Kristen Schaal: The Legend of Crystal Shell review – flighty Conchords comic is still kooking on gas
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghAs a half-horse half-woman who dreams of being a unicorn and performing Swan Lake, Schaal sheds little light but has plenty of sparkleFor a happy handful of years...
By Brian Logan · The Guardian Culture
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh As a half-horse half-woman who dreams of being a unicorn and performing Swan Lake, Schaal sheds little light but has plenty of sparkle For a happy handful of years in the noughties, around the time she made her TV name on Flight of the Conchords ’ sitcom, Kristen Schaal was a fringe fixture, award-nominated in 2008 for her two-hander with Kurt Braunohler, Double Down Hearts . If those shows found Schaal kooking on gas, about as wilfully dotty and insubstantial as you’d ever wish comedy to be, the intervening two decades seem to have changed her not a jot. The Legend of Crystal Shell, her two-hander with John Roberts, casts the comic actor as a half-woman, half-horse, overcoming a lifetime of shame to deliver a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake for tonight’s audience. It plays as if written by a primary schoolchild high on pick’n’mix, and is endearing and nonplussing in equal measure. Continue reading...