TheatreguideLondon
www.theatreguidelondon.co.uk
The TheatreguideLondon Reviews
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL AND FRINGE 2009
The several simultaneous events that make up 'The Edinburgh Festival' - the International Festival, the Fringe, the Comedy Festival, etc. - bring literally thousands of shows and performers to the Scottish capital each August. Virtually all of these shows tour after Edinburgh, and many come to London, so the Festival is a unique preview of the coming year.
No one can see more than a small fraction of what's on offer, but our dedicated reviewers covered close to 250 shows. Once again, our thanks to Edinburgh veterans Duska Radosavljevic and Philip Fisher and the rest of our expanded review team for contributing to these pages.
Because the list is so long, we have split it into two pages. The reviews are in alphabetical order (soloists by last name), with A-L on this page and M-Z on another.
Scroll down this page for our reviews of Accidental Nostalgia - After Circles - After the Bomb - Almost 10 - And Bosnich Is Off His Line - Angle of Incidence - Art House - A-Team The Musical - Austen's Women - Auto Da Fe -
Baba Yaga Bony Legs - Baby - Balloon Boutique - Bane - Barbershopera - Barflies - Beachy Head - Beast - Becoming Marilyn - Been So Long - Beggars Belief - Be My Eyes - David Benson - Billy Budd - Aidan Bishop - Des Bishop - Bitch Got Owned - Bite-Sized Breakfast - Borges and I - Boy in Darkness - A British Subject - Bully - Burn -
Cambridge Footlights - Cardenio - Cardinal Burns - Nathan Caton - Catwalk Confidential - The Chair - Changing The Wheel - Chatroom - Chortle Student Comedy Awards - The Chronicles of Irania - Chronicles of Long Kesh - A Clockwork Orange - Colin Hoult's Carnival of Monsters - Jason Cook - Cool Cutz - Crave - The Critic - Crush - Curtains -
David Leddy's White Tea - Destination GB - Dirty Love - Doctor Whom - Domestic Goddi - Double Art History - The Doubtful Guest - Durham Revue - East 10th Street - Ernest and the Pale Moon - The Event - Everything Must Go -
Facebook Fables - The Fall of Man - Fascinating Aida - Faust - Faust in a Box - A Fistful of Snow - Five Characters In Search of Susan - Mickey Flanagan - Flanders and Swann - F.L.O.W. - Forever Young - Francis the Holy Jester - Frank - F**ked - Funny - George in the Dragon's Den - Rhod Gilbert - The Girls of Slender Means - God - Stefan Golaszewski - A Grave Situation -
Hangover - Her Yellow Wallpaper - Heyton on Homicide - Bec Hill - His Ghostly Heart - Hooked - The Hospitable - The Hotel - Hugh Hughes in 360 - Icarus 2.0 - If That's All There Is - Il Ritorno d'Ulisse - The Importance of Muffins - Improverts - In A Thousand Pieces - The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church - Internal - Jane Austin's Guide to Pornography - Janis - Simon Jenkins - Pete Johansson - Jumpers -
Russell Kane - Katakio - Shappi Khorsandi - Killing Alan - King Arthur - King of the Gypsies -King Ubu - Kit and the Widow - Knuckleball - Lady Bug Warrior - Land Without Words - Last Night Things Happened - The Last Witch - Andrew Lawrence - Micaela Leon - Lilly Through The Dark - Little Gem - The Lost Letters of Mr. Corrigan - Love Letters on Blue Paper -
Accidental
Nostalgia Traverse
Subtitled 'An Operetta about the Pros and Cons of Amnesia' and the first in
a trilogy that has been going great guns in the USA, this is a feast for the
eyes and ears told via a darkly comic concoction of gothic Americana. Flanked
by a four-piece band and a brace of IT gurus, neurologist Cameron Seymour launches
into a lecture on amnesia and the self-help book she has written that links
into her own problem with the condition. Seymour admits to possessing a disturbingly
selective memory, meaning that she does not know if she killed her father or
not. Concluding that the secret is locked in her Deep South past, she abruptly
ups sticks and heads for her hometown where things get murky and dangerous.
