The last night of the Fringe is always a tricky slot to fill. One doesn’t want to spend the final night watching something that makes the ending of a great festival miserable, but one also doesn’t want to see a show that is so great that you wish you could see it again, only to realise you have no chance. Luckily, Australian clown Conk’s Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour is one of the most memorable shows in town, but you can still catch him later this month in London.

Conk’s show title carries certain expectations. Is he going to make the show less of a torture by rewriting the lyrics, changing the music, or turning it into a musical? The answer is surprisingly simple: he is just going to sing the same song over and over again, by himself, well… apart from some audience interaction. I mean, this is the Fringe!

Conk dresses himself in a tasteful, beautiful sky-blue suit jacket, not quite naked yet, with a huge countdown behind him, counting down the hour promised by the title. He occasionally turns nervously towards it, looking almost frightened by what he sees, which is already enough to make the audience laugh, before he starts singing a song that makes the gentleman sitting next to me begin to laugh immediately. Before I know it, we are all singing with Conk.

Conk does not do anything to alter the song or even the backing track, but he performs it with superb clowning skills and physicality. He can be running around doing push-ups, performing a nakedly sexy dance in nothing but a flesh-coloured pair of briefs, asking someone to play a real guitar for him, or pulling out yet another microphone from God knows where. It never becomes boring or predictable, and you never know when or why you are going to burst into laughter.

Repetition is one of the most effective tools for a comedian, yet Conk uses it in brilliant and unexpected ways. Many comedians use repetition because the timing is unexpected or because a situation escalates in an unexpected direction. Here, even those who had no idea what the song was at the beginning, know how it goes halfway through, yet are still eager to see what Conk is going to do next on stage. The interaction between him, us and the song becomes the unexpected thing itself. Somewhere in the middle, any doubt about whether this format could possibly work disappears. Conk’s performance has convinced us that this mad idea might just be the perfect idea for a Fringe show. 

And the ending Conk manages to pull off with us is nothing short of a miracle, one of the most satisfying endings you could wish for. The small cult that the audience forms together, although it does not intentionally reach for a deeper meaning, says a great deal about the way we as human beings respond to performance and why we fall in love with theatre in such a fundamental way. That, in itself, is extraordinary and meaningful.

Indeed, all roads lead to greatness in comedy. Some comedians offer intelligent, witty critiques of our society; some go personal and invite us into their world; and some, like Conk, build a show around one simple, silly, crazy idea that is impossible to resist, and let you find happiness with them along the way.

Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour has finished its run