Em Tambree
In this autobiographical one-person show, Yoz Mensch takes us on the scenic route in search of joy: through intergenerational answers to delightfully silly questions, into glovebox confessions of quiet queer euphoria, down esplanades of anarchic tomfoolery and, finally, towards the woman herself. Uproariously funny, deceptively simple, and profoundly soft; this journey proves that a brilliant performer needs little more than their body, their voice and skilful storytelling to create an entire world.
This is a world that stretches across two continents. Created on Kaurna Yerta in Australia about a road trip from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands, it seems fateful that the production now arrives at Edinburgh Fringe following two beloved seasons at Adelaide Fringe and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It is a poetic international premiere for a story shaped by distance. The distance geographically but also emotionally: between grandparent and grandchild, between one’s public identity and private reality, and between those here and those no longer with us on the journey.
Our journey as an audience begins atmospherically with Yoz as she waits at the train station for her grandfather. Holding a small sign on her phone that she thinks might be a “fun thing” for the two of them. A bid of connection to a man who seems so far away, but whose physical proximity is about to become inescapable. She’s evidently quite sick of waiting and her scrutiny of each new arrival is irresistibly funny to watch. Mensch does very little but every hopeful glance, recalculation, and small overstimulation is a teaser to the masterful clowning and physical comedy we’re about to enjoy.
Mensch’s clowning & comedic training is evident throughout. Her physicality fills the sparse stage with cars, castles, train platforms, amphitheaters, and labyrinthine old buildings in which no living arrangement seems to make architectural sense. Our accommodation hosts, Trish and Bonnie, are fabulously and recognisably deranged, while the show cheekily announces that it has passed the Bechdel test by their existence.
Each character change is earned and instantly legible no matter the speed. Mensch’s control over their own physicality and voice are a trans lovechild in my mind between Carol Burnett and Robin Williams donned in Miss Piggy apparel.
Mensch’s Pa is the most affecting transformation. There is so much love in it. It is sentimental but never sardonic. Pa’s one-liners made me cackle but his inability to express his heart eventually broke mine. It is a reverent character study overflowing in adoration as seen by Yoz’s verbatim documentation of their trip together. We glimpse their real life bond in reels that Pa will never see via the lense of Yoz’s instagram. These snippets are deftly woven into the work. The projections never become a gimmick nor does “reality” ever interrupt our suspension of disbelief. Instead they intimately illuminate Yoz’s inner personal transformation in motion.
Mary Angley’s masterful direction and dramaturgy honour every comic and emotional moment. I was never bored. The pacing, in complete harmony with Dan Thorpe’s sound design & original composition, doesn’t miss a single beat and is presented with exquisite sensitivity. The creative team can spin an ongoing farce that leaves you in stitches about impractical luggage in a country whose towns I can only refer to as “an ancient stairmaster” and then pivot in a glance into a moment of bittersweet remembrance without an ounce of emotional manipulation.
This is accomplished by directorial precision that respects an audience as part of the story itself; and production design that knows exactly when to introduce a tender motif to gently tug at your heart strings.
For all its humble artistic craft, the show’s greatest strength in my eyes is its unwillingness to be boxed into a “coming-of-age” trans narrative. The show never gives us an easy verdict on Mensch’s decision to come out or not come out to Pa. Instead it asks us whether love can exceed our realities & worldviews of one another. Pa may not know that Mensch is trans, but he knows her. He knows her humour, her curiosity, her capacity for muppet-like antics, and the particular shape of their shared grief. Their worldviews may never perfectly meet but their love trans-cends that. …Ya’ see what I did there?
Jokes and wordplay aside (I’ll leave that in the very capable hands of this more than qualified team) I cried in the theatre, and have cried whilst writing this review in thinking about my own late, larrikin grandfather. My ongoing reflection of this piece is in gratitude to the show’s generosity in sharing a story so specific and close to home. My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On The Internet has so much love to give that it leaves room for our own loved ones and familial losses to climb into the car beside them.
I know reviewers love to declare, “this is what the Fringe is for” whenever they’ve enjoyed a show by an artist of minority, and feel slightly with the times for seeing a woke narrative or two, but this is exactly what I wish for the future of Fringe. A triumph of pure theatremaking that expands the voices and stories we’ve been taught to expect for society and for ourselves. My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram finds queer joy in the space between what our families know, what we cannot tell them, and how fiercely we love them anyway. I expect and hope it becomes a roadmap and “desire path” for many emerging LGBTIQA+ artists on their way to writing their own experience of transition into existence.
Recommended Drink: While I’m certainly not known to knock back a cold one, it feels only right to raise a pint of Guinness to Yoz and Pa. Stop by the George IV Bar on your stroll to Underbelly Cowgate, and if you’re feeling adventurous, follow in my footsteps and be absolutely chuffed pairing it with your first ever pickled egg.
You can catch My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me On Instagram between 5 August and 30 August from 20:25 (60mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Image Credit: Shaylee Leach
Salvador Kent
Shay Mace
Oli Fuller
