Underbelly, Cowgate

6th August

3.15pm.

Tickets from £11.50 

Multi-Award winning, internationally acclaimed, Fringe favourites, The Last Great Hunt return with an undeniably impressive feat of puppetry, Bruce. Bruce, is a yellow foam brick, indeed are all of the show’s many supporting characters are played by that same foam brick. There are minimal props, and yet with lighting, mime, voice-work, and some skilful puppetry, this two-man show populates the stage with a multi-generational tale of lives intertwined, of heroism, failure and redemption, love, loss and parenthood. Two men in blackout suits, a handful of props, one foam brick. It is undoubtedly impressive stuff, slickly professional, and will, no doubt, be wildly popular.

I’d particularly recommend Bruce to a father looking for something to see with his teenage son/s – there’s a bit of swearing, but aside from that it’s totally teen-appropriate. People who like to be straight-up audience when they go to a show will also feel right at home here –Bruce requires zero audience interaction, your job is to sit there, shut up and be impressed, and you almost certainly will be. Plot-wise, Bruce is exceptionally tight, everything ties together in a clever and meticulously thought through way, making for plenty of twists and surprises. The group of friends to one side of me, in their early twenties, loved it; the woman on the other side of me cried a little, she found the end so moving, a gaggle of high school students marvelled at the technical wizardry of the whole thing “how do they do it?” Personally, the script left me a bit cold: all the characters, and much of what they said, felt familiar from worn-out rom-coms, and nineties blockbusters. Bruce himself was too much a feckless chump for me to really invest in his fate, or be convinced by his eventual redemption- in fact I was rooting for the villain. The whole thing is very cleverly done, but not necessarily clever… there’s not much thinking required here. Ultimately, Bruce is full of great gags, and has a properly climactic ending. If it all feels a little… soulless to me, well, the packed out crowd’s rapturous applause suggests that most people don’t share my reservations. They love Bruce. Maybe you will too. FOUR STARS

Reviewer : Katie Craig

4 Stars