Anointed with glitter paint, taking our seats to a score of dirty funk licks, we are not so much an audience as a congregation for this cabaret of self-affirmation. “Are you ready to get happy?” hollers a man who clearly believes sequins shouldn’t be reserved for his flowing robes. They sparkle from his beard, too.
We are in the presence of the RaveRend and his suited sidekick, Trev, on a mission to banish sadness “from Scunthorpe to Saint-Tropez”. The duo simply ask that tonight’s gathering open up their hearts. If you don’t already know your neighbour’s dreams, demons and blood type, well, just give it an hour.
Presented by Sheep Soup in association with Soho theatre, the show takes the form of a healing eight-step journey, delivered from behind a lectern (the RaveRend) and a keyboard (Trev). Audience contributions are recorded and niftily looped into choruses designed to provide joy and purge negativity, while the duo deliver improvised musical routines based on the briefest bits of crowdwork. Tonight, they’re not given a huge amount to play with but spin our snippets of emotion and autobiography into catchy comedy regardless.
Sheep Soup’s artistic director Ben Welch commands the stage, combining daffy mantras with enough spotlight-hogging to add a little friction with Lawrence Cole as the sidelined Trev. There’s familiar humour wrung from their endeavour’s overreach on a fringe budget (the mini-smoke machine needs charging, no expense has been spent on the RaveRend’s wonky slideshow). All of this is fun but it never distracts from a pure-hearted mission. Ultimately, this show’s message can be as serious or silly as you like. Take the final section, in which we’re invited to purge everything that annoys us, when the crowd’s suggestions range from negative body-image to exes and flyerers on the fringe.
Those cynical about free-flowing beatitude may well be swerving House of Life’s own flyerers. But sceptics be damned: this is a joyous pick-me-up for the final days of the festival – and beyond.
At Underbelly, Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 25 August