As the neurotic neurologist, Cynthia Hopkins is utterly compelling, changing
costume, modifying character or breaking into expository song all at the drop
of a hat. Amplifying her journey of self-discovery is a huge backdrop screen
across which march the images that punctuate her life, manipulated by her local
computer nerds. Gimmicks galore propel this oddball odyssey, underpinned by
Hopkins' resonant voice and powerful songs. A nagging afterthought is that all
this hi-tech trickery and dark frippery don't quite hang together, that this
absurdist universe doesn't make as much sense as the cast would have us believe.
Still, an undeniable highlight of the Fringe. Nick Awde
After
Circles Underbelly
At 26, Irish playwright Henry Martin might be forgiven for taking inspiration
from dark Pinteresque settings and dramatic situations filled with hidden menace.
He might even be applauded for wishing to deal with such pressing issues as
child soldiers and the treatment of women in war. To that end, director Antonio
Farrara's production of the play has assembled a cast of capable actresses.
Martin's writing also has a good sense of poetry to match such serious themes,
however, he is yet to be coached in the fine art of managing audience expectations.
Despite an inspired approach to structuring the piece retrospectively - which
does at times seem intriguing - the overall effect is still excessively mean
and introverted, requiring hard work on the part of the audience who are given
very little by means of a hook into the story or the characters' lives to begin
with. For the most part the piece is bleak, indulgent and unappealing and it
definitely seems that Martin could do well to also take inspiration from Pinter's
sense of humour for example. The good news is that he still has plenty of time
to get there. Duska Radosavljevic
After
the Bomb Zoo Southside
It is 1957 and two Soviet spies are repeatedly sidetracked from their mission
of hitting Western capitalism at its heart, the Glasgow bus system, by bickering
over the relative merits of the Albanian and Ukranian KGBs. Meanwhile, the future
of democracy is somehow in the hands of a philologist sacked for having a taste
for carnal knowledge of small kitchen appliances, an alien robot can't remember
whether her cover story has her coming from Scotland or Walesland, and one actress
plays two separate sex-starved Miss Moneypenny types. Actually, four actors
play everyone, which means that we have all the ingredients of a Penny Dreadfuls-type
farce, the kind in which the quick changes, dodgy accents and impossible-to-follow
plot are part of the fun. Or we would have, if things moved at twice the speed
of this languorous Cicero Productions staging, or had twice as many jokes. As
it is, the slow scene changes, rhythmless direction, very uneven acting and
long gaps between jokes leave you more aware of the laughter-less stretches
than of the few moments that score. Gerald Berkowitz
Almost
10 Pleasance
You may not believe for more than a few scattered moments that the speaker in
Raphaele Moussafir's solo play is nine years old - eleven seems a closer guess
- but if you forget the question of age, she is a delightful creation, here
played to sparkling perfection by Caroline Horton. As she tells us about the
highlights (riding a train without an adult for the first time, making prank
phone calls with her best friend) and low points (everyone choosing a competing
birthday party rather than hers, coping with her au pair and adults in general)
in her life, we live them fully with her and fully understand the level of importance
she attaches to each. Some of the moments that do ring true for her assumed
age provide the purest joy - playing sexual games with her Barbie and Ken without
really knowing what she's doing, being embarrassed by adult displays of emotion,
discovering that lying to grown-ups is sometimes the simplest option. And when
she encounters death for the first time, her remarkably complex and mature responses
seem absolutely right. Even the fact that the monologue jumps about without
transitions becomes part of the character's wholly real thought processes. Throughout,
Caroline Horton communicates a wide-eyed intelligence and indomitable spirit
that take everything in and process it in ways that make at least as much sense
as what our adult perceptions tell us, so that we come to adore the child, whatever
