one4review | On 18, Aug 2025

Fast paced, thoroughly entertaining and often frantic, The Origin of
Love is a late-night dreamscape that probably makes little more sense
than one of those vivid, wine-soaked dreams.

Ada and Bron tumble through a blur of nightclub jazz, cake-sitting,
trouser-shedding and robot-loving, with plotlines that gleefully
collapse under the weight of their own absurdity. One moment we’re in
Richmond Park, maybe with Captain Jack Sparrow, having shifted to a love
affair involving a big house, and then there is a wolf-boyfriend.

It is grotesque at times, with underwear costumes from some forgotten
dressing-up box, and limbs entangled in a stretchy two-headed blob, but
it is always playful, fizzing with laugh out loud energy.

The late start (11pm) means the crowd is largely comedy pals and
slightly squiffy punters, with everyone getting swept into the joke.
Don’t come seeking narrative logic; come for the silliness, skewed
sauciness and sheer comic invention.

****

Reviewed by HJ

Pleasance Courtyard Attic

Various Times

Until 24 Aug