I’ll be entirely transparent – I love pickles. And that was a big reason to see this. However, to not make the choice as simple as that, this production looked and sounded completely bonkers and I was very excited to embark on it.

Pickled Republic is a puppetry, clowning, avant guard, bouffon experience of fruit and vegetables as they slowly decline and are abandoned. On the surface, this is comedic and bizarre and seems simple, but in reality, there’s reflection on loneliness, on love and loss, on consumerism and so much more.

Ruxandra Cantir is a one person production, transforming into different vegetables throughout. The stories do begin to connect, such as the onion who loves a potato, the latter being a cabaret singer/star and this story builds and builds as we are viewing. In a true clown/bouffon style, the use of costumes and changes in their physicality transform these characters into something very abnormal but yet strangely human and relatable, different from one another, and they very much have the ability to make you forget they are only one person on stage.

It is complete madness – it attempts to make you uncomfortable, and the sniggers of uncomfortable laughter make this clear that it has worked. It is genuinely funny as well, with these bizarre little characters with their own quirks, conveying their almost relatable stories; for example, we meet a carrot with a carrot baby and all the initial approach is very stereotypical of motherhood, but Cantir manipulates this effortlessly to be a little sub-human, an alternate reality.

There is plenty of audience interaction (and if you are at fringe and expect to go unnoticed, you’re in the wrong place) which continues to make the atmosphere uncomfortable yet enjoyable. As a voyeur and lover of this style, it’s excellent to see this working so well. Performance art should be enjoyable but it also doesn’t have to be all the positives that traditional theatre dictates.

Pickled Republic is utter madness of the best kind. It is clever, bizarre and all good things of fringe performance art.