Natalie Palamides @ Pleasance Courtyard

Natalie Palamides brings a grotesque, confusing and fun show to Pleasance Courtyard

Review by Polly Glynn | 08 Aug 2017

Laid is a strange hour. The first 10 minutes are almost silent apart from the noises Palamides makes trying to escape from a foam egg, and the subsequent sounds of a Disney princess going about their daily life. As the young egg grows up and starts to make eggs herself, she's presented with a Sophie's Choice of sorts; to raise or eat the egg? Both paths are taken, with a real stove top on stage and some tarp on the floor should things get messy (they do).

It's strange too, to empathise with a woman in a yellow dress and a Southern Belle voice pretending to be a chicken/egg, but you do. Both loss and flying the nest resonate with most in an oddly touching fashion. Today, had the front row not been willing to get involved, it could have made a tense and awkward hour. Then again, how can mime-shagging a woman dressed as an egg not be?


Natalie Palamides: LAID, Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker Two), 2-27 Aug (not 14), 4:15pm, £9-12