Mary Poppins inspired character clown show, Dirty Work is a practically-perfectly titillating, suggestively silly and overall feel-good hour. It’s got everything you’d expect a naughty, silent, cartoon version of Mary Poppins would have – a spot of spring cleaning, some audience participation, and a comic portrayal of what Mary gets up to after hours, alone with her cleaning products… making you re-think the ‘dirty’ in dirty work.
With little to no words, Barton gets the audience on side, effortlessly. Her creation of various innuendos using suggestive objects and movements – including a toilet brush, a vacuum cleaner and fairy liquid – are joyously simple and funny. Somehow, Barton makes sure the naughty gags stay slapstick, without tipping into being overtly sexualised.
There is an overall narrative story to the hour – which you glean from Barton only choosing male audience participants to help her spring clean – but it’s only hinted at. You piece together that Barton might be on a mission to clean up her life post break up, and in doing so, needs the men to do the dirty work, instead of her.
This show is easy to enjoy, and if you’re a Mary Poppins fan, you supercalifrajilistickexpialido-n’t need to look any further (couldn’t resist).
You can catch Dirty Work every day until Sunday 24th August @ 5:25 PM at Delhi Belly, Underbelly Cowgate. Tickets here
