Mucho recommendo
I usually hate ventriloquism acts. Most of them aren’t very good at it, and their dummies are ugly as sin. Most people are creeped out by ventriloquist dummies and they don’t need a Twilight Zone episode to do it.
Then I found Nina Conti. She’s got an emormous range of voices and a flawless delivery.
She doesn’t generally work with dummies, except Monkey. The stuff with Monkey is pretty good. Monkey is dark.
But my favorite is when she gets audience members on stage, straps a mechanical mask to their lower faces, and puts words in their mouths. Some of them are really very funny.
What’s stunning is, these are entirely improvised. She has set routines, but mostly she asks participants what they do and then riff off of it. It’s extraordinary.
Her story goes that she’s an actress and one day on set, her producer gave her a Beginner’s Guide to Ventriloquism as a joke. She threw it in the closet for a year. Later, she ran across it, tried it out and discovered she had a knack for it. That’s how I remember the interview, anyway.
She has a movie out that she wrote, stars and and directed. It’s a road trip, and she’s dressed as monkey. It’s called Sunlight (trailer). I plan to rent it this weekend, so don’t spoil it for me.
June 15, 2026 — 6:49 pm
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