Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
Plumbing the realms of the unexpected, O’Neill plays both parts of a clowning double act, masterfully testing the limits of freak-out comedy
‘One banana, two banana, three / Is this the show you paid to see?” Well might Bill O’Neill ask. I’m not sure anyone thought they were paying to see this. From the realms of the wholly unexpected (albeit a mite more expected by those who’ve seen the work of O’Neill’s director, the in-yer-face clown Natalie Palamides) comes The Amazing Banana Brothers, this bizarro faux-circus act gone wrong by American import O’Neill.
A fresh-faced mischief-maker in a boiler suit with a malevolent leer, O’Neill plays both Kevin Calamity – who’ll slip on 1,000 banana peels, or your money back – and his brother and gopher, Joey. Think not so much sibling rivalry as sibling death spiral.
At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August
