Review: Brief Case of Crazy at Theatre by the Lake

“…delightful, hopeful and very funny…”

Brief Case of Crazy by Rowan Armitt-Brewster, Theatre by the Lake, Keswick

By Ken Powell

I am old enough to remember the reruns of classic black and white comedies like Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and – my favourite – Harold Lloyd. As a child of the 70s and 80s, you could guarantee that one or more of these great physical comedians would be on the TV every day. While Stan and Ollie were always the most fun – sound helping immensely to make Ollie’s often torturous pratfalls even more enjoyable – watching the mime work of Harold Lloyd every day after school was a must-see for me, and I never missed an episode. I was transported back to those childhood TV days last night thanks to Skedaddle Theatre, a company whose self-proclaimed mission is to awaken the ‘inner child’ of their audiences.

For 60 minutes, we watched dance choreography, mime, clowning and puppetry come together to tell us the story of wimpy Thomas (played by the writer Rowan Armitt-Brewster), secretly and shyly in love with equally shy Daisy (Lennie Longworth), but menaced by the dastardly Simon (Samuel Cunningham) in the office. There’s no point trying to single out one of the performers for special mention; they were all equally brilliant, funny and highly skilled. It is fair to say the delighted audience was held in rapt attention for the entire time and erupted into applause at the end.

A Brief Case of Crazy is a remarkable production. With just three artists and a small stage crammed with props that almost look like we’re about to see a magic act, the show delivers non-stop action from start to finish that is easy to follow without dialogue. I’m quite surprised that the tour dates seem largely to comprise theatres rather than village halls. This could easily play in almost any room, hall or school. I would love to know if the company is touring schools too because there’s something truly innocent and childlike about the whole show.

That said, the audience last night was almost entirely made up of adults and I suspect that will be the case for many of the performances past and future. For those of us of a certain age, this is pure nostalgia, harking back to those aforementioned childhood days. But most of the audience I saw were younger than me and I don’t think watching Buster Keaton has been a thing for many a decade, so I wonder for how many this was a first-time performance the like of which they hadn’t seen before. Certainly, for me, this is the first time I can recall seeing a pure, full-length mime act in a theatre. Perhaps it is time for this kind of performing to make a comeback? If so, Skedaddle Theatre is clearly well-placed and skilled enough to be the torchbearer.

If you’re the kind of person that ‘likes to take their comedy seriously’, then A Brief Case of Crazy is possibly not for you. There’s no subtle humour here, no clever references, no comedy that needs you to cogitate and chew over the meaning. Yet this is not panto either. There’s no childish and coarse slapstick in this storytelling. Instead, this show is for anyone who embraces their inner child and want to see the kind of skills that require immense amount of training, yet can be easily appreciated by a child. Armitt-Brewster and his team have created a mini masterpiece that is delightful, hopeful and very funny in equal measure. This isn’t just a show to see but one to hold in your heart and be grateful for.

Brief Case of Crazy plays at Theatre by the Lake until Thursday 01 October. Tickets are available here.

Ken Powell is chief editor for Northern Arts Review and is also a bestselling author and writer for various publications around the world. A former school teacher, he continues to write educational books along with fiction and travelogues. You can find all his books and various websites here including his popular TEDx talk about the Global Village. He lives with his family in a wonderfully isolated village in West Cumbria where he enjoys drinking tea, chatting with the birds and winding up his dog. You can support his work (or just buy him a coffee) here.