Luke Rollason review – shock-haired standard bearer of UK clown boom riffs on fairytales

All very well being part of comedy’s current clown boom, you may think, but what are the career prospects? Just ask Luke Rollason, shock-haired standard bearer of that new wave, in the UK at least, who’s now also a star of the Disney+ superpower comedy Extraordinary. Is it his Disney connection that’s prompted this fairytale-themed fringe show? Perhaps – but it’s unlikely the House of Mouse will be sifting its content for movie ideas (The Fucking Ugly Duckling, indeed!) any time soon.

That section, a dumbshow of a baby duck whose ghastly fizzog frightens off all comers, recalls the work of Rollason’s hero Trygve Wakenshaw. Elsewhere, our host plays Rapunzel, toilet roll doubling for her long, long hair; Hansel and Gretel, marking their path not with stones but with toilet roll; and Snow White reading bedtime stories (not toilet roll!) to her seven little friends. Each of these unspools in dialogue with the audience, who are co-opted to co-narrate We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, rescue a flirtatious damsel from distress, or lob stray peas into Princess Rollason’s mouth.

There’s not a great deal here we haven’t seen before, and arguably Rollason – starey-eyed, clad in tights – is over-reliant on winsome charm and tittering at his own jokes. The theme he seeks to impose on the show, that of wishes and their fulfilment, doesn’t really take root. But there are enough choice clown or mime moments to sustain you, and Rollason has a delightful way with the audience – a quality on which the show’s strongest sections lean. The King Midas opening, where everything our host touches turns to comedy gold, is one. A later interlude with Rollason and his supposed son “fishing for laughter”, with an egg whisk for a rod, is another. Happy ever after I can’t promise – but you’ll smile for a while.