one4review | On 22, Aug 2022

Alex Franklin plays to their strengths, which are: being entirely comfortable on stage, not worrying about jokes that only light up a small section of the audience (the section changes so we all get something), and a mind that doesn’t like staying on one topic for long and moves at a million miles an hour. There’s one bit of funny with a hat that fires the whole room at the same time, but otherwise Alex mashes together a morass of references from all over the place, and the location of the laughter changes.

It could be said that this is a show about climate change, but it’s also absurdist and contains beatboxing, maths, board games, and expectation management, so it’s maybe more accurate to say it contains climate change as an element of the show. There’s nothing didactic or preachy about that content, but it also manages to make a point.

Alex is a comfortable performer who knows their way around a stage, both literally and metaphorically. They knows their content inside out, and they deliver it with maximum commitment and enthusiasm, especially their favourite jokes – awful groaners which might elsewhere be followed by an airhorn, but such is Alex’s youth, they dab instead.

This is a wonderful piece of nonsense from an entertaining performer.

Reveiwed by Laura

Just The Tonic at The Caves
22:50