her age, and leave with absolute confidence that she will grow up to be wiser
and kinder than any of us. Gerald Berkowitz
And
Bosnich is Off His Line... Free
Fringe
With the Fringe festival costing so much every year, increasing amounts of people
are turning to the Free Fringe as a way of seeing theatre and comedy, often
from less established acts. This collection of young stand-ups demonstrates
that any negative conceptions about the quality of the Free Fringe are unfounded,
as it is more than on a par with many of the shows at the Fringe proper. Compered
by the jovial Liam Williams, the four student comics do exceptionally well to
entertain the small crowd. Keith Akushie has a nice line in observation and
with a little more confidence in his delivery, could really impress. So You
Think You're Funny semi-finalist and A Level student Rhys Jones is also highly
amusing and it will be interesting to see how his material progresses post National
Curriculum. Highlight of the show is Rob Carter who, armed with guitar, offers
some witty singing that deals with such subjects as love and having a friend
called Pizza Face. Rounding up the event is remarkably genial Cambridge student
Daran Johnson with some hilarious one-liners. All the performers show real promise
and the show is a very worthwhile alternative to the increasingly commercial
Fringe. Christopher Harrisson
Angle
of Incidence Zoo
Lux Lucis Productions play with optical illusions, reflections, mirrored surfaces
and glass boxes in this oddly fragmented piece about loss of identity and human
isolation. The show opens with a character, Latimer, trapped in a mirrored glass
box, his image ricocheting into infinity on three sides. Dialogue is muffled,
the pace is slow. Concept-driven, a little too enamoured of its main stage device,
the production tries to capture a certain diffuse, digressive mood of urban
alienation but is not always effective in doing so. Cello music creates a melancholy
heartbeat to the scene changes from the more abstract ones to tiny vignettes
of domestic life in which a couple talk about nothing and everything while brushing
their teeth or preparing for bed. The piece is visually strong, containing some
powerful theatrical images, especially the play with surfaces, transparency,
mirrors and physical echoing. But overall it lacks a strong sense of direction
and one is left perplexed about what the company were trying to achieve. William
McEvoy
Art
House Zoo
An artist fakes her death in order to boost her prices, virtually guarantee
a posthumous award, and give herself the freedom to work undisturbed. Her sister,
hitherto overshadowed, serves as her dealer-publicist, and begins to blossom
in the role, while the artist learns that her hermit-like existence doesn't
inspire as much as she had hoped. Rachael Cooper's one-hour play sets up an
interesting premise but, perhaps because of time constraints, the characters
never come alive and so their conflict never goes beyond textbook pop psychology.
Unsurprisingly, grudges held since childhood reawaken, and unsurprisingly the
artist is as jealous of her sister's burgeoning sex life as of her tending of
the flame. Meanwhile, we are told too much, either in soliloquies or exposition-crammed
dialogue, and shown too little, the play's several short scenes generally devoted
to reporting on events that took place offstage between them. Caroline Horton
as the frustrated artist and Emily Randall as the vengeance-achieving sister
make the most out of each moment but have difficulty connecting the pieces into
fully-developed characterisations. Gerald Berkowitz
A
Team The Musical Gilded Balloon
This nostalgia-fest borders on the pantomimic, and calling it a musical is something
of a misnomer, since songs are few and far between. But if your heart leaps
at the sound of Mr T's catchphrases, and there's a wavy-lined flashback to the
blue-eyelinered 80s every time you hear the theme tune's opening bars, then
this could be the show for you. The plot is wafer thin. Young female hick is
threatened by local yobs when she doesn't hand over protection money. That's
it. In come the A Team, Hannibal (old), Face (vain), Murdock (potty) and BA
Baracas (angry), and justice overcomes corruption. The extremely low-fi production
values are turned into a running joke, with cars and the famous A-Team black
van as cardboard cut-outs, and a helicopter becomes some tinfoil on a stick.
