Bryn­ley Stent’s 2019 solo show Filthy Little Gob­lin is a bizarre and fant­ast­ic series of eso­ter­ic vign­ettes and I abso­lutely loved it.

From birth­day gifts to self-check­out machines, strange strip per­form­ances and word-based game shows, this absurd­ist show pushes the envel­ope in terms of com­edy and is just very, very fun. Stent has an incred­ible skill for mime and clown­ing, and isn’t afraid to do some com­pletely bizarre things on stage.

The Stu­dio at BATS Theatre is quite an intim­ate ven­ue, espe­cially for audi­ence inter­ac­tion-heavy shows, like this piece was. While I tend to balk at inter­act­ive theatre, Stent has a very dis­arm­ing charm and although some of the audi­ence inter­ac­tion came out of nowhere, it nev­er felt (too) awk­ward or uncom­fort­able. I was even included in a cer­tain through-line about birth­day gifts, but I won’t go into any more detail than that.

Sit in the front few rows if you want to be included in a damn good time.

Plus, there was chocol­ate, mince, and gifts. What’s not to love?

 

Filthy Little Gob­lin is fin­ished at BATS Theatre in Wel­ling­ton for this Com­edy Fest, but is being per­formed in Auck­land next week. Tick­ets from the Com­edy Fest­iv­al web­site.