Ruth Lehane has been watching the dust settle on her silver tea set for four years; waiting for her life to take a turn for the better. Standing at a literal and metaphorical crossroads in her Aran jumper, woollen bikini, and bright red nose, Lehane is as disorientated as a trilogy in six parts. Where did it all go wrong? How did she become a cat lady? And, most importantly, where is ‘he’? ‘He’ being the tall, muscle-bound, perfect, intangible man who will swoop in and sate her “unsatisfied wants and unrealised dreams”.
 
The axis that Lehane’s one-woman clown performance hinges on is this sense of waiting. As we discover, if one waits passively for life to arrive, melancholy and quiet anguish gradually writhe their way through the cracks in our hopeful exteriors. In the wrong hands – or on the wrong face – a red clown nose could easily trivialise the central issues of depression, loneliness and anxiety that are conveyed in this performance. But, under the direction of Pochinko Clown method expert Veronica Coburn, Lehane somehow manages to channel all that is overtly hilarious and tragic about clowning and distil it into something so human that it highlights the perils that accompany the bleak uncertainty that has become so much a part of our society’s future. Through her wonderful facial expressions and impressive physical vocabulary, Lehane manages to convey what is really a sorrowful tale in a poignantly hilarious way.  
 

Star rating: ★★★