Whether Elf Lyons\u2019 high-concept Hollywood throwback, Kate Dehnert\u2019s disorientating rave or Ele McKenzie\u2019s Bob Dylan fantasy, heartbreak fuels fine humour at the festival<\/p>\n
Breakups. We\u2019ve all been through them. Sometimes they\u2019re mutual, sometimes not. Sometimes agony, sometimes relief. And sometimes, they\u2019re world-shattering bereavements that seem to end, or at least upend, everything. That\u2019s the experience two comedy shows seek to express on this year\u2019s fringe \u2013 an experience that can\u2019t be captured by the usual conventions of the medium. Wry wisecracks into a microphone just won\u2019t cut it. A whole new form is required.<\/p>\n
Perhaps formal innovation isn\u2019t such a shock when Elf Lyons<\/a> is the innovator, as almost all of this dedicated nonconformist\u2019s work has been entirely bespoke. But even for her, The Woman on the Edge is something different: shards of a disintegrating sense of self, grafted together to suggest the journey Lyons has been on since her relationship ended, shortly before her wedding day, early last year. The conceit is that the show is being performed by a Norma Desmond-alike alter ego. A brittle and wise-cracking refugee from vintage Hollywood, smoke plumes from her d\u00e9colletage as she fills in for absent Elf while keeping at bay her husband, the clown Pagliacci, on the end of the phone.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/f39819d300d33dd2eeb1a5cf7f8804a9c2084d2b\/0_914_5241_4190\/master\/5241.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=d4912e1b16300055793ced0e14e0b794\" "\\"Laughing")
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