BLAM![author-post-rating] (3/5)

BLAM! is a show which lives or dies on whether or not this is your kind of humour. Its elongated fight scenes and childishness, like a glorified stunt movie placed on stage, are accessible and universal. But I didn’t really find myself laughing during the piece. There’s obviously a lot of technical skill here and some sequences are a joy to watch, but for me it lacked some kind of charge.

In a dull, empty office space (Kristian Knudsen’s design is one of my favourite things about the show, thriving on a stark minimalism and achieving a wonderful coup at the end) three men decide they are having a slow day and that their time would be far better spent recreating tropes from modern cinema. They turn a water cooler into a robot, and binders become guns. The boss (Joen Højerslev) soon joins in and the office turns into a beautifully organised chaos.

There are moment inspired by E.T., by Terminator, by Predator, by Marvel films and a whole host of other movies. They are rattled through like machine gun fire, as deafening sound effects (Svend E Kristensen) blare through the speakers and lights flash throughout. The live stunts are extraordinary, too; this is a masterclass in stage fighting.

Kristján Ingimarsson plays the “Hero”, looking like a slightly younger Willem Defoe and embodying the all-guns-blazing, vastly imaginative nature of the show, his eyes glinting when he comes up with his next brilliant idea. His two partners in crime are Didier Oberle and Janus Elsig, each of whom are the perfect sidekicks to his Arnie figure. Together, their actions seem to represent the inertia and boredom of a nine-to-five job and the constant need to prove masculinity.

The direction by Kristjan Ingimarsson is strong, but the narrative feels altogether too weak and relies on sight gags for laughs rather than developing character. Of course, this isn’t really the point, but when there’s a rubric of a plot there you kind of wonder why it’s not strengthened that little bit more. BLAM! is nonetheless a tight piece of physical theatre which has to be seen to be believed.

BLAM! is at Pleasance Grand until 26 August. For more information and tickets visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.