This late night slot (10pm) seems to pack out compared to the earlier Fringe shows I’ve seen, on opening nights at least.  Along with a few trees and rocks on the stage, there are leafy twigs sprouting among the patron’s seats along with plastic cups bearing the word ‘finale’ full of ping-pong balls, so the eager, well lubricated inaugural crowd is intrigued before anything’s even happened. 

A self-professed pre-recorded narration courtesy of Nic Sampson channelling an olden day wireless BBC radio announcer sets the scene, inviting us to travel thousands or even millions of years ago, whenever it was that humans and dinosaurs coexisted exactly. 

The first character we encounter is Laura Daniel’s feral, feisty animal-hide clad cavewoman, directly addressing the audience as she proudly demonstrates her cherished hunting stick, sings with the birds and seeks herself a worthy mate.  Then comes Eli Matthewson’s gormless green dinosaur, cautious and curious in equal measures and lovably dog-like in the tradition of the Flintstone’s Dino, though less hyperactive. 

As directed by young local comedy veteran Hamish Parkinson, their hilarious, frequently anachronistic if not downright meta clown antics play out in the foreboding shadow of regular meteor-strikes, initially bring the unlikely duo together against the common threat, but continually threatening to blow them and everything else apart. 

Later on – if Oscar Wilson’s buff, surprisingly hairless himbo caveman is anything to go by – the smooth gyrations of Chippendale /boy band style dancing must be genetically ingrained.  His appearance on the scene intrudes on the nascent friendship between the other two, and thus a range of social stereotypes is created. 

Charlie Baptist’s marvellous costume design may well achieve its claim to be the most eye-catching costumes I will see in this festival – so far at least.  Not content displaying their talents in story devising and clown work, Matthewson and Daniel have also composed and recorded the wistful theme song ‘You’re the one I’d like to watch the end of the world with’.

So, altogether Prehistoria is pretty hysterical; Prehistorysteria perhaps?

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