Prepare to be picked on, prepare to laugh. Ali Brice is back at the Fringe as Eric Meat. Eric is excited to return to work after a sabbatical, but it’s definitely “not” an enforced sabbatical; he wants that to be very clear. Ali seems to enjoy crowd work more than anything else, and I have to say it appears to be his expertise.
His primary victims of the evening are Ben and Joe (best mates since age 16), Neil, with whom he communicates without looking him in the eye, and Chris, who just made the unfortunate mistake of wearing a hat indoors.
Scatterbrained, it takes Eric 10 minutes to turn off his bugle alarm, yes, it’s just as annoying and loud as a real bugle. Another ten minutes go by before Eric can get out why “it’s a special day for me today”. As he repeats this phrase over and over, he gets distracted by the audience. I honestly think the audience was trying to wind him up purposefully, like a substitute teacher in a secondary school classroom.
Eventually, we learn that it’s his first day back to work, which is where all his friends are (we do not learn if the friendship is reciprocal), and that one of his favourite parts of the day is going to Honkers, the classic after-work pub. I got somewhat lost in the plot by this point; the sheer randomness is a total distraction. Before I had time to work out what was happening, Ali was striding around the stage with a Pinocchio-like nose, naming audience members’ noses, based on their shape, I assume; I am not a professional “nose namer”.
Although Eric has a storyline and plot, Ali seems to abandon it for most of the show. But don’t worry, it’s not forgetfulness, he’s just easily distracted by the crowd and wants to find out everything he can about them; why they are laughing, their names and what their favourite game show is on the telly, and it seemed the crowd in question were up for the questions too.
Ali Brice Presents Eric Meat Gets the Chop 17.30, PBH’S Free Fringe @ Carbon, until August 24
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/ali-brice-presents-eric-meat-gets-the-chop