So far, so tacky. But the audience loves the nostalgia, and still has a soft
spot for this motley array of ex-Nam freedom fighters. From Hannibal's trademark
cigar, to BA's odd haircut and Murdock's imaginary pets, this ticks all the
boxes. But where are the songs? A couple are performed well and with gusto,
but actors have been cast for their looks rather than their voices. Scratch's
production is not without its laughs, but there's a fine line between laughing
at it and laughing with it. William McEvoy
Austen's
Women Assembly
What could we have in common with Jane Austen's characters, you might ask, when
those girls married at 17 and guys were considered 'old men' at 'two and thirty'
years old? Give this show a go and not only will you get plenty of answers to
the question, but might even run home to blow the dust off one of the novels
again. Rebecca Vaughan's loving homage to Austen's words and characters includes
fourteen short sketches of some of Austen's famous ladies such as Lizzy Bennett,
Marianne Dashwood and Emma Woodhouse, but also some lesser known ones, such
as Diana Parker from Sanditon and Miss Elizabeth Watson from The Watsons. Petulant,
prudent, silly or sophisticated, these wives, daughters, young lovers and sisters
will have all of our own strengths and weaknesses, and could still teach us
a thing or two about how to get on in life. Vaughan's one woman show has hints
of Sex and the City as well as Catherine Tate in it - showing us the way in
which Austen may well have laid the foundations of observational comedy too.
Under Guy Masterson's direction, the piece is tightly corseted but frilly, flowing
and flamboyant in all the right places. Duska Radosavljevic
Auto-Da-Fe
Space on the Mile
One of a string of one-act plays Tennessee Williams wrote just before his breakthrough
Glass Menagerie, Auto-Da-Fe is a brief study in repression and denial, a point
that seems to have escaped director Ryan Bourne and Fired Up Productions. An
upright and churchgoing mother and grown son live in New Orleans' raffish French
Quarter and tut-tut over the shockingly improper goings-on that surround them.
The discovery of a pornographic photo tests their ability to cope, as they struggle
over whether to report or destroy it. This production satisfactorily captures
that much - although Jeanne Graham as the mother can't move past caricature,
Jeff Alan-Lee nicely underplays the mama's boy who would really prefer that
the world out there stay far away. But where he wavers and she falls completely
is in letting us see that a part of him is excited by that (presumably homosexual)
photo and that she is trying not to notice that because it would threaten the
denial she has been in about him all along. A hesitantly moving, rhythmless
pacing destroys any sense of building tension or forward movement and makes
a violent ending appear too abruptly and out of nowhere. Worth seeing for the
play itself and what you will sense could have been done with it, more than
for what has been achieved. Gerald
Berkowitz
Baba
Yaga Bony Legs Sweet ECA
This company should be highly commended for their skill at making strangers
trust them enough to follow them into a pitch-black room for forty-five minutes
- unfortunately that is where the praise must cease. The decision to stage the
play in darkness creates, as is frequently the case, more problems than it solves.
Without the support of visual images, the performers' underdeveloped vocal technique
is totally exposed. Rather than being immersed in Little Masha's epic journey
through the fearsome forest, the over-riding sensation is the rather frustrating
one of being shouted at in the dark. Making use of ambient sounds that attempt
to transport the audience into a specific time, location or emotion is a sound
concept but it has been poorly executed in this case. These are a repetitive,
garbled and ultimately confusing distraction from the story, drowning out the
narrative voices. Moments of physical contact between the performers and the
audience are similarly repetitive. Occasionally, the actors move in torchlight,
another good concept that falls flat because what the torches highlight has
not been carefully thought through. Katrina Marchant
Baby
George Square
Six vibrant young voices from Cambridge University easily fill a simple space
with enough energy for each audience member to thrive off. Baby explores the
effects of pregnancy on three different couples through live music, dance and
powerful performances, introducing a talented comedy duo in the shape of Alan
(Oli Hunt) and Arlene (Miri Gellert). Of course, in this carefully balanced
score, rather than detracting from moments of sincerity, the humour aids the
ensemble, bringing rhythm and pace to the musical. With song themes ranging
from the heartbreak of a miscarriage to the surprisingly entertaining journey
of sperm, it is difficult not to lose oneself in the characters' tales. The
audience are shown the highs and the lows of having a baby in contemporary times,
