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potatohead

Freddie Hayes: Potatohead

Pleasance Below

Until 28 August

by Gareth K Vile

When Freddie Hayes drops character – a potato with dreams of TV stardom – she reflects on her three years at puppetry school. Her relationship with foam is ambivalent: she recounts a tale of a one-night-stand disappearing into the night after seeing her collection in the bedroom, while her 0n-stage conversations with Morris Piper, servant of the devil, suggest a Faustian bargain that quickly becomes as mouldy as a spud left in the cupboard for too long.

Hayes uses her puppets to be both charming and disarming. A night club is filled with potato puppets representing the deadly sins (Lust is very keen to show off her tatties), and Morris Piper is a series of hand-puppets, each one larger and more menacing. There is clowning, there are short video interludes, but it is the puppetry which drives the production, whether it is the chips of her shoulder (good and bad angels) or the rod puppets that populate the underworld disco.

In some ways, the puppets are used predictably. They act in adult ways, providing a frisson of the forbidden, but retain an innocence that is very much the heart of this retelling of Dr Faustus. Yet Hayes is far from a predictable performer, getting across her subtle message that fame is the modern deal with the dark-side in a direct and immediate production.

The elements of stand-up and references to celebrities are appropriately kitsch, and Hayes comes across as a warm and amiable performer. She seems aware of the absurdity of her concept – she is, after all, dressed up as a big potato – but has enough humour and emotional seriousness to hold the audience’s attention and weave her plot into the autobiographical reflections.

‘Three years at puppetry school,’ she complains. ‘One day I’d like not tpo rely on the props.’ And yet it is in the tension between potato and person, between puppet and performer that Potatohead is most poignant and playful.

Four stars.