Japanese Grandma Funeral
Kento the clown missed his grandmother's funeral in Japan due to Covid restrictions. He's trying to recreate the traditional rites, but it keeps going wrong. Can the audience help him achieve closure in this gentle, heartwarming comedy? Blending clown and storytelling with Japanese and Okinawan funeral customs, Kento attempts to process 108 of his grandma's memories, along with unresolved thoughts and small, stubborn facts about her life, in a show that is both deeply personal, yet widely relatable. What begins as a failed ceremony becomes a gentle, intimate invitation to laugh, remember and let go.
- Venue: ZOO Playground
- City: Edinburgh
- Rating: 0 / 5 (1 review)
Performances
- Tue, 25 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Thu, 13 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Wed, 19 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Wed, 26 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Thu, 27 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sat, 15 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sun, 9 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Fri, 21 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sun, 23 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Tue, 11 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sat, 22 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sun, 30 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Thu, 20 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sun, 16 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Tue, 18 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Mon, 24 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sat, 8 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Sat, 29 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Wed, 12 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Fri, 14 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Fri, 7 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
- Fri, 28 Aug 2026, 17:45 — ZOO Playground
Reviews
- Hailu — ★★★★★ (5/5) — July 19, 2026
Watched the clown show Japanese Grandma Funeral by Kento last night (7/17, in New York) as they are heading to Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. It quickly became 1 of my 2 favorite clown shows so far - the other one was a parody for Elvis Presley back in March 2024 (coincidentally, both artists are of Japanese blood). It's all that I can imagine from a clown show, mixing endless laughter, tenderness, brilliant structure, hilarious actor-audience interactions, and a little bit of melancholy. TIME - that is the key word throughout the whole show that really struck me and it struck hard. In the beginning, Kento mentioned he missed his grandma's funeral 6 yrs ago due to travel restrictions from covid, and the full show is then unwrapped with TIME as its core skeleton: a clock counting down 49 minutes, during which he would flip cards by numbers called out by audience so the cards would be put together again to yield a portrait of grandma in the end. However, 49-minute seems too short and we only got to see some part of grandma's face yielded, and Kento commented at the end, softly and sorrowfully, that 'well, I guess this is as good as we can get', echoing the context of the show.