In 2016 Richard Gadd won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show for a performance which featured him pounding a treadmill throughout the gig. In Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge performer Lyons spends the entire hour on barefoot tip toes. It's an understated highlight of a distinctive, outstanding show that must surely be a strong contender for this year's award.

 

Put simply Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge is a break-up show, charting what happened when last year her wedding was called off and how she tackled the subsequent trauma. But that is a far too basic synopsis for a brilliantly complex piece.

 

Lyons has previously used her clown sensibilities to perform her own idiosyncratic version of Swan Lake and play a horse (briefly reprised) so she is no stranger to boundary-breaking. Here she plays a Hitchcockish film noir heroine and there is a running motif about the dramatic Apollo 13 mission – can she fix her mental health the way they fixed their spaceship?.

 

Elsewhere she lip synchs to lines provided by a very able audience member and performs a pocket opera made up for found dialogue. In fact there are so many compelling elements here I've probably missed a few out. Lyons is certainly never dull, throwing in physicality, sight gags and some playful crowdwork alongside extended emotional monologues. It's not always comedy and it is certainly not stand-up.

 

Maybe, in the end, it's more multi-genre performance art than clowning. What I do know is that it is one of the most special shows I've seen in Edinburgh in recent memory, from frenetic ciggy-smoking start to a finish that will leave you gasping with delight.