Credit: Rob Trendy
By Grace Hatchell
There are some Fringe shows where you read the blurb and think, “Aye, that sounds interesting.”
Then there are shows where you read the blurb and immediately wonder whether someone has spiked your Yorkshire Tea with moon dust.
Blip Blarp – An Alien Love Story is very much the second one.
This is a one-woman sci-fi burlesque comedy about an alien seductress who lands on Earth with a simple, modest, not-at-all-unhinged plan: produce 1,000 babies, conquer the planet, and presumably have humanity neatly filed away before supper.
Unfortunately for Blip Blarp, she has made one catastrophic error.
She thinks human males will be easy to understand.
Bless her extraterrestrial heart.
Because while taking over Earth might sound complicated, it is apparently nothing compared with modern dating. Mixed signals. Rejection. Emotional confusion. Men who probably say “I’m not really looking for anything serious” while having the personality depth of a damp tea towel. Suddenly, the mission is less “conquer the planet” and more “why has he not texted back when he clearly saw the message?”
And honestly? That might be the most relatable alien invasion story ever told.
Created and performed by Alicia Queen, an American artist based in France, Blip Blarp mixes physical comedy, burlesque, clowning, projection design and multimedia theatre. It also uses AI-assisted visual design to help build Blip Blarp’s strange alien universe on stage, which sounds very Fringe, very now, and very “I have no idea what I’m walking into, but I want a front-row seat and possibly a protective helmet.”
The show follows Blip Blarp as she arrives on Earth absolutely convinced she has human men worked out. That confidence lasts until reality starts flinging emotional custard pies at her. Rejection appears. Feelings appear. The whole conquest plan starts wobbling like a deckchair in Leith wind.
Then, because the universe clearly enjoys making things awkward, she falls for one of the humans she originally planned to use as part of her breeding-and-domination strategy.
A classic Fringe romance, then.
What makes this sound delicious is that underneath the daftness — and yes, it is gloriously daft — there seems to be a real heart beating away in the middle of it. This is not just “alien does sexy funny nonsense for an hour,” though frankly I’d still be curious. It is about rejection, desire, connection, and that very human need to be seen and understood.
Even if you have arrived from another planet with conquest on your to-do list.
That is the sneaky thing about clowning and absurd comedy when it is done well. It can be completely ridiculous on the surface, then suddenly catch you in the ribs with something painfully familiar. We laugh at the alien because she does not understand us, and then five minutes later we realise none of us understand us either.
We are all Blip Blarp, really.
Just with fewer plans for mass reproduction and galactic domination. Hopefully.
Alicia Queen’s background sounds like exactly the sort of cocktail this show needs: Chicago comedy, European physical theatre, clowning, burlesque, puppetry and multimedia performance. That combination suggests something bigger than a straightforward stand-up hour or a simple character monologue. This sounds theatrical, physical, strange and knowingly ridiculous — the sort of thing that could only really thrive at the Fringe, where audiences are fully prepared to watch a woman dressed as an alien explain love, lust and rejection at quarter past eleven at night.
And let’s talk about that time slot.
23:15.
That is not a polite little matinee slot for people clutching a flapjack and checking train times. That is the time of night when the Fringe gets weird. That is the hour when you accidentally see something you will still be describing to confused relatives six months later. That is when alien burlesque dating chaos belongs.
Some shows are made for sensible daylight.
This one sounds like it has been assembled in a glittery spaceship behind The Mash House.
The title alone — Blip Blarp – An Alien Love Story — is enough to make me smile. It has that lovely Fringe confidence of not trying to sound respectable. No misty metaphor. No solemn colon followed by “a meditation on grief.” Just Blip Blarp. There she is. Take her or leave her. Probably take her, actually, before she takes the planet.
So yes, I am fully on board the mothership for this one.
Will it be elegant? Who knows.
Will it be subtle? I suspect subtlety may have been left orbiting Mars.
Will it be memorable? I would bet my emergency packet of train crisps on it.
Blip Blarp – An Alien Love Story sounds like exactly the sort of late-night Fringe oddity I want more of: bold, silly, physical, theatrical, gloriously strange, emotionally wonky, and brave enough to ask the big questions.
Can love derail an alien invasion?
Are human men more confusing than intergalactic warfare?
And if an extraterrestrial seductress cannot survive modern dating, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Beam me up, Blip Blarp. I’m ready.
Blip Blarp – An Alien Love Story: Edinburgh Fringe Details
Show: Blip Blarp – An Alien Love Story
Performer/Creator: Alicia Queen
Venue: Just The Tonic – The Mash House – The Snifter Room
Dates: 6–30 August, excluding 18 August
Time: 23:15
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: Available via the Edinburgh Festival Fringe website- Blip Blarp: An Alien Love Story | Edinburgh Festival Fringe
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