Sock Puppet @ Pleasance Courtyard

Review by Eric Karoulla | 20 Aug 2013

Haunted sock meets desperate man. Murders ensue. With a hilarious B-movie style, Sock Puppet consists of two ghost stories that eventually fuse into one, and ruin John-Luke Roberts' favourite tape.

The plot is not very complicated, and doesn't have to try too hard to be funny. This is one show that doesn’t have any deep philosophical meaning, no deeper analysis to be made, and no particular surprises - aside from the ghost of a middle-aged Yorkshireman pretending to be that of a tormented little French boy.

Through use of a single red sock, a lamp, and a tape player, Roberts creates a show that is funny through being self-aware, with purposefully awkward pauses undermining his own efforts to tell the story. Of course, at the beginning, he asks the audience to go three quarters of the way to imagine the scenes that follow; this is one puppetry show that will have you in stitches.

And what is the moral of this tantalizing tale? Never make a deal with a haunted sock! There isn't much more to say about it really, aside from go, see it for yourselves, and soak up its B-movie goodness.

Sock Puppet @ Pleasance Courtyard, 14:10, Until 26 Aug, various prices http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/theatre/sock-puppet