Concrete Playground

Darren and Ralph of A Tiny Chorus have achieved the impossible — they have actually improved on the unimprovable brilliance of Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt's 'Don't Know Much'. In what can only be described as a moment of absurd genius, their jelly duet will change your life. For a second.

But, unfortunately, this is, with the exception of the gherkin sequence, where the genius ends.

Darren and Ralph (Emily Tomlins and Eryn Jean Norvill), two lovable simpletons (sweet, hapless fools whose simplicity makes them incapable of sentimentality) are on a journey towards love and joy, uncovering, by way of a series of improbable events, the true depths of their relationship. Blow-up microphones, scissors and straws, an inflatable earth and the Macquarie Dictionary accompany the two performers through a loose narrative of revelation.

The problem with the show is that the performances, although thoroughly committed, slip, both physically and vocally, into parodies of intellectual disability — so much so that it is uncomfortable to watch. The clown is always a knife-edge character in some way or another, but Darren and Ralph sit just on the other side of perfect.

A Tiny Chorus won the People’s Choice Award for Best Performance at the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Festival. And people were laughing at this performance. So maybe I'm just a stick-in-the-mud.

A Tiny Chorus is part of the Sydney Fringe Festival.