Lovable comedic eccentricity

A WEEK remains to celebrate the innovation and creativity of the lunatic fringe.

Former United States president Teddy Roosevelt said every reform movement has a lunatic fringe — an eccentric minority.

Thankfully, the Dunedin Fringe Festival attracts some of the world’s most loveable lunatics, presenting different perspectives and revealing beauty in unexpected places.

Over the weekend, I enjoyed the outrageous behaviour of Scottish comedians Bruce Fummey and Vladimir McTavish and married comedy couple Simon Clayton and

Mary Bourke — of England and Ireland respectively — and Dunedinraised comedian Jeremy Elwood.

When Elwood walked on to the Fortune Theatre stage on Friday, three women in the front row immediately walked out.

The reason the women walked was not because Elwood looked like Thor in his latter years, or Russell Crowe’s younger brother, but because they had tickets for the dance performance ‘‘Fabricate’’ in the theatre below.

They’ll never know why loving an emu is awkward.

The British and Irish comedians produced topnotch comedy.

Bourke’s history lesson about Ireland’s neutrality during World War 2 and the ‘‘east coast versus west coast’’ hiphop feud in the United States in the 1990s was outstanding.

McTavish’s deadpan impersonation of an African man asking for people to give salt to the United Kingdom to help its residents get their vehicles to the golf course across icy roads was brilliantly written and delivered.

Hopefully, we will see McTavish and Fummey — the finest comedian on the Afro Celtic comedy circuit — return to Dunedin for a fourth consecutive year.

The scores of shows to see this week include a capella, art exhibitions, burlesque, cabaret, comedy, concerts, dance theatre, musicals, performance art, poledancing workshops, puppetry and spoken word.

So get out there and support your lunatic fringe.