The Ice Hole: A Cardboard Comedy

Edfest Bouquets 2023

August in Edinburgh, and the Fringe was back with a boom! As ever, after seeing so many brilliant productions, it’s been hard to select our favourites, but it’s (virtual) Bouquet time and so, in no particular order, here are the shows that have really stayed with us:

COMEDY

John Robins: Howl (Just the Tonic)

‘Raw and achingly honest….’

The Ice Hole: a Cardboard Comedy (Pleasance)

‘An inspired piece of surreal lunacy…’

Dominique Salerno: The Box Show (Pleasance)

‘One of the most original acts I’ve ever seen…’

The Umbilical Brothers: The Distraction (Assembly)

‘An amorphous mass of nonsense – but brilliantly so!’

THEATRE

Bacon (Summerhall)

‘A whip-smart, tightly-constructed duologue…’

The Grand Old Opera House Hotel (Traverse)

‘Part slapstick, part comic-opera, part mad-as-a-box-of-frogs spectacle, this is something you really don’t want to miss.’

Salty Irina (Roundabout at Summerhall)

‘Fresh and contemporary, all minimal props and non-literal interpretation…’

Dark Noon (Pleasance)

‘A unique piece of devised theatre, sprawling and multi-faceted…’

JM Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K (Assembly)

‘A gentle but powerful production…’

One Way Out (Underbelly)

‘The piece is brave enough not to offer a solution…’

SPECIAL MENTIONS

After the Act (Traverse)

‘We have to learn from what has gone before…’

Woodhill (Summerhall)

‘Though unnervingly bleak, this does offer a glimmer of hope…’

Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (Traverse)

‘The closest I’ve ever come to experiencing an acid trip in the theatre…’

Susan Singfield & Philip Caveney

The Ice Hole: A Cardboard Comedy

12/08/23

Pleasance Courtyard (Grand), Edinburgh

The Pleasance Grand is a big venue and this morning it’s packed to the rafters for The Ice Hole: A Cardboard Comedy. It’s the latest offering from French theatre group Le Fils Du Grand Réseau, the people who brought us Fish Bowl in 2019 and, believe me, that’s a tough show to follow. 

But they more than succeed.

This two man production features Pierre Guillois and Olivier Martin Salvan and begins with the latter fishing in the titular ice hole, when he captures a beautiful mermaid called Salina. As he fishes, Salvan tells us all about what’s happening… in Icelandic. Well, alleged Icelandic anyway. Gobbledygook might be a more apt description, but somehow we understand him.

This is just the starting point for an adventure that takes our narrator all around the world – including a memorable stopover in Scotland, complete with bagpipes and authentic weather conditions. The brilliant gimmick here is that Guillois has to provide all the props for the story as it gallops along – and, as you’ve probably guessed from the title, they are all made from cardboard. 

If this sounds underwhelming, don’t be fooled. There’s an endless stream of ingeniously constructed items: machines, costumes, signs (English, not Gobbledygook!), footwear, tools, you name it… and they’re all made from old boxes. The items seem to materialise out of nowhere and the constant interactions between the two actors as this happens keep me laughing uproariously pretty much throughout. 

As I’m watching I’m having the recurring thought that I’m really glad I don’t have to clear up after these guys – and then, at the end, the audience is introduced to the two stagehands who actually have to do it.

TIH:ACC is an inspired piece of surreal lunacy, an hour of sheer unadulterated fun, fuelled by manic levels of invention. Miss it and you’ve only got yourself to blame.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney