Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella ★★★★★

Awkward Productions have built up a well-deserved reputation as purveyors of queer joy. How to Live a Jellicle Life reveled in the feline absurdity of the 2019 multi-Razzie-winning movie, Cats. Diana: The Untold and Untrue Story was a hilarious regal retelling that imagined the happy ending that the late Princess of Wales deserved. Gwyneth Goes Skiing was a snow-speckled, fevered fantasia that reconstructed the celebrity madness of the court case when the famed actress and the not-famed optometrist disputed an accident on the slopes (and Gwyneth Paltrow lost a day of skiing). And The Fit Prince put a delicious queer spin on the world of holiday-based rom-com movies.

So when they announced their new show, Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella, and it was based on a real-life violent hate crime perpetrated on the performer, eyebrows were raised quizzically. While each of their shows has progressed creatively from their predecessor, they’ve always explored the positivity and happiness of LGBTQ+ stories. Where’s the queer joy in an attack? What’s funny about a homophobic assault? It seemed like a big gear change to the darker side of being queer from the frothy exuberance that was Awkward Production’s trademark style – and something of a risk for their brand.

The risk more than pays off. Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella raises their game as theatre makers and does so with seeming ease.

In July 2024, while walking hand-in-hand through Soho, home to most of London’s gay scene, with his partner Joseph Martin, performer Linus Karp was attacked with an umbrella by a stranger who shouted homophobic abuse and threatened to kill him. The blow was so hard that the handle broke off. Martin gives chase to the assailant while nearby diners offer care to Karp.

Where many autobiographical solo shows about trauma fail is in believing that a harrowing personal experience is automatically dramatic. Karp’s script is beautifully constructed. The narrative is deftly modulated, balancing the elements with care so that the darker elements within the story don’t overwhelm the piece. Working with dramaturg Haley McGee, the show treads a fine line between treating the event and its subsequent consequences seriously and using humour to break the tension without trivialising what happened. Remarkably, it pivots between both without ever jarring.

In every interview approaching the Fringe, Karp has said Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella is funny, honestly. And it is. Somehow, it retains Awkward Prods’ silly, playful laughs without ever diluting the seriousness of the subject matter. Lily Allen, Pierce Brosnan, the use of baguette as a verb, and the unexpected and incongruous cameo appearance by a familiar face all give the audience breathing space from the intensity. And it is needed. Moments such as playing segments of the actual recording of Joseph Martin’s emergency call or Karp’s description of the police’s behaviour are chilling and disturbing.

Karp gives the most commanding stage performance of his career so far. Along with his signature mischievous charm, the Swede reveals a vulnerability and an emotional honesty not seen before. Rather than solely focusing on the incident, equal weight is given to the aftermath. Particularly upsetting, especially for those who have developed a genuine fondness for Linus over subsequent Fringes, is his description of the psychological effect that the attack had on how he felt about performing in Edinburgh days later.

Awkward Productions have long incorporated strong messages of embracing queerness into their shows. Linus Karp Was Hit With An Umbrella elevates this by explicitly detailing how Karp successfully turns an experience designed to make him feel vulnerable and invisible into a profoundly moving act of theatrical visibility, personal resilience and, ultimately, queer joy. And if there’s a more exuberant, defiant finale this Fringe, The Recs is yet to see it!