FRITZ - Kids' Clown - REVIEW 8 April 2025 ***

CHILDREN'S THEATRE / CLOWN

Performed by Emilie Bloom

At Northcote Town Hall Arts Studio, only 8-10 April 2025

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 19 April.2025. KH

Emilie Bloom as Fritz image supplied

 What does a clown do when a recalcitrant child in the audience calls out, “I want to go! I hate her!”? She hauls him on stage, puts bunny ears on him, gives him a carrot and makes him the centre of attention. Child dissatisfaction solved. (See note below re. theatre etiquette.)

 

Emilie Bloom is Fritz, a cheery, anxious clown in a saggy rabbit suit, bunny ears and wearing oversized, bucky-front teeth that keep inconveniently dislodging, causing giggles from everybody.

 

Bloom emerges, bunny ears first, from an enormous upside-down, magician’s top hat, and clown-bunny hops around the stage squeaking in search of help to find the missing main act.

 

Fritz is the rabbit-in-a-hat assistant to Madame Magika’s magic show, but Madame has been delayed in La Vegas! Yep! Las Vegas! So, Fritz is on her own and mayhem follows as Fritz valiantly attempts to do magic that isn’t her bailiwick at all.

 

Once she’s conjured (not literally) a magician’s costume, Fritz, with the assistance of audience members, including the “I wanna go“ kid, wrangles a sort of magic show with plenty of comical errors, slapstick, object comedy and stumbles her way through a menu of very silly and intentionally incompetent magic.  

 

This includes a card trick, a disappearing mum, mind reading and the final stunt, the levitating rabbit, in which Fritz – now a stick puppet – floats away attached to a giant whoopee cushion and disappears into a marvellously planetarium-like starscape. The kids went wild over the flying clown rabbit.

 

The Fritz show is for children 5-13, although the younger end of the range is more suitable. It runs about an hour and Bloom really starts to hit her stride around the middle.

 

By: Kate Herbert.

 

Note: Kids don’t know theatre etiquette. If we (adults) hate a show, we must bite our lip, or count the lamps in the lighting rig, or recite Shakespeare’s sonnets in our head, then slope off quietly at interval – unless you’re reviewing, of course, in which case, you have to stay till the bitter end. K

 

Performed by Emilie Bloom

Directed by Clare Bartholomew