yet unfortunately, the editing means the plot seems slightly disjointed which
disrupts one's enjoyment of the story as a whole. Whilst the accents are occasionally
questionable, this is soon offset by catchy tunes superbly sung by performers
full of vitality and exuberance. This slick and focused performance hit no bum
notes with me. Georgina Evenden
Balloon
Boutique C
Do any of us still remember the awe experienced by the first ever sight of a
dog emerging out of a sausage shaped balloon? This is not strictly speaking
a children's show - although it is about a childless couple's desperate desire
for a family - but you are almost certain to experience again the childlike
awe and wonder felt at discovering just what is possible to do with a piece
of latex. Using masks, balloons, rockabilly music and a 1950s radio, the two
actors take it in turns to play the aged couple as they go back in time remembering
their courtship, love-making and shared loss. Directed by the Trestle and Told
by an Idiot founder John Wright - the piece has a characteristic sense of craftsmanship
and non-verbal lyricism. A particular moment of genius which has the young couple
helplessly entangled forever after their first balloon kiss, is alone worth
seeing the whole 50 minutes for. Even though the subject matter isn't exactly
light - and the actors' performances are a lot more timid than expected - this
is a piece about the importance of having fun in life, and if you don't love
it for that, you'll love it for its balloon motorcycle. Duska Radosavljevic
Bane
Pleasance Dome
Bane is a hard-boiled detective story, with a typically broad and colourful
cast including snitches, baddies, assistant baddies, molls, opera singers, a
mad scientist and of course the lone wolf hero himself - all played by Joe Bone.
The result is simultaneously a salute to and send-up of the genre, as the solo
performer plays both sides of every conversation or shoot-out, not to mention
a raft of sound effects and mood music. The fun of a show like this lies in
the accuracy of the parody - that is to say, in having every comic moment or
absurd plot twist vaguely remind us of some film noir precedent or at least
seem true to the genre. And of course we enjoy the inventiveness and versatility
of the actor jumping so seamlessly from role to role. This is in some ways the
solo version of the sort of quick-change, multiple-role-playing almost-lose-control-of-the-juggling
farce that has long been a fringe staple, and just about the only criticism
to make of Bone is the seemingly perverse one that he is too much in control,
not allowing us the added fun of watching the story and performance complications
threatening to overwhelm him. Gerald
Berkowitz
Barbershopera
II Pleasance Dome
Esteve is a very confused matador. He has journeyed to a tiny Norfolk village
to claim his inheritance only to learn that it is his late father's hairdressing
salon. Quite how a matador swaps his sword for scissors fills the rest of one
of the most fun-packed musical hours at the Fringe where ancient rivalries in
sleepy Shavingham stir - as do the Matador's loins on meeting the feisty town-crier
Vicky. And somehow it all leads to a Wild West-style climactic coiffeur 'cut-off'
between Esteve and sinister snipper Trevor Sorbet and his Miracle Mousse. Unlikely
hairdos and accents punctuate the zippy four-part harmonies that range from
barbershop (obviously) and opera via hiphop and G&S.
Stand-out numbers include the Voluptuous Vicky duet, the Mousse rap, and a beautiful
hymn to Shavingham, with even a nod to Prince in between the pink rinses. As
the motormouth matador Rob Castell combines bravura with hilarious bafflement,
matched by the sensuous charms of Lara Stubbs as the prickly Vicky. Tom Sadler
brings a dark edge of humour to Esteve's arch-rival Trevor, while Pete Sorel-Cameron
manfully holds the whole thing together as solid chappy hairdresser Rod. Writers
Castell and Sadler and director Sarah Tipple have created a fast-paced technical
tour de force that manages to be sheer entertainment at the same time. And thanks
to the efforts of this dazzling cast, the combination has created a subtle slice
of cutting edge comedy. Nick Awde
Barflies
Traverse
There was a time when Charles Bukowski's prose was the main means of sexual
awakening of teenage boys around the world. Alcohol fuelled, arrogant, animalistic
and brimming with aphorisms, it easily translated into many a culture's youth
cult material. It is hardly surprising therefore that Bukowski's work sits comfortably
in a bar in Edinburgh, even decades after its heyday. Grid Iron's adaptation
- based on three stories from the 1967 collection The Most Beautiful Woman in
Town - is even smoothly rendered into the Scottish vernacular. Any flashes of
the post-war American angst and disillusionment are gently and skilfully glossed
over with a kind of artistry uniquely characteristic of this particular company.
