Where creativity meets connection
Comedy is an artform not everyone can or will appreciate. It’s a delicate science that requires the right mind to perform. Elf Lyons is of such mind. A mastermind. Horses is a performance played by horses – not Elf, not at all. The woman- horse on the stage is in fact Treacle, the star of the show.
As all award-winning shows seem to be, Horses began as a joke. Elf had the idea of performing as “horses from history”. Imagine SIX the Musical, but each wife is in equine form and there’s less singing. Don’t be fooled by the playful pony because, throughout the performance, it will be made clear that actions have consequences.
Elf came from a teaching background, a very structured foundation to her work, lecturing at universities and reading the work of French philosopher, Maurice Merleau-Ponty. “He's really an amazing practitioner who changed the game of education,” she tells me. Merleau-Ponty’s work argued the body is an active participant in shaping experience and knowledge. This meant that, in education, students started to engage with the world more through their bodies and senses instead of relying on the concepts given to them. Elf takes this all in her stride, having her audiences be active participants in all her performances.
“Nobody's just sat there in a seat. Nobody has the right to switch off and just be a sponge to absorb what I'm doing.”
And Horses is all about imaginary, symbiotic and role play. Elf plays, Treacle plays and most importantly, the audience get to play, too. But, despite the diva on stage, Elf is still a living, breathing person who will greet you at you enter her space. Just allows yourself to pretend for an hour.
Treacle, is the stand-out character in Horses, based on a pony from Elf’s childhood. We’re not just reflecting on “horses from history”, but horses from Elf’s personal history. From the excitement of a pony party, to meeting Treacle, to the denial and rejection of young Elf (and I won’t say little because Elf was already six feet tall at this age). However, this was how she met Chubby, a brutish, black-coated horse. And another horse in her show.
Each of the four horses are played by Elf and Elf alone, the diversity between them elevating this masterful one-woman show. She tells me how performances change depending on her feelings that day. How her script changes on the fly from night to night. Often, the audience’s reactions have an impact too.
“I'm discovering the show at the same time the audience discover it.”
When travelling the world to perform, Elf experiences a variety of responses to her performance. Audiences in Australia (where she had currently been touring) can greet it differently to their British counterparts. It continues to offer interesting new conversations.
According to Elf, Australia is still new to clowning, compared to England or Europe. She explains that being less familiar with interactive comedy shows can lead to the ending of Horses being rather tragic. Audiences, in Australia, have left thinking it was downbeat. “It didn’t have to be” is Elf’s quip. Clowning is a very physical type of comedy, and very present in Horses, that emphasises interactivity with the audience and typically includes a level of absurdity that Elf always hits the hoof on the matter.
On the other hoof, Elf’s audiences over the UK and Europe have been able to experience the more uplifting ending. It’s the smallest of changes that can make the biggest differences. So, if (and when) you see Horses, consider the consequences of your actions.
“The audience have the power to decide whether the show ends on a happy ending or a sad ending.”
Stephen King was also a big influence on her creative process. “He’ll just write,” Elf exclaims. Instead of allowing himself to sit and mull over what words to put on a page. He’ll create a first draft, then go back, picking out the repeated subjects, be they animals, feelings or weather, to focus a rewrite around. These are woven together like a tapestry. His motif starts to shine, and he etches in the details of themes and subjects, which is when the beautiful underbelly, no matter how gritty, comes through in his work. Elf much prefers this method over assuming you know the subtext before starting to spin out a play.
Parallels could be drawn between the tragic nature of the Grand National section in Horses and King’s landmark 1983 work, Pet Sematary. The horror novel explores the consequences of defying death. It’s a morbid and thrilling tale, but there’s a beauty in the narrative that Elf has similarly created with her balance of truth within comedy.
Elf carries all this knowledge from her education, interests and past careers, cramming into each performance she brings out next. There are not many comedians with all four hooves on the ground. She’s even stepping up to create change in her own way. I keep thinking back to the theme of ‘consequences’. With the world as it is, changing through climate, war and scientific discovery, adults have broadly stopped pretending to be young and free-minded. Most of the time, we’re too serious. Elf is rectifying that with Horses. Her performance starts with her pretending to be a horse in a dance studio, and advances to creating a space where the audience can be playful with her. She goes as far as to show the consequences of not having a moment of play through the choices in her performance, too. It’s incredible and makes you appreciate how important it is to let go occasionally. Just a moment to be you and that’s something extremely special that Elf Lyons has been able to do.
“If more people took time to play, it would just make everyone's world so much better.”
Elf Lyons brings Horses to Hove’s The Old Market on Thurs 29 May (as part of Brighton Fringe) and London’s Bloomsbury Theatre on Sun 1 June 2025.
www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-theatre
All images by Karla Gowlett
Mae Clapton
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