Hundreds of people turned up to the Liquid Rooms this week to see a cult comedy show where a performer dresses as a gorilla and sits in a chair for an hour.
We went along to see what it was all about.
Now in its 14th year, the show is titled: “A young man dressed as a gorilla, dressed as an old man, sits in a rocking chair for fifty-six minutes and then leaves.”
We went along to see what it was all about.
Now in its 14th year, the show is titled: “A young man dressed as a gorilla, dressed as an old man, sits in a rocking chair for fifty-six minutes and then leaves.”
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FunTranscript
00:00 It's maybe the strangest thing I've seen at the Fringe this year.
00:03 This is why some of us come to the Fringe, right?
00:05 To see this stuff, the things that can't happen anywhere else.
00:09 I don't know what I was expecting, but it was incredible.
00:11 It said so much while saying so little.
00:17 It's an interesting look at the way that people behave in groups.
00:21 [applause]
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02:33 I've never seen people line up for a performer the way they did for that young man as a gorilla, as an old man.
02:40 They were screaming. I thought someone was going to faint.
02:44 I thought it was amazing. It said so much while saying so little.
02:51 I couldn't get enough of the crowd, the audience participation, the feeling of unity,
02:57 but also feeling like at any point everyone would turn on you.
03:01 It was aggressive. It was submissive. It was everything. Couldn't have asked for more.
03:09 Love you, gorilla.
03:11 I thought it was immaculate. It was incredible. The energy in that room was just so much fun.
03:18 It's ridiculous. It's clearly ridiculous, but the fun in there was like nothing else.
03:23 It was the show, when I heard about it last year, I said I need to come up and I need to get to the fringe
03:29 because this is why some of us come to the fringe, to see this stuff, the things that can't happen anywhere else
03:36 where you have enough people that we can all fit the things together.
03:41 I would love to say I would recommend it to everyone, but I really, really would not recommend it to everyone.
03:48 Watching the show tonight a little bit broke my heart. I've been watching the show for about ten years.
03:54 Usually the show is about love and support and watching the audience come together to create something magical and unique
04:00 and something you would never expect to see happen on stage.
04:03 But tonight, I don't know what it was about the audience that every time something unique or unexpected happened,
04:11 they started booing, which made a really unsafe space for people to express themselves in a spontaneous way.
04:18 Usually the spontaneity and the ridiculousness of the crowd is what makes this show so magical
04:25 and that just didn't happen tonight, which meant that for me, like I said, it really broke my heart.
04:33 The audience in there was just so into it, so electric.
04:38 Like, people were cheering, you know, he'd knock his pipe, he'd rock faster, rock slower.
04:44 It was honestly, it was amazing. It was really, really good.
04:48 I don't know what I was expecting, but it was incredible.
04:51 It's maybe the strangest thing I've seen at the Frizz this year.
04:55 I really loved how the show was about the crowd as much as it was about the young man dressed as an old man dressed as a girl.
05:04 And I loved how many weirdos were in there.
05:09 It's those things you see and it makes you feel something that we don't feel in our everyday lives, right?
05:15 Like, what is this? What are we actually doing here?
05:18 How many people queued up, like, what are we doing here?
05:22 But we did it!