“Sarcasm… Love it” These three words delivered deadpan by our clown for the evening instantly reminded me why I had been so excited to see Yuriko Kotani back on stage.

It was a hot day at the Brighton Fringe, painfully hot, made even hotter by the fact that the Sweet Old Steine venue couldn’t sell alcohol that night (we don’t NEED it, we can stop any time, honest). Luckily the team more than made up for that mild inconvenience and the shady basement offered cool respite from the sweltering heat.

Our clown appeared on stage and her incredibly cheerful demeanour was as contagious as ever.

This was a true work-in-progress show: there were notebooks, long pauses, ideas that shone and gags that both hit and missed. And throughout it all Yuriko Kotani just seemed genuinely thrilled to be back on stage and talking to an audience.

Lockdown has been hard on everyone but if you are a clown who is somehow performing high-level nuanced comedy in a second language it must be even harder to shake off the ring rust… so jumping in at the deep end has to be both the bravest and scariest way to do it!

Experimental material on racism, retching and rose-petal pressing all had their moments and as this show gets polished we think she’ll uncover a gem to follow her wonderful 2019 set Somosomo.

Can’t wait for the final version at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Clown Stars: (-unrated-)

 @Comedy Basement – Brighton