Producer Judith Doherty and Director/Adaptor Ben Harrison have picked a site
laden with ornate chandeliers and the deep red and gilded New Town pub gorgeousness
which they enhance with atmospheric fake smoke, some most exquisite live piano
music courtesy of Silent Dave - David Paul Jones, and a magnificent display
of the bar centre-piece itself. However, their greatest feat is a glorious theatricalisation
of their chosen material - both textual and textural. Keith Fleming is the lazy,
constantly dishevelled sharp-tongued bohemian Henry, complemented beautifully
by the fiery Gail Watson who unfurls a whole range of moving and memorable portraits
of the unfortunate women associated with him. To call their performances visceral
would be rather an understatement when these guys actually 'rip' their vital
organs out and fling them across the bar towards each other. Their sex scenes
too are totally uncompromising, both in their tenderness and crudity. And when
they are not leaping across the furniture, screwing and unscrewing, swilling
and spilling bottles of various beverages around their stage, the two engage
in some thoroughly enchanting fox-fur and bottle opener puppetry. Grid Iron
have yet again pulled off a marvelous success - easily one of the best shows
this year and quite possibly a winner within the company's own repertoire. And
they have shown that just like the subject of their fitting tribute - they mature
extraordinarily well as they line up effortless, unpretentious, penetrating
modern classics one after another. Duska Radosavljevic
Beachy
Head Pleasance Dome
As a company, Analogue combine detailed research and an almost documentary accuracy
in reportage with inventive staging and employment of multimedia. With Beachy
Head, though, they don't seem to have gotten the balance quite right. The reportage
sometimes seems undigested or unabsorbed into the fiction, and the media effects
imposed on the material rather than growing organically out of it. At the core
of the story, a pair of filmmakers accidentally capture the moment of someone
throwing himself off a cliff, and decide to search out his story. This connects
them to his widow and her grieving process, and to doctors and pathologists
and their professional distance. There is drama, and a beautifully nuanced performance
by Emma Jowett, in the young widow's emotional journey, and in the moral ambiguity
of the filmmakers' position. But the pathologist interviews make their points
- essentially, that the person is no longer there after death - at unnecessary
and drama-interrupting length, and making us view some scenes through video
projections, even with the live performer onstage, adds little.
Gerald
Berkowitz
Beast
The Vaults
In the testosterone-fuelled festival that is Edinburgh, it is a joy to discover
the lyrical love story that is Beast. Bookshelf's engaging two-hander tells
the tale of a prostitute and an artist whose first paid encounter marks the
beginning of a lifelong relationship where business turns to pleasure and more.
