful thing, but not ego-driven, with a spike of grotesqueness.

Finnish Kallo Collective theatre company are bringing Only Bones to Edinburgh after it won a Best in Physical Theatre award at the 2015 New Zealand Fringe. It’s not hard to see why it did. It’s inventive and comically adept, prodding you into awed laughter with every unlikely contortion.