Perth Reviews

First the good news. Skeletons – winner of the 2024 Fringe World Overall Comedy Award – is back for 2025!

Another chance to catch the award-winning sell-out, rave-reviewed, true story about a doctor who is pretending not to be a doctor for no apparent reason.

Mann is a diminutive figure who took centre stage early in the proceedings, even before she began the show proper. She nattered with audience members as they took their seats in a tight triple row of wooden stools under the big top tent. It was a clever ruse to identify possible members of the crowd who would be happy to join her briefly onstage or engage in raucous conversation as part of the performance. Like her “blonde, bubbly” persona her patter is fast paced and engaging. Unfortunately her soft voice was sometimes inaudible especially when she turned her back to us.

A loud voice boomed over the venue, repeating the question “What do you do?” Mann quickly identified this as one of the most frequently asked questions at a cocktail party. How to reply when you are actually leading a double life?

Mann served up multiple examples of tricky situations, including some very adept impersonations of characters encountered in said situations. The titled, upper class, cigarette smoking Philly who served as a brilliant contrast to Kirsty was a highlight.

Another character thus introduced was Dom. A telephone mate who shared a plethora of intimate secrets. Fairly vulgar in homosexual “bum” references, listing potential items of insertion! The sophisticated audience took this in their stride with gales of laughter. This was followed by a moving reference to friends who have succumbed to the dreaded medical waves of illness. COVID was mentioned of course, but surely this would include the rampant and frightening illnesses that have been the scourge of gay communities worldwide in recent decades.

A re-evaluation of her life caused Mann to consider her life and the missed opportunities therein. Thus the parallel to "The skeleton out of the closet". She felt she was missing her true vocation as a comedian, but how to reconcile that with public opinion when medicine is so highly thought of?

The semi circular venue was a tricky one which caused Mann to focus on different parts of the deep half circle of the audience, this lead to periods of disengagement when we were facing her back. Perhaps the Fringe would have been wiser to stage her in a round where she could have worked the whole room from further back.

Having said her delivery was pacy, there was some comments from audience members that they could not hear all of her patter. This was particularly true when the punch line to some of her gags was inaudible.

However despite these setbacks Mann charmed the audience completely and I predict will continue to sell out during her run at the Perth Fringe Festival.