Clips and pre-recorded passages punctuate the scenes, reflecting the changes
in the couple's life over the passage of time and the parallel shifts in their
relationship. Often they face the audience as they speak, a device that reveals
the smallest flicker of emotion on their faces. As the poignancy of the tale
grows, exploring the truths to be found in love, so too does the intensity of
their romance. Graham Edwards' laidback, almost laconic delivery forms a bedrock
for Aine O'Sullivan, who convincingly and expressively travels through the four
emotional seasons of their love. The premise, however, is hindered somewhat
by failing to depict a realistic muse-artist relationship, yet the simplicity
of the connection between the protagonists more than compensates, to the point
that you can sit back and let the poetry of Elena Bolster's script wash over
you. Nick Awde
Becoming
Marilyn Assembly
Norma Jeane Baker was a chubby teenage bride who escaped Hicksville thanks to
being spotted in a photoshoot. With peroxide hair and a name change to Marilyn
Monroe, she graduated from studio party escort to bit-part player in movies
to mega-superstardom. But Marilyn never left Norma Jeane behind, as this thoughtful
one-woman show reveals. In the bedroom where she was found dead of an overdose,
Marilyn reviews her past and brings to life the characters and events of the
remarkable times that moulded her. She pauses occasionally for edgy asides as
Norma Jeane demands her own perspective and opinions and Marilyn starts to question
how far she has journeyed from her old self - a subject on which, understandably,
her alter-ego begs to differ. Issy van Randwyck neatly captures the star's legendary
pout, baby voice and those legendary curves. Handily, she also possesses a versatile
voice (memorably used in a previous incarnation of Fascinating Aida) and delivers
impeccable versions of classics such as 'I Wanna Be Loved By You' and the (in)famous
'Happy Birthday' sung to President Kennedy. While Bernie C Byrnes' bubbly script
tells us little that is new about Marilyn it does shed light on Norma Jeane,
particularly her mother's insanity and harsh foster-home life. Pace-wise Gareth
Armstrong's sensitive direction keeps the energy and humour going right up to
the poignant finale. Nick Awde
Been
So Long Traverse
(Reviewed in London)
At
its core a thoroughly old-fashioned musical, Been So Long is made current and
alive by its fresh milieu, clever writing and attractive and energetic performers.
Set in the bar-and-club scene of
easy sex and easy betrayal, it finds two players discovering the unexpected
experience of actually falling in love, being scared brainless, and almost blowing
it. And so we get the familiar
dance of the couple attractively played by Naana Agyei-Ampadu and Arinze Kene
as two people who don't know what is obvious to us - that they are each deeper
than they realise themselves, and that they're made for each other - made new
and emotionally resonant by a setting in black south London that we know to
be littered with failed relationships and missed opportunities. With
their romance providing the emotional core to the play, much of the fun comes
from the characters around them. Cat Simmons plays the heroine's ever-randy
friend with enough comic sexual fire to wilt any man at thirty paces, and her
song I Want a Fella is one of the evening's high points. Meanwhile,
there's a nerdy little guy determined to avenge an imagined slight from the
hero three years ago, and Harry Hepple plays him with such attractive bravado
that you cheer him on even as you know his character's quest is doomed.
And Omar Lyefook provides another
emotional anchor to the play as the bartender pining away for love of the heroine,
who looks right through him; he opens and closes the show with a pair of strong
blues numbers. Actually, Arthur
Darvill's music, mainly blues-based with an occasional funk beat, is never especially
interesting, with the power of the songs coming from the alternately witty and
evocative lyrics by Darvill and playwright-director Walker. And even they are
merely the raw material for the inventive and engaging performers. Gerald
Berkowitz
Beggars
Belief C cubed
Will Lawton's play combines elements of typical romantic comedies, nerdish bloke
comedies and the kinds of philosophical debates that are rites of passage in
the first year at uni, and somehow ends up as a rather sweet little drama about
religious faith. While his friends are busy working out their failed or not-quite-ready-to-begin
romantic lives, the biggest misfit among them has a dream about God and begins
to wonder whether he's as confirmed an athiest as he's always assumed. In between
games of Power Puff Girl Monopoly, he tentatively and comically tries reading
the Bible and asking his believer friends about their faith. While the tone
and the focus of the play waver, and some of the characters are undeveloped,
it is frequently lightly comical and has at least one sequence, when each of
the characters, for their own individual and not always admirable reasons, attempt
to pray to a God they're not all sure is there, that is quite lovely and touching.
