Reviewed in a digital copy, Holly Spillar: Tall Child has the feel of being an audience member sneaking in at the back of the room, but the hour-long set that details how Holly, a “poor child” comes to be looking after the children of the super-rich, still makes sense.
Spillar has a curious delivery, not the usual chat and banter of a stand-up but a light, shifting, and slightly unnatural tone. Songs use loop pedals and audience participation to make their points through repetition and overlays; stories offer a mix of suppressed rage and cheeky honesty.
It’s not one of the usual ‘let’s kill the rich” shows. Instead, Tall Child highlights that rich children become rich people removed from the realities of the world, and continue to perpetuate injustices on those lower down the socio-economic chain. As Holly, struggling to find her way into the arts, continues to watch the child who will want for nothing, there is a righteous range about her.
She talks of hidden disabilities while offering her body movement in a heightened way that becomes part of her routine, as much as the words. You watch her as much as you listen, flame-haired and at ease in the room. For a working-class artist, “working in the theatre” wasn’t a job you could aspire to. Far better to be a primary school teacher or accept a minimum wage role.
Tall Child feels very rehearsed and honed, and perhaps could use a little unpredictabilty, although the songs help a lot to break up what may have been a tale of “them and us”. There’s a lot here about how the poor can be entertaining. fashionable, and popular. As long as you are not one of them, as “Tarquin and Fenella” will tell you.
Spillar’s off-kilter delivery adds a frisson of horror to her material, especially so with a long segment about a toy monkey who screams. Never mind the rich child, I wanted to hide away from this apparition and the sing-song voice, almost a whisper, telling us about it.
There’s a lot of fun to be had as Tall Child explores the children of the rich and the mechanics of being a nanny in the “billionaire baby” sphere. It’s a perfectly decent show. More songs, more focus, and perhaps a little more tech, would lift this show into more of the spectacular than the satisfactory.
3 stars. It would possibly be more if the video had allowed me to see Holly’s facial expressions, but her personality really comes across.
Holly Spillar: Tall Child is at Dexter at Underbelly, Bristo Square as part of the Edinburgh Fringe, until 24 Aug, with tickets here.
For more about Holly, see her website. Also you can read my interview with her promoting her previous show, HOLE.