Chris Grace: Sardines (A Comedy About Death)

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“I plan on being here every August for the rest of my life.”

WHO: Chris Grace

WHAT: “Chris Grace returns to Fringe after his 2023 sell-out show, Scarlett Johansson. Sardines explores the tragic, hilarious and important questions of our time: Can we enjoy life if we know how it ends? Does making art actually help? And if Rihanna’s song is called Don’t Stop the Music, why does the music… stop? Find out in this insightful and vulnerable comedy. ‘If you’re cool like me, you’ll love Chris Grace’ (Ed Gamble).”

WHERE: Assembly George Square Studios – Studio Five (Venue 17)

WHEN: 13:40 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

Nope, this is my eleventh Fringe, and I plan on being here every August for the rest of my life. Aside from the lovely audiences, the universe of creative inspiration, and the beautiful city, the sheer creative upgrade to your work that comes from 27 shows in a row can’t really be matched anywhere else. Most of my creative identity and much of my success can be directly linked to eleven Augusts in Edinburgh.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2023 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

I’m still struggling with the shifting of expectations that comes with meeting your goals. Last year I said I would be happy if 25 people saw the show every night. Then it started selling out and I was overjoyed. Then when a show wouldn’t sell out, I’d be crushed. Ridiculous. This year I’m trying to keep my head out of looking at this year’s sales and reviews and nominations and comparing it to last year, and it’s proving difficult to impossible to do so. This is a huge part of me that I want to work on because I feel other people are so much better at it than me, or at least successfully pretend to be so. It’s hard not to look at other acts in the festival and measure yourself against them. Comparison is the thief of joy, someone said, and I wish I had said something as smart as that.

Tell us about your show.

My show “Sardines” is about five people in my life that died in a short period of time, and how I suffered and grew through the process. I wrote it and I’m co-producing it with Baby Wants Candy, my creative parents at the Fringe. I did some work in progress shows in Austin and Los Angeles but this is the full actual premiere (read: this is the first time I’ve actually memorized the lines. Wait, that’s a great line for the poster: FULLY MEMORIZED. And then under that a quote from my husband Eric Michaud who directed the show saying “… most of the time.”)

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

I saw The Dark Room again after not seeing it since 2012 and it’s still a hoot. Jonny and The Baptists have brought a corker of a show that’s different from years past but arguably better. I always love seeing Sofie Hagen and my friends Dave Ahdoot, Yola Lu, Box of Frogs, Grubby Little Mitts, and Ted Hill all have terrific shows you should put on your list!

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“To chronicle the high points of ‘Sardines (A Comedy About Death)’ would be to provide a complete script. It’s all amazing.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars ( Outstanding)

Chris Grace has been a part of my EdFringe landscape for over a decade. I was the first reviewer to critique him as Christian Grey in 50 Shades the Musical – “Be assured, Gizmo has been doused and this cultural gremlin has arrived.” There are one or two BIG beasts in the EdFringe wilderness and Chris Grace is one of them – admired by his colleagues, loved by his audiences, applauded and awarded with all the laurels the greatest arts festival in the world can bestow on a favourite son. Chris Grace is practically a venue in his own right. The list of productions in which he’s performing this year makes the mind boggle. Chris Grace gives so much pure joy to so many and yet in the past 10 years The Universe has been downwrong beastly to Edinburgh’s Beloved Bonnie Big Beastie snatching his nearest and dearest like the cyclopes having his tea with Odyseeus’ crew. ‘Sardines’ is our Chris’ reply.

Where some theatre makers would wish for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention, Grace has o’erthrown all his charms and what strength he has is his own. Not only is he his own venue, he is his own tech – literally, there are no lighting changes, music, big screens, or projectors. Everything is conjured in the mind’s eye by this wizard of Wow, seriously how does he do that? What Chris has given up and left out in order to better tell the story of what he has lost leaves so much more on stage. Picasso could not have been more pleased with his animal sketches than Chris and his fanbase (me included) should be with the results to be seen on the most demanding and fringiest of stages in the Assembly stable.

The absence effects is eerie, like a covered mirror during Shiva. Clad entirely in white (even his ring), Chris is wearing the colour primarily associated with mourning in Asian cultures but this is a far from sombre show. The next morning, over the breakfast table, Daughter 1.0 asks me how I enjoyed my shows yesterday. I explain that I saw a show about a dear man losing those dearest to him… and… that it was chuffing hilarious. Quick check by her that no legs are being pulled and her jaw drops in the direction of her kippers and marmalade. A scarcely believable thing has been made to happen.

To chronicle the high points of ‘Sardines (A Comedy About Death)’ would be to provide a complete script. It’s all amazing. In the Daoist sense, there are no high points since there are zero, none, nadda, corresponding low points. This is a tour de force by a master craftsman of the art, science, and magic of theatre. The biggest meta laugh is, fittingly, on Chris. The subject of one of his two ultra-dark jokes – the ones darker than the darker shades of a blackhole playing hide-and-seak under a blackout curtain, the gags so dark his family suggested he leave them out – Chris’ late mother, steps into the limelight in the only recorded AV accompaniment in the whole piece. The poem she recorded to music shortly before her passing is a show-stoppingly poignant and urgent message to humanity on the value of a good life well lived. It takes someone with the grace of Chris Grace to share centre stage in his own masterpiece solo show.

Chris never fully reconciled with his late father who could not (or would not) make peace with Chris’ coming out or chosen career path. If I had a son with so much love to give and talent to share, I would crawl over broken glass and rattlesnakes to spend an hour with him. Sadly, this is probably what you are going to have to do in order to get a ticket to this supernova of a show exploding out of the darkness with the biggest of BIG bangs.

Get your coats on and go see this!