The Death Hilarious: Razer

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)

Slimmed down from a disturbing duo to the solitary, cross-dressing Darren J Coles, The Death Hilarious continue to explore the bleaker recesses of comedy macabre, their ambitions extended beyond sketch to scripted narrative. Far from alone, the Welsh transvestite has realised that what he fretted might be mental health problems are in fact spirits coming inside him, fnarr, fnarr. And after trying on some dead celebrities for size, he’s inhabited by the soul of a soldier-turnedtaxi driver, one of several grotesque residents of a tower block earmarked for demolition.

With understated echoes of the Grenfell tragedy and the social housing crisis, these include a timetravelling Labour MP; a New Yoiker property developer channelling his own Joe Pesci spirit and a pitiful sex worker, robbed of all dignity. Involving the audience in many of his dramatic act outs, the most memorable of these is the gradual metamorphosis of the urban fox into a credible, quinoa burger chomping hipster.

Coping admirably with his increased workload and an undersold crowd on the night I caught him, Coles exudes a slightly manic air of desperation that only feeds into his narrative. A superb comic actor, with an appeal that’s equal parts poetic, menacing and vulnerable, his writing is provocatively imaginative too, though perhaps it requires a stronger director to fashion it into a more coherent shape.

Until tomorrow. Today 9:30pm