THE COMEDY section of the Fringe programme carries the following entry for the Gilded Balloon show, Hour of the Lynx.
"A young man in a mental institution has killed again. Two women, a psychiatrist and a priest, come to his cell to discuss how to proceed. The discussion will change all their lives."
Struggling to find this funny? You're not alone. The play – by
the chronically pessimistic Swedish playwright Per Olov Enquist – is set in a psychiatric unit in northern Sweden, and is supposed to be deeply serious.
The show was a last-minute inclusion in the Gilded Balloon line-up, staffers say, and the only listings open in the pages of the Fringe programme were in the comedy section – better than none at all, they reasoned.
Bizarrely, it is sandwiched alphabetically between the Hot Pink Breakthrough Balloon Show and the satirical song show, How do you Solve a Problem Like Britain?
Sources suggested Olivier-nominated Dillie Keane, who plays the priest, alongside actors Helen Rutter and Oliver Senton, was not best pleased.
But the popular Irish actress and comedienne denied yesterday that she'd even heard about the mix-up. "I'm slightly bamboozled, discombolulated, that I'm supposedly annoyed about something I didn't know anything about," she said.
While Keane is best known as part of comedy cabaret trio Fascinating Aida – at the Pleasance this year – her acting roles have included Dancing at Lughnasa and Juno and the Paycock.
In Hour of the Lynx, the young psychiatric patient turns violent when a pet cat is removed in an experiment. This being the Fringe, how to persuade the audience it's on the level? Put a sign on the door telling people "this is not a comedy show" and the punters will walk in laughing.
Playwright PO Enquist, as he's better known, was born in Hjoggböle, in Sweden, in 1934. He was three times winner of the Nordic Council Prize for Literature. "I lived in Sweden for two months but never laughed once," says Keane.
"Hour of the Lynx is a deeply philosophical, metaphysical, psychological drama. It's got fewer laughs than Miss Julie mixed with Samuel Beckett.
"It is so not funny. It's about a psychopath who believes that his cat is God. I will be very sad for people who've spent their money hoping to bust their guts. We might hear the tipping of seats."
Right place, right timeA SCANDINAVIAN who surely deserves his place in the comedy section is Daniel Simonsen.
Last week, in a pub in London's Chalk Farm hosting the Monkey Business comedy club, Lucy Porter and Paul Sinha were wrestling with new material for Edinburgh. Sandwiched between them was an unheralded young Norwegian who you knew was funny before he even opened his mouth. Simonsen's ten minutes were the best of the night. He won the So You Think You're Funny award last year, with Gilded Balloon director Karen Coren saying "he has funny bones". This year, he's in town for a week in Off-Kilter, with Mike O'Donovan.
Eyes on the prizeTHE SCOTTISH poet Don Paterson has been shortlisted for the Forward poetry prize for best collection – worth £10,000 to the winner – for the first time in his career.
Last year, he won the £1,000 prize for best single poem, for his Love Poem for Natalie 'Tusja' Beridze. The tongue-in-cheek ode to an obscure Georgian techno musician, a sultry singer whom he'd Googled but never met, earned plenty of attention.
It is included in Rain, the collection for which he has now been nominated. Veteran versifiers Sharon Olds, Glyn Maxwell, Hugo Williams and Christopher Reid are also named, along with past winner Peter Porter. The winner will be announced on 7 October.
