Review: Bec Hill is More Afraid of You Than You Are of Her – Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh.

Bec Hill

Bec Hill spends her life feeling terrified of almost everything; from clowns to flying, and from Godzilla to audiences.  This year’s show, Bec Hill is More Afraid of You Than You Are of Her, is a countdown of her top fears.

Hill’s biggest fear, as the title suggests, is audiences – and she uses us today as a platform to cure these irrational thoughts.  One man in particular is nominated to help, and poses as a recurring gag throughout the performance for Hill to bounce off.  His own fears are challenged, and together, Bec and Sean overcome their own scary demons and conquer a fearless world, with both of them ending up covered in lipstick for some surreal reason.

Hill is a big fan of props: there are swords, balloons and glitter guns all wrapped in to her show.  The most important prop, however, is her flip chart, displaying hand drawings and animations that she’s created.  These are beautiful and artistic, and when brought to life by various bits of string and paper tabs, make the stories seem less like fairy tales, and more graphic nightmares from inside her own head.

But you can’t help but feel that the large number of stage props attempt to disguise the lack of belly laughs in this show. While her stories are cute – child-like almost – Hill doesn’t quite have the comedic repertoire needed to stray from the script when things are going slightly in the wrong direction of funny.

We’re warned – threatened actually – not to give away the ending to Hill’s show by a horrible looking clown, so I’ll go no further with the story line.  The laughs aren’t quite as forthcoming as you’d expect from a four star show, but this isn’t a bad effort either; the sheer likeability that surrounds Bec Hill means that she wiill always have the crowd on side. Fear not.

Date of live review: Sunday 19th August 2012.