Review: Cabin Fever (theSpace @ Symposium Hall)
- Flora Gosling
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Breaks no ground but pleases the crowd
Air travel has experienced a comedic resurgence of late. 90's sitcom The High Life is returning as a musical next year, airport manager and reality star Jane Boulton has been enjoying her (second) fifteen minutes of fame, and a soundbite from a certain airline has dominated social media this summer. Fresh !nk Theatre’s two-hander comedy Cabin Fever sees performers Aurelia Harris-Johnstone and Beth Miles switch between several different characters – an old couple, a mother and daughter, a pair of reunited schoolfriends – over the course of a one-hour flight from London to Los Angeles. With so many divisive and hyper-specific comedy performances at the Fringe, this might be one of the most agreeable offerings in the whole programme.

What you might expect is a lot of gags around flying itself – the safety demonstration, the food, turbulence, etc. – and there is a bit of that, but by and large, the plane setting is just a device to get all these characters within shouting distance of each other. The show is jam-packed with jokes, and Harris-Johnstone and Miles make sure every single one of them lands. They completely elevate their otherwise stock characters and perfect the mannerisms to distinguish them. When you’re not busy laughing, you are marvelling at how cleanly they can switch from one character to another.
There is a charm to this old-fashioned style of comedy. Less charming are a couple of old-fashioned attitudes that arise in the writing. There’s some uncomfortable touching that borders on sexual harassment. There’s a married flirt whose interactions with a pair of young influencers are squirm-inducing. There’s a character who, despite being played without any additional props or costumes, is a regular subject of fatphobic humour. It is a fine line between characters the audience love to hate, and characters that make them uncomfortable. Some audiences will find humour that pre-dates the MeToo and Body Positivity movements appealing, but from a young, woman-led theatre company, I expect better.
Also unexpected, but wholly more enjoyable, was how strong two of the character arcs become. One feels a little forced, but the other offers a surprisingly moving reflection on piloting your own destiny. It saves Cabin Fever from being entirely light and vapid; if you wanted to take someone to the theatre for the very first time, this would be a great place to start. It is occasionally outdated and rarely original, but it is a crowd-pleasing comedy that keeps audiences of all ages laughing. Four stars.
Whispers from the Crowd: "Fabulous! One of the strongest Fringe shows I have seen."
Cabin Fever will play at theSpace @ Symposium Hall at 13:05 until the 23rd of August
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