Hell on wheels, Emma O’Sullivan is hell bent on running hell for leather, um hell for sequins, into hellfire.  And it’s a damned (get it?) good thing that she is a better pun writer than me.  She has managed to create a hellava show (somebody stop me!) out of nothing.  Bugger all.  Except a disco sequined onesie and a vision of hell that doesn’t live up to any of the Catholic hype.

Emma has been listening to various language versions of a particularly noxious bossa nova jazz standard for 6 hours. We join her in the waiting room of Hell.  Pre-hell?  Nice outfit she died in… good lookin’ corpse, girl!  Night out pissed was it?  Pretty bored with the waiting gig, she now has an audience and being somewhat of a go-getter she decides to knock up Satan and enquire when the party of reprobates and sinners is going to get started.  

What follows in an hour of astonishingly skilled performance.  The character is detailed and has a very well written arc to follow, from enthusiastic newhellbie to power hungry usurper.  O’Sullivan not only inhabits the character but the small space as well.  She wanders and mingles, even extending to the very, very peculiar and ineffectual seduction of a door … complete with jamb.  

Her audience interaction is truly terrific, God given … you can’t learn that shit… warm, respectful and most alarmingly, enthusiastically empathetic for poor old Beelzebub who is having girlfriend troubles.  Vocally she is crystal clear despite dropping down often to a secretive and conspiratorial whisper.   Us little audience vote on stuff apparently.    

And can she place a joke?  Hell yeah.  (sorry)

This show is hilarious.  It tickled my funny bone so early and loudly that other people turned round to look at me!  Emma is her own straight man, has spot on timing and has such a fun turn of phrase that my friend and I were still giggling at the train station.  That would be while we were coming up with hell inspired puns!

There is a joke there about Persephone’s heritage that is one of the best gags I have ever heard.  Still tittering.  An unsettling display of intelligence in that bit … the character obviously listened at some stage in her limited schooling.  There’s tables and Venn Diagram for heaven’s sake.

All delivered with an enthusiastic deadpan … neat trick that!   It’s a kind of stream of consciousness with clever pose holds for the jokes to kick in, some lovely facial expressions and   an intimacy which allows one to laugh with the character, not at her.  Some jokes are slow burners and some are plain old belly laughs.  The latter are no mean feat when you are perched precariously on the high stools that the Sydney Fringe has mistaken for seating.

Maybe I have been to hell and back and all in downtown Erskineville.

WHERE BE THE WINGED APES continues at Erskineville Town Hall as part of the Sydney Fringe until  30th September.   It would be a hell of a shame if you missed it.  … It’s OK, I’ll show myself out!