Brynley Stent is a comical treasure, as much for conceiving the sketches she’s dreamed up as for the way she plays them out. Who knew so much humour could be drawn from sources so minimal!  

Just eating spoonsful of the sponsor’s product gets ambivalent shrieks from the audience and her show hasn’t even started yet! When the digital screen, mostly used to announce each sketch, features, in slo-mo, her face in extreme close-up as it responds ever-so-subtly to … whatever she’s up to off-screen, we become fully engaged.

Clad in lederhosen and a pointy hat, Brynley’s rosy-cheeked Little Goblin is the picture of childlike innocence. So where does the ‘filthy’ come in? Not in Arrabella’s tender letters from the Southern States to gone-to-war James. The humour here is increasingly dark as it comprehensively exposes the male psyche and female conditioning. And on opening night her seamless incorporation of latecomers’ arrival proves what a consummate artist she is.

Brynley seems to have gone off-script for a moment when she deals with a situation we have all experienced from one side or the other. I’ll say no more, except who knew total stillness could be so confrontationally funny?  

‘I like to steal people’s jobs’ is the caption on the graphic for the sketch where Brynley interacts with a supermarket self-checkout device. What happens and where she takes this idea in successive iterations is weird, wonderful and yes, a bit ‘filthy’ – as well as heart-breaking and warming.  

Birthday presents, whether given or received, or not, can stir all sorts of emotions – which leads to ‘guilt-edged’ comedy in Brynley’s hands. And she juxtaposes crude fantasy with real life anguish under the banner of ‘Girls Girls Girls’ – who knew porn could be so poignant?

Roses get their comeuppance. We get back to innocence with ‘Wolt Dinny Pictures’ in mime – or do we? The vexed phone hang-up situation plays out to a bitter end. But miracles can happen – and do, which can be problematical. As for the game show ‘Mints or Mince!’, the horoscopes, the post-apocalypse Robot’s search for companionship, the restaurant sketch … All priceless.

Brynley Stent’s seemingly effortless ability to conjure up scenes, situations, characters and humour out of thin air, with minimal ‘acting’, proves her prowess at engaging an audience and creating the spaces in which, no matter how bizarre it gets, we always ‘get it’. It’s a skill to be treasured.   

Grab you chance in this very intimate BATS Studio season, before her inevitable transfer to bigger spaces. 

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