Fringe 2016 – Stuart Bowden – She Was Probably Not A Robot – Garden of Unearthly Delights – Rating 4K – Review by Julie Robins.

By Julie Robins

It was a warm and steamy Adelaide night with random emergency vehicle sirens adding to the ambience of the fully packed, hence cramped, setting for “She Was Probably Not a Robot”.  An off-beat, absurdist, endearingly funny one-man show wherein Stuart Bowden crowd surfs through the apocalypse (his own personal apocalypse?) trying to convince those around him that they are dead, or soon will be : a rather unusual form of audience involvement.

With occasional appearances by Celeste the alien in her homemade and rather restrictive homemade Pythonesque space helmet (yes they do sometimes appear on stage together) he instructs us in the finer points of rain tasting, the joys of model making, the dangers of sea creatures, and in how to deal with dead bodies.  This is a show that can be enjoyed as a piece of comedic theatre and/or appreciated as a demonstration of the total loneliness one can feel at times, especially when your love has left, and taken the dog with her.

When the emotional and physical tsunami have left you with nothing but a keyboard, an air mattress, and a cardboard box, then you just have to make the most of what you have.  And realize that attempting to revive a love that has died is bound to be grotesque.  One may think that the world has ended but in reality the world just keeps on going.  Although things are never quite the same.

With music, dance, and minimal props Stuart brings his stories to vividly to life and provides many a laugh along the way.

Kryztoff Rating 4K

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