Layering worlds upon worlds, Crizards’ Fringe debut hour is a hugely enjoyable exploration of the double-act dynamic, wrapped up in campfire songs and knowingly creaky, rootin’ tootin’ Wild West iconography. Introducing themselves as ‘low energy’ and too superficially alike to have an impact, Will Rowland (acoustic guitar, nervous grin) and Eddy Hare (bass, stolid) have decided to perform a show about cowboys. 

^{Picture (top) Rebecca Need-Menear}

With Rowland as the agitated outlaw Billy, out to get the railroad threatening to disrupt his camp, and Hare as a stranger (the stoic Edmonton) whose life he saves, they are hot in pursuit of vengeance. As the plot unfolds though, Rowland can’t keep his personal heartbreak out of the show. Indeed, he makes it the emotional wellspring from which he draws, much to the unsmiling Hare’s annoyance as he labours to focus, while keeping his own fears and insecurity suppressed.

Two concurrent stories then, jumping the tracks of each other’s narrative, the double act pulling apart even as their two lonely characters find a bromance just shy of Brokeback Mountain. Directed by Jordan Brookes, Crizards keep you guessing as to what’s truly based in reality and what’s heightened artifice, delightful shading to a rich sundown cookout of silly jokes and awkward masculinity.

Reviewed at Assembly George Square Studios as part of Edinburgh Fringe.