Jackie Van Beek and Jonathan Brugh return to the Edinburgh Festival in their risky, boundary-breaking production entitled, My Brother and I Are Porn Stars. This is a twisted comedy about two children who, abandoned after their parents mysterious disappearance, are left alone to run the family porn business. Twenty years later, when their money runs out, a desperate struggle begins to keep the only world they’ve ever known intact.
This intro makes it sound quite poetic when really it is one of the most depraved and filthy productions you can catch at the festival. Right from the start, this show divides its audience completely. Half of the audience is cackling manically while the other half are silently attempting to make their way to the exit.
Flipping from one controversial subject to the next, its plot casually involves incest, nudity and Christian porn and though it’s bold enough to raise these issues, it never really deals with them. Instead it is more of an excuse to use maddeningly inventive tampon gags and make good use of the blow up dolls and giant penises that litter the stage. For the most part it really is fun for the audience, but then it descends into tedious rubbish in the second half as their story becomes set in a court battle.
Twisted and inventive in the early stages, it lets itself down badly in the climax with an absurd ending and a desperately unfunny scene about attempted rape.
3/5
Martin Miller
