Comedy / Elf Lyons
Elf Lyons goes equine in the multi-award-winning ‘Horses’
Elf Lyons is as consistently brilliant as she is eclectic, making wildly different and ambitious shows year on year that have earned her a loyal, and growing, following.
From the gloriously absurd Swan (2017), her Malcolm Hardee Award-winning comic reimagining of Swan Lake, she went on to make the economics-inflected ChiffChaff (2018) the following year; then Love Songs to Guinea Pigs (2019), which came following a period of absence after surgery, her Stephen King-inspired creation, Raven (2022), and Heist (2023), her show with deaf performer, Duffy, conducted in BSL and mime.
Lyons is happiest when troubling the boundaries of genre, blending comedy, theatre and clowning; high art one minute and delightful silliness the next.
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She is also well-regarded as a teacher, mentor, director and writer, and has a host of TV and radio credits to her name.
After two months of Australian dates, she will be embarking on a late spring and early summer UK tour of her 2024 Edinburgh Fringe show Horses.
Aiming to honour and celebrate the inner child, Horses is performed “by a horse called Treacle, as portrayed by Elf”.
It’s a creation that has earned her a slew of five-star reviews and multiple awards, including, from her peers, the Comedian’s Choice Award.
Coming to Bath and Bristol on consecutive nights in May, Horses laments the loss of playfulness that so often comes with adulthood.
While embodying Treacle, Lyons harnesses clowning and mime to explore our relationship to childhood, and to animals; demonstrable proof of “the power of pretending”, and of “silliness is a feminist political issue”.
Artwork: Mick Perrin/ Karla Gowlett photography
Elf Lyons: Horses is at The Rondo Theatre, Bath on May 17 at 8pm and Tobacco Factory Theatres on May 18 at 7.30pm. Tickets are available at www.ticketsource.co.uk and www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com respectively.
Elf will be reprising her three ‘bird’ shows, Swan, Chiff Chaff and Raven at the Edinburgh Fringe 2025, performing them on rotation over the final two weeks. Tickets are available now at www.edfringe.com.
For more information visit www.elflyons.com or follow @elflyons.
All photos (unless stated): Karla Gowlett
Read next:
- Elf Lyons on the comedy horror show inspired by her love of Stephen King
- Review: Julia Masli: Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, The Wardrobe Theatre – ‘An intoxicating mix of clowning, comedy, hoodwinking, and benign manipulation’
- Ventriloquist clown Lachlan Werner: ‘No one ever holds you responsible for what a puppet says’
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