Dying to Help Review

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Rating (out of 5)
4
Show info
Venue
Company
Lesley Evans / PBH's Free Fringe
Production
Lesley Evans
Performers
Lesley Evans
Running time
45mins

Lesley Evans uses her experience of medical role-play (an actor employed to help doctor’s deal with terminal patients and practice their communication skills) to take an eager audience down the path of her life which, like most people's, is filled with idiosyncratic characters and amusing stories of embarrassing moments…mostly involving old farts who still get frisky.

Lesley works for her audience, buzzing around the venue with excitement and fervour, hyping up the crowd as they make their way into the performance space, the relaxed approach an indicator that her stint will be quirky and definitely feed off the audience.

Interspersing character comedy with stand-up, we meet Denise, the communications specialist (who Lesley very easily convinces you that you want to punch), a concoction of doctors from the dire to the deluded, and Lesley’s opinionated parents and neighbours.

Refreshingly, the piece focuses less on the medical side and the heart wrenching horribleness of what doctors and patients have to deal with in terms of fatal illness, instead focusing on the colourful characters that Lesley interacts with, as well as ironically pointing out that HR codes of conduct seem to be getting more and more ludicrous in our vapid 21st century world of communication – but does any good actually come from it?

An energetic, tactile performer with excellent comic timing and a great rapport with the audience guarantees 45 minutes of originality and chuckles.

Show times: Until Saturday 27th August

Free