‘All the Boys I Blocked features a virtuoso, highly enjoyable performance by Chanel

From the moment Chanel & the Circus steps on stage, All the Boys I Blocked bursts with chaotic charm, musical mischief and raw emotional truth. This solo clown musical transforms tales of heartbreak and ghosted texts into a glittering spectacle of laughter, vulnerability and unexpected connection. What could have been a list of romantic misfires becomes a jubilant, accordion-filled anthem of self-acceptance and shared catharsis.

This piece is created by the clown performer Chanel, who is also a musician and uses they/them pronouns, and is being performed as a part of the sixth annual Denver Fringe Festival over at the Learned Lemur on East Colfax. This is an oddity shop that I’d never actually ventured into before. It features everything from bones of a swan to a parlor upstairs where you can go and get a walk-in tattoo.

But I was here to venture into their upstairs performance space, which is usually home to the Conspiracy Circus — one of Colorado’s longest-running sideshows. And it’s a really interesting space. It is very, very low-tech. Lots of windows that let in natural light. Performers are essentially in a glorified warehouse. And while that may not be right for every single performance, it is a perfect environment for this solo clown show that is highly interactive. So, having the audience packed in together in this very intimate space worked very well for the piece.

And now this was not one of the more populated venues that I’ve been to as part of the Denver Fringe Festival. Only nine people were in attendance at this show, as Chanel jokes with us early on, but even though the attendance was small, that didn’t affect the performance at all. Chanel is a dynamite performer who is an absolute class act, a grade-A professional. They kept the energy high and were riffing with the nine of us who were there as if it were a crowd of 250 people.

Shitty exes and the art of blocking people

The show begins with Chanel improvising songs about people in the audience’s shitty exes. I think the worst story that we heard was this one girl who went on a date with a guy who said that she was pretty and she would have a great ass if she would just work on toning it at the gym a little bit more, which Chanel then musicalized into this hysterical send-up of this douchebag. After riffing around and creating these improvised songs about people’s love lives, we then transition into the main narrative of the piece.

A 60 Minutes-style video plays on the projector screen that’s located stage left up top. And it sets up this thing where 60 Minutes is profiling Chanel and they think they’re going to talk about their career, but nope, they’re actually here to talk about all of the reasons that they have blocked people. And there are a lot of reasons. Chanel is very transparent. They say that actually in this year alone, they’ve had to block six different people, but hey, they only booked a 45-minute Fringe slot, so they’re only gonna do three of those.

Those three stories feature the shitty tales of their British ex, their artist ex and their manager ex. They bring members of the audience on stage to roleplay with them. They say that their therapist thinks that it would be good for them. So they bring audience members up on stage, give them a prop that contains the script on the back of it so that they can do a little bit of scene work before ultimately coming to the conclusion that Chanel needs to block them, which sets up the show’s title song, “I Regret to Inform You, You’re Blocked Baby,” which, by the end of the show, Chanel has the entire crowd singing along with them.

Defending men

As the only man in the audience, I was asked to defend all men at one point. Chanel asks, “Are all men this bad?” Then the entire crowd turned directly to look at me, awaiting my answer, to which I offered, “I sure hope not,” which Chanel then used to riff off of for a bit. They’re a very exceptional clown with fantastic juggling skills, sharp timing with a musical accordion and great at crowd work.

There is a sequence in which they’re broken after a failed dating story, and they start eating ice cream with a spoon straight from the carton, which was absolutely hysterical. It was pretty hot up in that warehouse space, so the carton was already pretty melty. So as they were trying to shovel massive spoonfuls of ice cream in their mouth, this basically liquid chocolate syrup was just dripping down their face and clown costume, which, by the way, looked incredible. They have one clown costume that they start with at the top, which is a little bit more traditional circus clown. And then they do an elaborate costume change that gets them into a more glittery, glam-focused clown.

Overall, I thought that this show had great energy, hilarious original songs, and a bunch of really great clown crowd work. You’ve got just one more chance to see All the Boys I Blocked. That’s today, Sunday, June 8, at 5 p.m. at the Learned Lemur. And I’d highly recommend grabbing a ticket while you can. Though if you aren’t able to make it out to the Learned Lemur today, Chanel did tell our crowd that they are prepping a touring version of this show that they plan to take around the country. So you might have an additional opportunity to catch this show at a later date.

But until then, today is your last chance to check out this wildly funny, deeply relatable, and refreshingly original experience that turns heartbreak into a group therapy session with an accordion. Don’t miss the chance to laugh, cry, and maybe even get to roleplay dating a clown live on stage in All the Boys I Blocked.