Livingstones Cabinet present 'Klip' - Summerhall

By E.L. Hardy

It's my second week in Edinburgh. I've seen 31 shows, of all shapes and sizes. I am open to anything. But then there is KLIP...

Something much like a Serrano ham dangles from the ceiling in the ominously and appropriately named Dissection Room. The words "a piece of tomfoolery from the void" appear on the back wall. These opening images represent Klip more accurately than its publicity, which describes it as a "darkly comic live collage of carefully chosen coincidences." Predictably excited by the prospect of a collage, imagine my disappointment - not a single stamp, paper-clip or magazine cutting of Peter Andre in sight. The askew, indulgent and creepy sequences that follow don't make me, or anyone else in the audience, laugh. As a matter of fact, I spend the majority of Klip looking for an appropriate moment to leave.

Of course, I don't leave. I stick it out and begin to see where it's going; I hear the 'collage' of sound coming together, like motifs in a musical that culminate in a dramatic ensemble number - Les Miserables' One Day More, for example. Except, unlike in Les Mis, we've no fathomable idea what the performers in Klip are going on about.

Unfortunately, the reputable Danish Livingstones Cabinet don't demonstrate enough skill to compensate for the show's hollow narrative. Anyone familiar with the phenomenon of Shake-Face, for example, will be perfectly capable of recreating one of the physical pieces. There's some music, the occasional Pas de chat, a pink thong and a bit with a fake chicken that leads somewhat pithily to a cock gag.

I almost smiled. Almost.

So Klip wasn't for me and maybe that's partly down to my own ignorance. Maybe for every one of me, there are twenty others who disagree entirely? Either way, give me paper, scissors and PVA glue any time.

Klip

Summerhall Festival Theatre

Daily until August 24th at 17.20

★★

@postscriptjour

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