Moving on from Fool’s Gold, which remains a clown show despite my attempts to force it into this new category I want to invent, Co-Existence My Arse is a stand-up comedy show that would be better served by moving further towards performance art. It isn’t that it isn’t funny (although some of the jokes are near to the knuckle and are probably the gags that the Rabbi whom I spoke to wasn’t sure about). Noam Shuster has had an interesting life, from living in a community where both Palestinians and Israelis co-existed, through working for UN and achieving far too much for an organisation that, by her telling, prides itself on maintaining an equilibrium of carnage. Her stories are at their best when the need to be funny is abandoned, that they are free to leave behind an ironic message. Some of them have that magical comic quality, making a serious matter hilarious (like the time when she insulted the Arab world by suggesting that she was open to a marriage proposal from the Saudi Royal family on television). But by leaning into the stand-up format, Shuster struggles to find a consistent tone, which would matter less if Co-Existence were playing to a bunch of liberal sophisticates at Summerhall. And she deserves that crowd: she is a glimmer of hope in a complex and protracted conflict .
In a Fringe that is increasingly defined by Phoebe Waller Bridges’ Fleabag (if artists aren’t copying the formula, they are mentioning her in the press release), the genre with no name at least offers a strategy for performers to leap clear of the predictable and fashion a medium that is expressive of their talents and story. Oommoo uses Lulu XYZ’s musicianship to flip through fragments of her heritage and life. There is a sense of becoming through the production, not a rigid march through familiar plot points. It kind of slides towards the ending, discreet and intimate@ promised further instalments seem necessary, to firm up the narrative and discover the continuity between memories of her father and reflections on her identity. The transition into theatricality hasn’t quite happened yet, and the formlessness is frustrating at times, but the Fringe was supposed to be a place to experiment before it became a corporate hell-hole that only exists so that I can award stars to acts, and make my experience as a critic even closer to my other job marking the Latin exercises by twelve year olds with a cursory grade and a facile comment.
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