Caroline is a hatchet-faced Australian possessed by the spirit of Princess Diana. Karen is a planner of celebrity weddings in south Yorkshire. Katrina is a corporate high-flier with an irrational terror of the Chinese. And Laura Solon is all of them.
The Fringe is the place to gain credit for pursuing one's singular vision on stage, and the dark and distinctive skill with which Solon brings this oddball's gallery of comic characters to life has made her show one of the sleeper hits of the Fringe.
It is not a well-developed set. Solon's vignettes seldom exceed five minutes, and so the characterisation is not always subjected to the rigour that longer monologues would necessitate. But Solon's twisted imagination means that the show is jam-packed with delights. Her performance(s) are expertly differentiated, even while each woman proves as demented as the last.
And there are countless killer one-liners. When Caroline visits a spiritualist, "the first thing I noticed is, she's not a medium, she's fucking huge." Invective is a speciality: "They say you are what you eat, in which case Wendy, at some point, ate a speccy Welsh Nazi." It may feel more like a showcase than a show, but when you have talents this prodigious, why not flaunt them?
· Until Sunday. Box office: 07947 697987.
