Burning Down The Horse ★★★★

Talk about timing. This may be the third year in a row Fishing4Chips has brought its delightfully droll Burning Down the Horse to Edinburgh Fringe, but it’s the first year the show is running in the wake of Christopher Nolan’s behemoth box-office bonanza, The Odyssey, in which the wooden Trojan Horse used to invade and destroy the city of Troy serves as one of the film’s focal points.

Happy to report that Fishing4Chips’ lighthearted, immersive take on the inner workings of the soldiers inside the Trojan Horse is far more jolly than Nolan’s, where some soldiers, unable to move, are shown drowning. No lifeguards needed here. The audience — who are cast as fellow soldiers before they even enter the appropriately low-ceilinged Friesian room at Underbelly Bristo Square — is instead greeted with a series of spirited questions to get the momentum going:

Ready for war?

Ready for siege?

Has anyone here ever killed someone before?

The cheekiness only builds from there, most of it from the “dull” soldier Echeon played by show co-creator Sean Wareing, who asks various audience members if they have a snack, then dismisses whatever is offered. Wareing, the show’s standout, is effortlessly hilarious. If Josh Gad and Jack Black could procreate and have a British baby, Wareing would be it. Casting directors, take note.