Ellen Grimshaw’s solo show–excluding a disembodied Guy Pearce–is the creative’s literal alien-baby, whose name Grim has been gruesomely excised from her. In a galactic opening, the Motley Bauhaus audience observe the parturition of Grim out of a meteor-spaceship, emerging from the butcher’s paper like the most shocking present you’ll ever receive. Clad in firetruck-red wet-leather, Grim’s costume is girlboss-meets-Power-Rangers. In this outfit, which is kaleidoscopic under an active lighting design, Grimshaw holds the rowdy comedy crowd for the full fifty-five minutes. However, it sits oddly on a creature who communicates tragically with its mum in goos and gahs. You’ll have to excuse an excess of hyphens in this review as I attempt to make some sense of Grim. An alien-child lost on Earth, Grim grapples with the never-ending commercial casting call that is the “world” it comes to know, eventually finding acceptance as the face of a Liberal Party advertisement campaign. Grim’s one aim in this life-on-Earth is to be liked–to be a ‘people person’–as per the survival advice given by its family (still on the spaceship). 

This concept gives rise to a proliferation of parodies that Grimshaw enacts with dynamism, stringing together absurd scenes of grating, well-known advertisements from Bunnings to the LNP. Swinging from parody to parody, we often lose track of what exactly Grimshaw is parodying. Here, the alien gets ahead of the world, creating new “types” of people and commerce in its attempts to imitate. Grimshaw toys with the lines of imitation and originality throughout Grim. Under the booming voices of casting directors, her character fails to book roles again and again despite following their directions “exactly”–generating horrifying and fascinating caricatures of human expression. Grim’s interpellation of the casting director “type” is equally horrifying as it turns on the audience, commanding a series of deeply uncomfortable interactions between the alien and its human audience. Grim relies heavily on a generous audience to make its participatory moments bearable and such an audience showed up on opening night.

Grimshaw doesn’t shy away from creating zones of discomfort on stage and in the stands. The tension of discomfort and the release of laughter is a pendulum that live comedy often jaunts and this show is no exception. As a sketch comedy, Grim commits to a single, multifarious act that titularly admits itself a derivative of its creator, Grimshaw, whilst proliferating a variety of imitative facades. Where stand-up panders the effect of the real, Grimshaw unapologetically rejects her claim to reality, embracing the effect of the fictive.

‘Grim’ is showing at the Motley Bauhaus until the 22^nd of April.

Strictly 18+

This show contains: Occasional coarse language, Nudity, Political, religious or racial themes, Sudden loud noises, Audience participation.

Directorial Assist by Kimberley Twiner 

Voiceover by Guy Pearce

Dramaturgy by Vidya Rajan

AV/Sound/Lighting Design by Kellie-Anne Kimber

AV by Matt Osborne & Chris Hocking

Co-Produced by Caitie Murphy

Costume Design by Tim Rutty