Fungasm: Save or Smash ★★★★

Fungasm: Save or Smash is a ridiculous title for a ridiculously fantastic game show with a hilarious premise: lucky audience members get to decide the fate of a delicate pottery item. Take the tchotchke home and turn it into a personal treasure, or have it publicly destroyed to cheery jeers. It’s a concept impossible to ignore, for who amongst us at Fringe hasn’t wanted to take a hammer to art found to be ridiculously awful?

The production is sharply organized for optimal — well, the title tells no lies — fun. Audience members are given colored lanyards with numbers upon entering, which they soon find out are team designations. Then the show’s superb hosts Ray and Laura, ably supported by exuberantly silly assistants Tammy and Bobby, as well as special guest star Sharkira (who is, absurd green shark costume aside, genuinely a great singer) bring up three randomly selected contestants for the first round of questions.

The winner of each round of questions not only earns points for their team, they also get to decide the fortune of a fragile knickknack that’s been placed in a box with protective sides so that shards won’t fly and cause anyone injury. Ceramics may be in peril, but humans need not worry.

The questions could be a bit more challenging, or at least surprising (too many correct answers were either “save” or “smash”), and there was an uncompleted bit about a bonanza that gilded the show’s lily, but overall the show was a hoot and a holler. The mini-game “Is it mayo?” will especially not soon be forgotten; this reviewer was giving thanks to the universe for not being forced to play it.

’Tis a pity this anti-Antiques Roadshow delight at Gilded Balloon only ran for the last week of the festival, because it deserves to be seen and enjoyed by far more than is possible during such a short appearance. Come back, Fungasm: Save or Smash, and next time, stay a little longer.