Edinburgh Fringe reviews: Yozi: No Babies in the Sauna | The Unburdening of Dolly Diamond and more

There’s lots to enjoy in this year’s House of Oz line-up, from a disco clown to INXS covers, writes Fiona Shepherd.

Yozi: No Babies in the Sauna

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17), until 25 August

★★★

The Unburdening of Dolly Diamond

Assembly Roxy (Venue 139), until 25 August

★★★

Dancefloor Conversion Therapy

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17), until 24 August 

★★★

Down Under: The Songs That Shaped Australia

Assembly Rooms (Venue 20), until 24 August 

★★★

The House of Oz returns to the Fringe, but this time its residents are scattered around various Assembly venues, getting up to all sorts of mischief. Comedian Yozi makes their solo Fringe debut with “a succulent and sad story” mainly concerning their failure to graduate clown school which they relate in a French accent that is pure jambon. Yozi’s clowning skills amount to a pretty good squashed-face-against-a-glass-door impersonation and they definitely know how to milk a train metaphor.

Yozi is also partial to a disco interlude, with or without audience participation, but troubling obsessions emerge around the provision of towels in Airbnbs, whether or not it is appropriate to allow babies in saunas and the serving of milk and pickles at an orgy. Not the stuff that keeps most folks up at night but Yozi’s appealing character allows them to wring the wit out of unpromising scenarios. And when that doesn’t fly, they simply weirds out their hecklers.

Dolly Diamond, meanwhile, is a veteran professional, if a little ragged round the edges. This husky voiced diva with vicious vibrato is introduced, accompanied and occasionally interrupted at her peril by the gorgeous Jens Radda aka Skank Sinatra who adopts a permanently scunnered expression while Dolly, radiant in sheer scarlet and sequins, shares some tales from her eventful childhood and precocious adolescence, involving moments of public nudity and flirtatious relations with the local rugby team.

Dolly is a survivor, a little fragile with it but nothing that can’t be tackled with some court-ordered therapy and a gym regime. Her favourite environment for unburdening, however, is in front of her adoring public, regaling them with a lounge piano ballad on weight gain, feeling frisky on a jaunty Que Sera Sera and reprising her chubby childhood role as Annie with a cathartic climactic run at Tomorrow.

Some translation from the original Aussie is required in Jonny Hawkins’ seminar/sermon Dancefloor Conversion Therapy. In a previous life, Hawkins was a youth pastor in a superchurch but has long since swapped charismatic Christianity for confessions on a dancefloor. Now they’re out and proud and just saying maybe to drugs but they retain that testifying eloquence, which they apply to this gently persuasive motivational talk designed to unleash the party demon in us all.   A couple of enthusiastic acolytes at the back of the room were wise to the terminology.

For the seekers among us, Hawkins explains the concept of the “doof butler” system and other party archetypes with some interjections from DJ Mikala Westall. Their own experience of conversion therapy, comprising offers from fellow pastors to pray away the gay, is dispensed with fairly quickly. One senses there could be another show there but this one is all about encouraging the good party vibes and Hawkins practises what they preach, leading the charge to hit the dancefloor at the after-party which follows every performance.

If all you know of Australian music is Kylie and Jason, allow Down Under: The Songs That Shaped Australia to educate and entertain with their more rock-centric musical travelogue, providing cultural context as well as covers of beloved Aussie acts such as INXS, Midnight Oil, AC/DC, The Easybeats and The Divinyls, fun forays into Kylie medleys, a powerhouse rendition of Tina Arena’s Chains and a hearty singalong to Men At Work.