Cannonball is a one-woman wonder. Emily Taylor, winner of the Tiki Tour Ready Award at the 2012 Melbourne Fringe Festival, brings us a kaleidoscope of ten characters all connected in some way to the glass tower of the Land Land Shopping centre.

There’s David, the revolting C.E.O, whose faux spiritual connection with nature means in practise fetishes with birds. His uptight wife Cornelia, whose only role in life is to keep the house perfect; their daughter Lucy who becomes rendered sleepless with fear when her mother’s idea of a bedtime story takes a darker turn. Her evil cabbage patch doll Didi, and their very, very naughty Persian cat, Bernadette.

Not to mention German (or Swiss German?) receptionist Hilda, her youthful daughter Heidi, and poor Miles, the window cleaner who has seen it all, and wishes perhaps he hadn’t. Even our old friends, the spicy Mexican Libido and fraught Neuroses make a quick appearance.

While it could be considered easy to ‘play’ any of these stereotypes, Green Room Award winner Taylor manages to find the edge that takes them into fully realised and unique characters. This, along with her flawless physical transformations, is what makes the show so compelling. We trust her to take us on this wild ride, because she’s just so darn good. She appears to lose herself in the truth of each character, and, with the help of her well-crafted script, creates a sheer believably that, for all the laughs, leaves the audience with a certain amount of pathos.

Taylor is an extremely talented performer, totally in control of her comedic material; it’s a delight to behold. It’s easy to see why Cannonball took out the Tiki Tour Ready award in Melbourne last year. Go.  

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

One confident, capable, comedic actress playing ten characters in a one-hour kaleidoscope of social observation and riotous imagination with just one prop on stage makes for a ‘hole-in-one’ at this year’s Fringe.

Green Room Award winner Emily Taylor is not only an enormously talented comedic actress and impersonator, but she is also a very original writer.

Her play, Cannonball, weaves together the lives of various individuals who are connected via the Land Shopping Centre. Most of the characters work there, on various echelons.

There is the penthouse office of Aussie David, the pseudo-macho C.E.O. with a penchant for poultry. There is his potty, role-playing South African wife, Cordellia. There’s his daughter, Lucy, who suffers her mother’s hair-raising bedtime stories bravely. There’s Lucy’s Cabbage Patch Doll, Didi (Taylor manages a sidesplitting facial expression resemblance for anyone who knows what a Cabbage Patch Doll looks like).

There’s the window cleaner, Miles, who perceives both the birds and the birdshit, and who wonders if he will carry on his family’s patriarchal tradition of suicide. There’s neurosis and libido incarnate (the weaker two impersonations – neurosis resting on Woody Allen, and libido, a Mexican pepper cartoon). There’s the hilarious Swedish (?) secretary of the Mental Health Centre, Wholesome Health, Hilda (definitely the highlight; some of her one-liners are inspired!) and her daughter, the suggestible intern, Heidi.

The characters are all satirical and exaggerated, but consistently so. This is a play with confidence and commitment to its vision. The real feat is that, through all of the parody and embroidery, it manages expressiveness and immersion and even pathos.  

The play opens with utterly divergent perspectives, but in a brilliantly crafted way, they all turn to face (thankfully, not literally) the one prop that remains on stage throughout: the raven that represents one’s psyche. 

Emily Taylor is a deserving winner of the Melbourne Fringe Tiki Tour Ready Award. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer