Lily Blumkin greets us from her childhood bedroom – or at least a PowerPoint slide representation of it. She’s travelled from her Brooklyn studio apartment back to her parents’ place to go through the memorabilia of yesteryear and sort out what’s she’s keeping, cunningly primed to use each item as a jumping off point to a new character from her past. It’s a neat and tidy device, as you’d expect from a writer on The Daily Show, that cleanly sets up each of the nine characters with swirling psychedelic curves leading into a new PowerPoint character-appropriate background. And they’re interesting characters.
Blumkin has a way of physically inhabiting each persona almost as a cartoon. She leans in affectionately and comedically, conveying her Dad’s eagerness and subsequent awkwardness in his haste to be the perfect LGBTQ+ parent. Her mother’s best friend Trish is the very picture of the flustered overstretched Mom to “Boys!”, twitching into her wine at her Book Club sanctuary. And her first boyfriend giving a speech at his best friend’s bar mitzvah is full of teen bravado dashed with a surprising first love. The characters are modern and recognisable, reaching into her Jewish roots and a certain amount of feminist outrage alongside other affable qualities. Even the passive aggressive bully at Lush is likeable in her own way. Her final denouement doesn’t quite live up to the heart of the body of the piece though, more bolted on as a completion.
The show is an enjoyable hour, a pleasant showpiece for Blumkin’s versatility as a performer and writer. It will be interesting to see where this Nice Try takes her.
Lily Blumkin: Nice Try, 17.40, Blether at Gilded Balloon Patter House, Until 25 August (except 14)
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/lily-blumkin-nice-try
