Where Do All the Dead Pigeons Go?

★★★★

theatre review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes

100487 original

By Alice Savile

Published 14 Aug 2016

102793 original

If you really, truly want to find out where dead pigeons go, there are easier ways than buying a ticket to this show. Pigeons barely come into it. Because Scott Turnbull's performance has travelled far beyond its original bird-based brief to become a mad space odyssey, narrated by one very lonely man. Using a slide projector and some haphazard drawings, he creates a deliciously silly and totally unscientific look at a man who's been sent mad by solitude.

Turnbull's drawing is painfully slow, a blunt instrument that's joyfully incongruous with the hi-tech machinery wielded by NASA's finest. His wobbly marker outlines show his dejection after he's dumped by his girlfriend, and his escape to the solace of a mysterious 'moon job' that's advertised in the local paper. Alone in a space station, he's giving the audience a talk about his experiences. But he struggles to stick to the brief. He draws gross fox sex pictures, muses on heartbreak, goes on a surreal blind date gameshow, and bickers with his robot companion – who's got the voice and slightly broken personality of his favourite Sunderland footie captain.

It's a bit Red Dwarf, a bit Mighty Boosh – but without even the flimsy production values of either of those. Turnbull's slides are embedded with dust and footprints from where he's stomped on them, as he runs about the stage. Combined with his crude, chaotic scribbles, it's like being held hostage by a mad 10-year-old with a Star Trek obsession. But even in its weirdest moments, there's a desolation to it. No amount of whimsy or silliness can fill the huge, echoing emptiness of life in empty space.