#EdFringe: Noser- The Startup Musical – Review
#EdFringe: Noser- The Startup Musical – Review
★★
A satirical comedy musical by Lily Smith that is underwhelming more often than not.
Imagine if you could send a smell through your phone – like gifs, emojis and nude pics, now you could send the smells of roses, freshly cut grass (or farts) to your friends and loved ones. This new musical follows start up company Noser, who’s mission it is to give every phone a nose and allow the world to smell again, and French ‘professional nose’ Melodie, and her journey to be the best smeller in the world.
She sniffs the audience for Lynx Africa (in not the first Lynx joke, get a new joke!) , craft beer and kebab from last night’s late night out, and for cat food and loneliness, bringing a giggle from the audience (but the audience participation ends there, so you can all rest easy). Like the heart of am-dram and community theatre, this show brings kooky storylines together with cast members who are having a ball with the silly humour of the show, regardless of the quality of writing. The lyrics are fairly clever but the dialogue is quit stiff and underdeveloped, and the story goes a bit off the rails as the show goes on.
Complete with an LGBT love story and some of the most heinous French stereotypes in existence (which get old really fast), it’s exactly the kind of experimental, kooky, sort of silly show you expect to see at Fringe (but it’s hard to tell where the show would go next- it’s very much a Fringe show, so other Fringes are likely to be as far as this show goes). Confusing accents and the ‘Ghost of Steve Jobs’ accompanying the show on keyboard round out this fun but underdeveloped concept. There’s so much untapped into humour here, and the music and lyrics need work, as does the pacing of the show in order to make it a slick, sharp comedy.
It’s annoying that ‘Give Every Phone A Nose’ has been stuck in my head for days now – sort of catchy, sort of annoying, and sort of a repetitive tune, it has managed to worm its way into my brain and stay there, making me think hard about what I thought of the show -
For most of the show, there’s more people on stage than in the audience, which is a pity because this is better than some of the other new Fringe-y musicals I saw across the festival. It’s extremely silly, catchy, and it desperately needs work, but it was a fun way to spend an hour having belly laughs at fart jokes.
Noser played at Jade Studio at Greenside at Royal Terrace until 24 August. More Info.
