Jofus and the Plank

Lily Fish is a phenomenon.  She is astonishing.  She is a comedienne, a mime, an acrobat and a chameleon.  In this show, the stage is totally bare, and the house lights don’t even dim.  There’s just Lily Fish and a plank.  Her character – and storyteller - Jofus – is dressed more or less as a clown and the ‘plank’ is a roughly 60 cm piece of wood.  Those are her resources.  There is some minimal narration – in a strange ‘clown’ voice and with lightning quick audience interactions – but the story, really, is told through movement – with the plank.  It is amazing what Ms Fish does with her face, her body and that plank.  She and that plank create a bed, a phone, cooking utensils, an oven, a loo, a precipitous fall down the face of a building, various windows and window ledges, balloons, clouds, an uncle, a wolf, a helpful bird, a bemused local watching the action from below – and more.

Jofus begins her/his day with dreams, some of which appear to be quite erotic and thoroughly enjoyable.  On rising, the plank becomes a toothbrush…  All is well… until Jofus gets a phone call from Uncle Trevor: he’s on his way for a visit.  Panic.  A cake must be baked, the very dirty apartment must be cleaned – including a blocked loo…  (Poo jokes are in this year.)  

All this is conveyed with total and hilarious clarity – and up to this point in the story, things are ‘normal’ enough.  But then there’s an insistent knock on the door…  It’s the Big Bad Wolf – a creation that’s all snapping, roaring jaws – made from clawed hands and the plank.  And now the show departs gloriously (and bravely) into an action adventure, a time-stretched fantasy of a magical Loony Tunes cartoon, peopled with multiple characters with multiple points of view.  What can Jofus do?  It’s a high-rise apartment – very high rise.  Only one way out and Jofus takes it: out the window!  Falling, falling, floor after floor flashing by…  The Big Bad Wolf realises and takes the stairs.  Jofus arrests her fall as she grabs a ledge... 

But Ms Fish never disappears into Jofus.  She keeps reminding us Jofus is a character in a story.  It’s a counter to Marcel Marceau.  She breaks the ‘fourth wall’ so that Jofus – or Ms Fish - constantly comments on what she’s doing and creating.

Here’s just one brilliant example of how this show works, moment to moment.  Ms Fish flips the plank so that she grips it from above – and now it’s a windowsill.  She grins proudly at the audience.  ‘It took me six months to learn how to do that!’  And then she prises open this ‘window’, but not enough.  The window she’s created for us is too small and her pants are too tight to climb in… But, as she tells the audience, really blowing theatrical illusion, ‘My mime skills will save me!’  Back she goes out to the window ledge to make a bigger window…

And so the story gets crazier and crazier with the Wolf a constant threat and Uncle Trevor oblivious and the bird trying to help and the local with a rollie watching on.  Clouds roll by.  Balloons appear…

Think about it.  It is awesome.  Ms Fish alone on stage for fifty-five minutes sustaining her story and our concentration with no lighting changes, no music, no props – except 60 cm of wood – and her elastic body.  Think of the courage that takes.  Think of the risk.  But it works.  At the end, all the characters take a bow, and we relax, having shared Jofus’ adventure every crazy step of the way. 

Michael Brindley

Photographer: Nayt Housman