one4review | On 14, Aug 2025

After last year’s cult hit sellout show Voices of Evil, clown, comedian, puppeteer and ventriloquist Lachlan Werner has returned to the Fringe with his latest tale of circuses, strongmen, sea lions and sinister secrets.

Werner plays Jack Hammer, the world’s strongest boy, not to mention world’s strongest Twunk (head of a twink, body of a hunk), an old-school circus sideshow attraction. Jack is naïve and isolated – forbidden from touching anyone by his father due to his prodigious strength – his only friend being Slippy the balancing sea lion and his days a routine of one feat of strength after another. But secretly, Jack dreams of making a human connection and the circus is not what it seems.

Werner is an immensely talented ventriloquist, something that is not immediately apparent as so many shows these days make use of pre-recorded lines of dialogue that is was quite a shock to realise that the characters talking offstage, or pieces of things overheard on a radio, were actually coming direct from Werner himself. He also has a clear and deep talent for voices, nimbly jumping between timbres, pitches and accents like a sea lion leaping through hoops and with a smoothness that made it look easy.

This is that rarity of shows that really takes you on a journey throughout. And it is a wild journey, deep into a dark forest, surrounded by wolves. The show begins with Jack Hammer performing a series of feats of strength for the audience, each of which is based on a fun little prop gag, all the while with Hammer making overt and oddly clunky mentions of his sexuality (“Can you believe I’m gay?” he says while lifting a “thousand kilogram weight” above his head with one hand). All the while through this the audience were having a great time and there was a feeling – at least from me – that these little set pieces would be the whole of the show. So I was surprised and intrigued that, as the show continued, it began unwrapping to reveal a tightly woven and really original story, with a sinister b-movie tone evocative of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and (good) Tim Burton. Little sprinklings of oddness from earlier in the show become the clues to the ever growing mystery of the macabre circus in the kind of narrative needle-threading that only comes from a truly well written script. My hats are off to Werner and his director and co-writer Laurie Luxe for creating something truly excellent here.

There’s a lot of talent packed into this show – I’ve not even mentioned how wonderfully distressing and well-made the puppet of Jack Hammer’s father is, nor the excellent use of lighting, sound and staging to create an atmosphere of spooky circus so well you can almost smell the popcorn and elephant dung.

Tonally, I appreciate that this show might not be for everyone, but regardless of that it is a surprising gem of a production, with depth, talent and attention to detail at every stage. I loved it, and the standing ovation from the crowd at the end implies I wasn’t the only one.

*****

Reviewed by Tom

Pleasance Dome – 10 Dome

21.50 (1hr)

Until 24 Aug