Review: Luke Rollason's Infinite Content

One of the more accessible graduates of the Gaulier school of clowning, Luke Rollason in Infinite Content impishly plugs you into the matrix of an idiot. Constantly delivering surprises and silliness for its own sake in this fun, early afternoon hour, he intitiates unthreatening audience interaction from the first knockings. Indeed, even prior to that, with the unusual suggestion for the crowd to connect to the venue's WiFi and take pictures of what unfolds.

Rollason's world is forged from the unpromising combination of online shopping, software upgrades and classic computer games. If you're after a reference point, picture the daftness of Spencer Jones and his rudimentary props updated for the internet age, facilitated by the communal, tech-enabled spirit of Foxdog Studios.

With his wiry frame, minimal speech and strikingly intense eyes, the comic enhances his avatar-like character with a magician's sleight-of-hand and countless accessories, some home-made, others more state-of-the-art. There's an underlying sense of the show unfolding like a quest, of the audience unlocking puzzles. And when it briefly stalls, as when somebody fails to intuit exactly what Rollason is demanding of them, it's invariably more compelling. Enjoyable too are those instances where his more quick-witted marks turn the tables and fire a curveball back at him.

Pitched at an adolescent level, rather than the sheer childlike excitability of Jones' recent hours, there's a more calculated, scripted path to Infinite Content that means it suffers by the comparison.

Regardless, it's a quirky curiosity and stands apart from the vast majority of less ambitious and imaginative Fringe offerings.