I really loved Frankie Thompson’s previous Fringe shows Catts and Body Show (the latter made in collaboration with Liv Ello). Both of them were out-there satirical collages of video and voice recordings in which Thompson came across like a clown-world Adam Curtis, with her performance revolving around her dramatically lip syncing to the piece while serving a series of comical, otherworldly looks.
I suppose they gave the impression that Thompson was a gifted but vulnerable Gen Z savant, who barely spoke at all using her own voice: performing, but also hiding behind the recorded audio visuals.
While aspects of new show Horrible Things remain distinctly Frankie Thompson – she still lipsyncs to a load of esoteric recordings, she still seems very irritated by the Tories – she now has a voice of her own. Quite a loud one too: clad in a polkadot gown, her persona is as a posh, slightly eccentric despot (think Queenie from Blackadder) who commands the room with a withering imperiousness, pulling faces of pure horror any time anyone threatens to interact with her.
She also vomits a lot. Nothing health and safety need to worry about, but with every dry heave another horrible thing is cued up. Some are nauseating: that recording of a freaky nine-year-old Jacob Reese Mogg you’ve probably heard before; a 1995 interview with the Tory whips office intimating that they’ve smoothed over instances of child rape; Cliff Richard. There is much less video than the previous shows, but each ‘sketch’ is exquisitely high concept and thought through, the delirious highlight probably a completely deranged section concerning a bizarre Frank Sinatra live album.
There’s less of an obvious through thread than her other shows, though there’s a great recurring bit about the ghost of an Edwardian governess. Certainly it’s notable that while the actual horribleness of the things varies considerably, they’re fundamentally all men being weird.
While less out-and-out alien than her previous stuff it’s still unlike anything else you’ll see on the Fringe. Nothing’s been sacrificed in terms of quality, with her only gaining a commanding comic persona. Maybe this is as mainstream as she ever gets or maybe Horrible Things is the beginning of Thompson’s transition to becoming a more widely known cult comic. But whatever the future holds, this is a superb show.
