Lorna Rose Treen: a gloriously daft hour from one of the most exciting young comics around
Hype can be a burden. Judging last year’s Funny Women Awards – the long-running prize that gave an early leg-up to the likes of Sarah Millican and Bridget Christie – I was knocked sideways by a young character comic called Lorna Rose Treen.
She pulled off the unprecedented feat of winning both main awards (for stage and screen work), and her skits have had millions of views on Tiktok. Off the back of all that, her Fringe debut has now sold out its month-long run. Could it possibly live up to expectations?
The answer, thankfully, is yes: Skin Pigeon is a gloriously daft hour from one of the most exciting young comics around. The stage is dominated by a giant mound of laundry; to cover her costume changes, Treen dives into it, crawls under it, or stands half-buried in it like Winnie in Happy Days. Dwarfed by the pile, she’s like a toddler playing in a dress-up box; it’s a perfect symbol for the joyous, childlike silliness of the hour.
The crew of misfits she embodies include a kind of feral Richard Curtis heroine hiding in your garden; a dolphin preening in a mirror; RMS Titanic; and “prolific author Sally Rooney” reading from her new children’s book. If the laughter flags in one surreal routine (about a cowboy with guns for hands) that only serves to highlight the ludicrously high hit-rate elsewhere.
Most sketch shows make the same mistake, of wringing every laugh from a skit till it’s dry, but here no routine outstays its welcome. Some of the funniest, including Treen’s turn as a headscarfed 1960s dolly bird, are over within one joke-packed minute.
Treen opens the show with the two characters that won her gongs last year, both still highlights. First up is a nine-year-old Brownie scout trying to earn her entertainment badge by trying her hand at observational stand-up. (The Brownie reappears later on as a tiny primary-school Che Guevera, the tone swerving from Adrian Mole to something more like Lord of the Flies.)
The second skit is even better; a film-noir spoof that rattles out dumb jokes quicker than a tommy gun. It’s about a tottering femme fatale who can’t pronounce her Rs, locked in a fatal flirtation with “Humphwey”. (Treen plays both at once, changing character by swapping one cigarette for another; the kind of neat little idea this hour overbrims with.) “I took a midnight train to nowhere,” she drawls, “but it was cancelled, so I took a bus replacement service to somewhere, then walked.”
Until Aug 27 (not 14). Tickets: 020 7609 1800; pleasance.co.uk
