Tony Law: Enter the Tonezone

Tony Law: Enter the Tonezone

by Ruth Thomson

Enter the Tone-Zone! Even at midday on four hours sleep you won’t regret it – in fact it might ease the journey. Alberta born surrealist Tony Law is a fine figure of a man, and aged 44 in a skin tight black onesie customised with red tassels he’s not afraid to show it – though he does confess to having forgotten that the audience would be to the side of the stage as well as in front. So they get an especially intimate view.

It’s hard to know where to begin. Having arrived on stage with a trombone and some broken sunglasses he takes off loudly in several directions at once – though not without first sharing the fact that he, his wife and five year old twins were evicted from their accommodation an hour before the show. Even this early into the zone you can tell his wife is a patient woman – especially if she had anything to do with those tassels.

From stories of his early employment in a slaughterhouse to an extended description of the death of Cartridge the sausage dog (such a pivotal member of the family, Cartridge knew when Tone and the Mrs were going to have sex before they did) Law is pretty much consistently hilarious. He breaks up straighter anecdotes with random interjections (‘I don’t like death, death I have a problem with. I do like the beach though, that’s a lot of fun’) but his crowning glory comes with an impromptu display of Rhythmic Gymnastics/Modern Dance with only a beach ball and an unfortunate audience member as props. Introduced with the immortal words ‘get ready for some art inside your faces’, it was the highlight of my 48 hours at the fringe.

Brilliant stuff – go and see him. You’ll probably fancy him a wee bit too. Just saying.