Joz Norris Is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad.
Heroes @ The Hive, 4.40pm, until 25 August
Is it absurdist comedy or a cry for help? The blurb describes Joz Norris’s Mr Fruit Salad as “a fictional chimera created as a form of self-care”, but for most of the show, you’d guess it was just a nonsense caper with Vic Reeves overtones. In sunhat, sunshades and a preposterous beard, Mr Fruit Salad barks out his Joan Rivers impersonation and sings a punning version of Chic’s Le Freak. Gradually, a bass note of melancholy sounds louder in the mix, as Norris starts riffing on bereavement and existential angst. There’s a fantastic old-school sight gag too, in a show that increasingly brings to mind the crap-disguise-and-melancholy combo that John Kearns has made his own. BL