Catchy titles are an absolute must at Edinburgh Fringe, and once you have a good one, you have to back it up with a fantastic show. The Terribly Credible Definitely Edible Tale of the Town of Cropshire, at Assembly Roxy Upstairs, from new theatre company Diagnostic Trouble Code, provides both in spades.
Meet Cropshire, a small town in a nation plagued by a Cost of Carrots Crisis. Cropshire residents are proud of their vegetable harvests, a vital part of the town’s history; their annual Carrot Festival is testament to their groundedness. Unfortunately, the Cost of Carrots Crisis is making some residents mad, leading to Mayor Boots getting a pie to the face. How shocking! Parliament is in a tizzy and decides to solve the Carrots Crisis in the simplest way possible: banning carrots. If no one can buy carrots, then the carrot supply will obviously go up, right? And then prices can come down later. Simple! What unfolds over the next hour is akin to Animal Farm in its parody, with the police state blending all the vegetables, celebrities hocking supplements, and a fancy new leader taking charge while looking really cool and pushing totalitarianism even further than their predecessor.
The clown troupe, Eleanor Bett, Abigail Chase, Vera Majoor, Laura Monroy, Ariana Sacristán, and Yuan-Ling Chen, find classic clown solutions to classic clown problems, like selling vegetables on the black market. However, the company is unafraid to demonstrate the more ‘bouffon’ side of their Cost of Carrots Crisis. Bouffon is a clowning style devised by Jacques Lecoq in the 1960s at his school in Paris, focusing on political commentary, satire, and the grotesque. Clowns are often sillier and more light-hearted, while bouffon allows clowns to express their darkness. Clown logic can go horribly wrong, and through their darker bouffon approach, Diagnostic Trouble Code show that the silliest extremes are, well, hauntingly, darkly familiar.
As a new company, Diagnostic Trouble Code is also queer-led, woman-led, immigrant-led, and non-hierarchical. We were informed during the curtain call that, for them, non-hierarchical meant everyone in the troupe has a say in the process. This allows each performer’s skills and personality to shine through in a range of scenes, absolutely to the benefit of this production. This is not just a show to see, but a troupe to watch for next year. Catch The Terribly Credible Definitely Edible Tale of the Town of Cropshire at Assembly Roxy Upstairs before the end of Fringe.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
