Back in March 2020 Anna Clifford went on an ayahuasca retreat. She disappeared into the Irish wilderness with her mate and spent a few days knocking back hallucogenic herbs and hallucinating about naked people. Which was fine, but other people got to talk to God, which frankly seemed a bit unfair.
She then emerged from the retreat only to discover that the world itself had gone a bit loopy in the interim, mostly on account of there being a brand-new global pandemic on the loose. A few days’ retreat turned into spending lockdown with her parents. This was not the plan. And life still had a few more curveballs to throw into the mix as well.
This is the story that Clifford tells in her Fringe debut I SEE DEAD(LY) PEOPLE, a slow-burn of a show that takes its time to take off but really flies in its second half.
Not that the first half isn’t fun. Whether riffing on Irish-English or her personal history of relationships, Clifford’s scene-setting is entertaining enough and she is an excellent physical comedian – half the fun of I SEE DEAD(LY PEOPLE) is just watching her people the stage with characters from the narrative she’s telling. But that narrative doesn’t grip quite enough to start with. Her account of the retreat is amusing but feels a little slight.
But then, halfway through there is a real punch in the guts and suddenly the show pulls together and what might have seemed a little inconsequential suddenly has a real weight to it. And as it does, all the small set-ups of the first half begin to pay off as Clifford finds humour and pathos in real pain. By the end, having reevaluated her relationship with her parents and her ex-partners and possibly her place in the universe, she is really soaring.
Anna Clifford: I SEE DEAD(LY) PEOPLE, 9pm, Gilded Balloon Teviot – Balconyl August 5- 28
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/anna-clifford-i-see-dead-ly-people
