When Lorna Rose Treen won the best joke of the fringe award two years ago with a cheetah/cheater pun, it “killed comedy” according to the Sun newspaper. (They may see the recent cancellation of that prize as proving their point.) The character comic quotes that unlikely coverage at the start of her new set, a (marginally) more theatrical offering with which she promises to kill off theatre as well. In a show full of one-liners to rival her 2023 prizewinner, the choicest joke may be the idea that this mild-mannered, delightfully silly act poses any kind of mortal threat whatsoever.
Just as her acclaimed debut Skin Pigeon showcased an array of unapologetically weird female characters, so too does 24 Hour Diner People – with the twist that, this time, they’re all to be found in the same, titular location. The first is a waitress given to eating her tips. Just as Skin Pigeon featured a cowboy with guns for hands, we now meet a trucker with impossibly long arms. One recurring sketch airs the libidinous if immature fantasies of a teenage girl as prom approaches. Another, co-starring a press-ganged audience member, introduces us to a wannabe Bonnie and Clyde plotting a heist of the diner’s takings.
Whereas Treen herself was a largely invisible presence in Skin Pigeon, she peeks out from behind the disguises here to comment on the cartoon chaos unfolding. That adds to the generous spirit of an event whose host takes care to involve us in these outpourings of her dotty imagination. No point pretending its several strands all reach satisfactory conclusions, and there are points when endearingly messy and DIY shades into slapdash. A couple of musical numbers, too, don’t play to Treen’s strengths.
But it’s easy to submit to the show’s warm embrace of stupidity, to the fine physical comedy of that spindly limbed trucker, and to a host of throwaway one-liners (“last week I did camp America – better known as San Francisco”) whose quality all but the Sun newspaper must admire. Far from killing comedy, Treen proves here that it – and hers in particular – is very much alive.