Bad Clowns: Hostage
The culmination of a lifetime of selfless self-examination and three years of dedicated work, highly-regarded playwright and veteran performer Christian Dart’s semi-autobiographical tragicomedy The Worrisome Troubles of Timothy Potts has made its stage debut in a venue unworthy of such an undeniably prestigious production encompassing the breadth and depth of the human condition, depicting the cycle of birth, life, drugs, drinking and more drugs in a way The Lion King could never dare.
The opening night cruelly and savagely interrupted by an unwarranted interruption from a bitter former associate of the master craftsman, his golden locks a-flowing as he dominated the stage and the more delectable ladies of the front row until that moment, Sam Walls claiming that the basis of the play is in fact his own, as if the word of an ex-convict could be taken as truth or if such a base individual could conceive and craft a work of such lofty insight and beauty, the insult compounded as said intruder takes the house hostage.
The Edinburgh Fringe having already survived an Invasion by the unruly threesome of the Bad Clowns they now return with Hostage, the Potts performance ensemble completed by the chameleonlike John Bond, whirling through multifarious roles and inanimate objects in a manner which recalls that old wooden revolving door on Jenners’ side entrance hoping to upgrade to a diversity hire, Walls has justified anger and a list of demands, but does he understand the motivation of his character, even with the advantage of the seats being filled with a captive audience?
Raucous and rowdy, with guns and roses, slightly soiled Liquorice Allsorts, show-tunes, sweaty corpses (actually, some of the moisture may have been residual amniotic fluid), an Italian waiter who makes C-3PO look butch but the unforgiveable absence of the negotiated pizza settlement, the Bad Clowns do not so much break the fourth wall as take a wrecking ball to it, an energised knock-down game of last man standing considerably more refreshing than a cup of hot milky water.
