Julie Masli brings her acclaimed show ‘ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,’ to the Old Vic. The show has had huge success, being voted the Most Innovative Show by the Offies and winning the 2023 Best Show Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, among considerable other recognition. The show’s blurb is ‘ hahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahahaha hihihi hahahahahahahaha hoho hahahhahahaha hehe hahahahahahahahahaha,’ and this, combined with Masli’s considerable background in clowning, meant I was knew I was in for an intriguing evening.
We start with a dark stage before Masli pads formally on from the wings, dressed in a turquoise dress that’s part duvet and part cloak. She’s initially lit only by a beaming light coming out of a strap on her wrist, and is also wearing a helmet covered in wires and cabling, with a large protruding light on top of it, rather like an angler fish. There’s a clear bin bag hanging from the corner of the stage, and an office table and laptop set up, but she paces straight past them to the audience. It’s immediately apparent that she’s got a clown background – their comfort is the least of their concerns.
She approaches audience members – using a microphone strapped to a gold mannequin leg which she’s shoved her arm into – asking at first for their responses to gently enquired sounds, and then to a mournful ‘problem?’ The responses vary from the mundane (a dog with smelly breath) to the profound (lack of direction) and the show builds gently as she sets the audience members to work making friends and solving each others problems, using and adding to the existing props as the audience giggle in anticipation. She even sends two on a run (to help with their anxiousness), and they actually do it, arriving back after having jogged round Queen’s Square to a wave of laughter.
The show is almost impossible to describe, especially in a reviewing capacity, because it is so audience-dependent, and could run the risk of feeling gimmicky without such a serene guide. Fortunately, the Bristol crowd are well up for it and happily get involved – including briefly 2024 BBC New Comedy Award winner Paul Hilleard – and they create their own momentum through their enthusiastic responses and participation which serves Masli well, as the stage fills with people and activities.
It would not be possible to do this without her enigmatic charisma. Although she occasionally allows herself a slight giggle, she doesn’t break character, directing the action effortlessly with excellent and understated comic timing. Given the show is so audience-dependent, the show must be largely improvised, but she holds the audience in the palm of her hand throughout as we gradually build to a giddy, wholesome conclusion.