Aunty Ginger: Finding Splashman

Edinburgh Fringe – Assembly Festival

Aunty Ginger knows how to make an entrance, and the energy of Finding Splashman certainly starts at an electric place. The atmosphere then settles quite significantly as we’re then treated to a large portion of audience interaction, stand-up and the occasional satire, a very varied and occasionally muddled set.

“an incredibly commanding presence”

 This show’s largest drawback is the rather haphazard manner in which everything comes together, with Ginger often relying on audience interaction to flesh out the show giving the impression of it possessing an aimless nature at times. The constructed segments are few and far between, with some political satire and topical humour peppered in. The central idea of the show becomes about Ginger finding her Splashman, but this idea doesn’t feel connected to anything, a common characteristic that is repeated on occasion. There needs to be some tightening up of the material to either reinforce the point or to bring the hour together with some cohesiveness rather than how fragmented it currently is.

An impression is made by Aunty Ginger from the start, and she possesses an incredibly commanding presence, which overshadows her other characters in that the personality of a news reporter or agony aunt are so much smaller than Ginger, that we can’t help but just seeing her in these bits, and it also just feels strange to see Ginger make herself smaller for these roles. They are certainly interesting choices, but are also seen too infrequently for them to be more than a blip on our radar. Ginger’s Problem Area as a repeating gag has lot more potential than it is given, and perhaps it is an example of good judgment on Aunty Ginger’s part that she keeps the show moving forward rather than risking repetitiveness. 

Audience interaction carries a lot of risk, it takes control out of a performer’s hands and requires a lot of skill to execute well. Aunty Ginger thrives during her audience interactions, revelling in the audience discomfort at answering her questions, making us laugh partly out of the schadenfreude we experience because of it. She has a quick wit that makes these interactions enjoyable to watch for the rest of us rather than tiresome, but to the point where – in this becoming the main focus – and as previously said, disconnects some of the rest of the show.

There’s some light relief to be found with Aunty Ginger and fun to be had.  Finding Splashman is not just one thing constantly, it’s anything but monotonous. However, a balance needs to be struck so that instead of constantly moving from one piece to the next, and breaking up of the show with little to no segue that brings the energy quite a bit, we become fully immersed in the persona that is Aunty Ginger.

By Katerina Partolina Schwartz

Photo Credit: Assembly Festival