When a character comic bids farewell to their character, is it a death – or a rebirth? Fringe veteran and sometime Ricky Gervais collaborator Colin Hoult has been performing as the indiscreet thespian Anna Mann (“I was in the same hand gestures class as Helen Mirren”) for years. But now Anna is taking her final bow. A terminal doctor’s diagnosis is hinted at, which is all the prompt she needs to re-tread for us her life’s journey: the escape from Nottingham, the whiff of the greasepaint, the many marriages. But the real story of Anna’s swan song starts leaking out, through the loose stitching that holds this lovable but vague character together.
What emerges is a show with a surprising emotional underpinning, a show that – while on a superficial level is as silly as can be – treats Anna’s death, and that of her ever-so-humble sister Jane, with a degree more seriousness than you’d expect. That this doesn’t overbalance the comedy is testament to the levity elsewhere, as this gushing theatrical dame hymns her career peaks (Predator the Musical; the video nasty Cannibal Bagpipers), winces at her relationship troughs (finding her action-hero husband in bed with her best friend) and interacts camply with the crowd.
