By Ron Bingham 
This show should come with a warning to those of a nervous disposition to not sit in the front row of the very small, hot and intimate theatre, as the cast perform what I can only describe as shouty and confrontational acting.
The play starts with a very entertaining animated song about a house full of mad and evil characters. The projector screen is then used throughout the play with short animated sequences and some helpful scene setting captions. The five cast members played a number of roles in a story which appeared to go something like this: A young man anxiously awaits the return of his father, who has been away at war for twenty years, hoping for some affection. His father is an evil man who has come up with a plot to rid the world of his enemies by making voodoo dolls of them and destroying them. He wishes to see if the same evil blood flows through the veins of his son. His son, a weak and tender man, fails the test and is tempted by his father’s enemies to help them overthrow his father.
Now, that’s what I think the plot is meant to be, but there are also a lot of scenes involving cockney chimney sweeps and a goblin, and I won’t even mention the Mad nurse from Northern Ireland who is obsessed with cream. And then there are the people who come back from the dead as multiples of themselves…? The poison taster class?? I’m not really sure it was meant to make sense to normal rational sane people. but that doesn’t matter. The actors all went to the school of “if we shout it, it will show we are passionate about the parts we are playing and, after all, that’s the only emotion that needs to be conveyed from a stage”, so don’t expect to see any love scenes (apart from the rather passionate love scenes which appear in the show).
It’s a mad, loud and funny hour of sketches which will eventually coalesce into a finale that will leave you bemused but entertained.
In the interest of making a full disclosure, I happen to work with the director of this show, a fact I didn’t know until I was standing in the queue just prior to entry. The people you meet, eh?
House of Nostril is being performed at The Pleasance Courtyard at 3.45pm.
For Info and Bookings https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/casual-violence-presents-house-of-nostril