Review – Trygve Wakenshaw: Kraken

Trygve Wakenshaw is but a dream. The Gaulier-trained clown drifts from one premise to the next via segways of physical motion that could work in either, wearing the same daft grin whether he’s pretending to tie off his own entrails like sausages or wooing audience members via imaginary knives. A year after he put a work-in-progress Kraken through its paces here, the New Zealander has returned with the finished product. Strangely, his madcap mimefoolery worked slightly better when he was just testing the show out – he has so much content to race through this time round that it feels a bit rushed. That criticism is only to ward off those who saw Kraken mark one – for newcomers, Trgyve’s cutely horrifying imagination is very much worth experiencing. Think the Happy Tree Friends of the mime world.

For those that did see Kraken last time round, Trgyve is doing another show this Fringe called NAUTILUS. He’s road testing it, so the whole affair should be joyfully shambolic – just what suits him best.