“Kamali is to physical performance what Motörhead is to British rock.”
Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)
Jody Kamali is a high-octane, high-impact, high does he make it sooooo funny? physical character comedian whose growing reputation as a Fringe favourite has been chronicled in glowing terms elsewhere in these pages. Mr Sleepybum’s other show of EdFringe24 is a straightforward telling of that auld chestnut – Man and Ironing Board find love at first sight. Man and Ironing Board are married. All is bliss. But Man is living with a crushing secret and an unavoidable destiny. Man and Ironing Board stumble on the way to true happiness but reconcile and start a family of little ironing boards only to have their lives steamrollered by Man’s arch nemesis, an authoritarian ironing board supervillain with blood on his hands and world domination in his sights. It’s Hollywood Jim, but not as we know it, or even as we knew we wanted it… until now.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” Those wanting to understand the power of man-made objects to ensnare our emotions and illicit our devotion need only witness the genuine distress felt by all of us at Ironing Board Man’s grief or the shared jubilation as justice is served. Kamali is to physical performance what Motörhead is to British rock. It’s grungy sophistication. This is a show with so much character development, action, and pathos I found myself wondering whether the Assembly Crate isn’t in fact a Tardis containing more on the inside than the external dimensions would suggest.
For all the meticulous planning of each exquisitely bizarre moment, Kamali is always a playful player. His audience work, and the way he makes his audience work, add a delicious spontaneity to proceedings. This is a buffet of boundaries pushed and genres redefined served up with more laughs than a laundry room full of nitrous oxide and easily-amused hyenas. It takes serious smarts to be this silly. It takes serious showmanship to win and keep a crowd with an ensemble of easily the least beloved articles in the home. Until now I thought of ironing boards as cumbersome, dull, time-consuming objects devoid of charm or possibility – a mundane and functional item, but for Kamali ze basis of an entire comic universe.
Come for a true genius, with a genius for storytelling who will change your notions of ironing boards forever… well maybe not. Next year perhaps Kamali will be back with a dehumidifier and a clothes rail.
In the meantime, get your best-pressed coats on and go see this!
Get Your Coats On 
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