Review – Le Foulard

Le Foulard is fascinating and sparse comedy, through which Lucy Hopkins brings to life a handful of quixotic characters to explore the nature of the artist and her craft. It sounds haughty, but with her charming flourishes and winks to the audience Lucy is nothing but fun to watch. Le Foulard is self-aware art that loves to play around in its own pomposity and make the occasional, affectionate dig against the art world —“Art  can probably reverse the effects of global warming… you’re welcome.”

Lucy is a striking and brilliant performance artist: she sings for laughs, but her singing is beautiful and moving; she dances to mock the pretensions of high art, but her dancing is graceful, energetic and bold. Le Foulard plays the long joke, the humour cooking over in a slow boil that plays tension against relief as Lucy builds towards the laughs. This is one of the driest comedies you’ll find at the Fringe, and it’s also one of the better ones. An absolute recommend for anyone who has a passion for art and a love for performance dance, but there is plenty else on offer here to appeal to the unwashed masses.