Scotland

Garry Starr – Underbelly, George Square

Some Fringe shows are clever. Some are chaotic. And some, like Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, gleefully throw themselves off the rails and somehow land in a place of dazzling, ridiculous beauty.

Damien Warren Smith’s alter ego, Garry Starr, attempts to perform every Penguin Classic novel in the space of 70 minutes. Dressed in the publisher’s signature flippers and not much else, in fact, absolutely nothing else for most of the show, he cycles through Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Little Women, Of Mice and Men and dozens more at a breakneck pace, each rendered in his distinctive cocktail of physical clowning, improvisation, and subversive silliness.

Yes, he’s naked. The first thing an audience member needs to know is that this isn’t a fleeting gimmick, it’s the performance uniform. Oddly enough, after five minutes, the shock fades and the novelty melts away. What’s left is not a smutty stunt but the work of a consummate performer who just happens to be using the human body, his human body, as both canvas and prop. At times, the show takes on the feel of a life drawing class: the shapes, the poses, the deliberately exaggerated tableaux could easily tempt an audience member with a sketchbook and charcoal to capture them.

Underbelly staff make it very clear before curtain up that no photography, video, or audio recording is allowed. It’s a wise choice, the element of surprise is essential, and the visual gags rely on being experienced in the moment. That didn’t stop a few surreptitious attempts, swiftly spotted and deleted by ushers. But while smartphones are banned, sketchpads are not, perhaps a future audience trend?

Starr’s physical precision is extraordinary. His faux ballet sequences, part parody, part homage, are genuinely graceful, as if Nureyev had collided with Monty Python. His crowd surfing gag is worth the ticket price alone, a communal moment of slapstick bravado that brings the room together in astonished laughter, and physical coordination. Audience participation is frequent and fearless: some spectators find themselves enlisted as co-stars, others are roped into chaotic re-enactments of famous literary scenes, and all are swept up in the manic momentum.

The joy of Classic Penguins lies in its irreverent respect, and respectful irreverence, for the source material. It’s not mocking literature so much as celebrating its cultural heft while stripping it (sometimes literally) of pretension. The jokes come thick and fast, the costume changes are non-existent, and the boundaries between audience and stage dissolve completely.

Visually arresting, physically demanding, and unapologetically silly, this is also, unexpectedly, a show about beauty. Not just the beauty of the written word, but the beauty of performance, the human form, and the shared absurdity of sitting in a tent in George Square while a naked man in flippers takes you on a tour of world literature.

Shocking? Yes. Brilliant? Absolutely. Beautiful? In its own outrageous way, undeniably.

21:40 Daily (except 18th) Till 24th August

https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2025GARRYST

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 14th August 2025

North West End UK Rating: