Are you a dog person? A cat person? A giraffe person? A person who thinks poo bags and soup and funny noises and puppets and giant masks that look like the moon are intrinsically amusing? This, then, may well be the show for you.
There’s a sublime joy in silliness when it’s done well and Spencer Jones – a two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award and BAFTA nominee – does it very well in his new show. This hour is a giddy pleasure, combining clowning, physical comedy, music, props and a sense that we’ve entered Jones’s world and it’s a delightful, dizzying, slightly disorientating place to be.
There’s a sign on the door of Queen Dome warning everyone that audience participation will be part of the show, but Jones is such a warm, welcoming presence that no one feels intimidated at the prospect. Even the young woman who doesn’t understand what she is being asked to do has a smile on her face.
Jones himself is a lean, rubber-faced comedian who – one for the older readers, this – has a bit of the look of Bernie Winters about him. Also, for the older readers, he’s much funnier than that comparison implies.
In his later years Winters was as often seen with his St Bernard dog Schnorbitz as he was with his brother and comedy partner Mike. Jones makes do with imaginary dogs in his show, unless you count the soft toy with alarmingly human teeth scooting around the stage whilst affixed to a powered skateboard.
This is a loose, baggy show that moves easily and happily from one gleefully silly bit to the next. But it feels of a piece. Jones ties it all together cleverly with his use of props and music.
So complete is our immersion into Jonesworld that everything in it seems to be in the right place, no matter how incongruous, even the moments when he starts talking about his tics or feelings of isolation.
It’s particularly striking that his introduction of Mr Gaps – quite frankly one of the most disturbing puppets you will have seen in a while – doesn’t skew the mood at all. The combination of daftness and menace that results is almost Vic Reevesian.
But Jones doesn’t need comparisons with other comedy surrealists. He is an original. And this feels like nothing else you will see at the Fringe this year. You don’t even have to like dogs to enjoy it.
Queen Dome at Pleasance Dome, until August 30 (except August 17)
