Yoz Mensch gives a scintillating solo performance in this spooky “trans-generational” road trip from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands and back with her sweary, beery 80-year-old grandpa, Pete.
With just a chair as a prop, Mensch, 32, from Adelaide, seamlessly switches between her dodgy-kneed archetypal Ozzie grandpa at the imagined wheel of a Nissan Qashqai, her bushy-bearded pre-socially-transitioned self and wacko hotel hosts Bonnie and Trish.
The autobiographical 2,500-mile trip to the site of Yoz’s late grandma’s scattered ashes, as well as being muscularly portrayed by the versatile Mensch – who trained in clowning at L’Ecole Philippe Gaulier in France – is depicted in an artful video montage on a screen at the back of the small, bare stage.
Ominous music adds to the tense atmosphere as the closeted Mensch, wearing a black Chappell Roan T-shirt featuring Miss Piggy, the diva from “The Muppets”, ponders coming out to her “pa”, as she calls him. In a dramatically ironic touch, the endearingly offensive Pa refers to Mensch affectionately as “you muppet”.
From a windswept, rainy Chester, where Pa heads for a bar, to Langley Castle, in Northumberland, where they dine in style, and on to the north of Scotland where Stella and rhubarb crumble are on the menu, Mensch reflects, “I spent so much of this trip not saying what I wanted to say… so I sang.” It’s a great line; simple and yet speaking to the many things left bottled up on life’s journey.
En route, Yoz mimics gargoyles, listens to the radio “at 2 per cent” volume as they “sat in silence for 12 days” and (onstage only) dons an outsize pink organza dress in an, at times, poignant production.
- My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram
- Underbelly, Cowgate (Jelly Belly)
- Until August 30 (Not Aug 18)
