Simple Matters

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It's a horrible thing to have to write a bad review of a clown show. The genre is so gentle and imaginative and the people it attracts only want to make others laugh. But just like everything else, there are good clowns and bad clowns, and for whatever reason, the humour in this predominantly silent slapstick show just doesn't quite come off.

It's hard to pick apart what it is that makes the jokes fall flat. The cast are all confident performers and they have all created distinctive clown personas: a toothless acrobat, a wiggly-bummed contortionist, a man in faded top hat and tailcoat. Perhaps the jokes try too hard to be wacky – certainly the stage looks very messy for a lot of the show with one skit ceding into the next without ever being fully developed.

But if there is one thing worse than a clown who is not funny it is a clown who scares children, and you know things are bad when mothers in the audience have to whisper "it's ok" – this comes after a man in a half mask and orange boiler suit abducts an audience member. There is also an increasingly disturbing take on giving birth where one clown pulls from between another's legs objects including a telephone and an Olympic torch before disappearing into a dream sequence in her womb, creepily reminiscent of Renton's foray down the toilet in Trainspotting. Which is probably the last thing you want to remind an Edinburgh audience of in a family-friendly show.