The play never quite escapes the feel of Theatre-for-Church-Groups, to be accompanied
by guidelines for aftershow discussion leaders, but there is clearly more to
it than that. Gerald Berkowitz
Be My
Eyes Radison
This piece from Fine Chisel Theatre Company is an interesting find. It's tautly
directed, the performers are very strong, and there is a confidence and commitment
throughout the entire cast, a rarity in many productions in the Fringe. The
problem is the crux of the material. The play boasts its play on perspective,
and whilst the exploration of story-telling is skilfully done, it is difficult
to engage in the plot. The story of a missing boyfriend and the traumas and
dilemmas it projects for those who knew the man and met him indirectly doesn't
have enough depth to make you care about the characters, and sometimes the more
serious dialogue is too predictable to create the emotional arc the play seems
to want to achieve. So it is welcome when a bizarre but intriguing nightclub
sequence is played out to break the structure. The piece unravels itself tidily
by the end, commenting on how one person's loss is another one's gain, and the
sensitivity the cast show in their work is admirable. The most impressive aspect
is its comedy, which involves an erratic, insecure woman seeking solace in her
Sat. Nav. system, and a couple at the beginning of their relationship. The awkwardness
that is played out in their dates at a restaurant and cinema is brilliantly
played by both actors, whose expressions during the silences are as entertaining
as the excruciating attempts to make smalltalk. This is a good show, but I wanted
to invest myself in it more than I did. Benedict Shaw
David
Benson Sings Noel Coward Assembly
(Reviewed at a previous Festival)
Like it says on the label. David Benson, Fringe veteran best known for his solo
shows incorporating music into his monologues and for playing Noel Coward in
several episodes of the TV series Goodnight Sweetheart, offers a straightforward
(no pun intended) concert of some of the Master's best- and least-known songs,
from Parisian Pierrot and I Am No Good At Love to the inevitable (and no less
welcome for that) Mad Dogs And Englishmen and I'll See You Again. This is Benson
singing Coward, not Benson as Coward - a few brief moments aside, he doesn't
try to imitate Coward's voice or singing style. But Benson has a pleasant voice
and the absolutely essential precise diction, and as an actor-who-sings he brings
out all the wit and sentiment in the wide range of Coward's songs. By-play with
his pianist Stewart Nicholls sometimes gets a bit arch and strays into Kit and
the Widow territory. But anyone who loves the songs or needs an introduction
to Coward the songwriter will find a thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable hour.
Gerald Berkowitz
Billy
Budd C Too
Billy Budd is impressive. A twenty strong cast, top to toe in immaculate eighteenth
century naval get-up, prowl the smoke filled theatre with a confidence and assurance
that is held throughout by all. The set is simple yet striking - a sunken area
onstage creates focus and contributes to the claustrophobic feel of the whole
piece, a claustrophobia that is maintained by Philip Swan's brave directorial
decisions. The effect? A beautiful and perfectly crafted portrayal of the chaotic
order that we can only assume existed on such naval vessels. Although the quality
of acting is greatly varied throughout the cast, the effect of the ensemble
as a whole is an imposing and powerful one and several performances stand out
among the ranks. Most notable is that of Julius Colwyn Foulkes whose portrayal
of the ship's Captain is subtle, commanding and, most of all, poignant. It is
unfortunate that at times the play loses the clarity and focus that drives it
so strongly at other points. However the production as a whole acts as a sensitive
discussion of the morality of war and the repression of homosexuality in the
military, themes that are as relevant to us today, as they were to Herman Melville
at the time. Samuel Caseley
Aidan
Bishop: No Sissy Stuff Gilded
Balloon
Women, they say, like men who make them laugh. They also like a bad boy. Aidan
Bishop gamely attempts to bridge the two but ironically, as he confesses, having
originally set out to give us 'No Sissy Stuff' his show is in fact morphing
into a (highly entertaining) Sissy Fest. The Ireland-based New Yorker is healthily
red-blooded in his wide-ranging analysis of men, women and how they get it together
- and yet he seems unable to prevent his sensitive side from jumping out where
he least expects it. Bishop grew up streetwise in tough Queen's but in Dublin
the muggers stay away from him because they think he's gay. Conversely, his
summary of women's romanticism creates a warm glow of lurve until he feels compelled
to convert everything into the male equivalent where porn and green apples feature
prominently. Meanwhile the subject of things never to say to girls strikes a
chord with both sexes for entirely different reasons as it becomes a wild litany
of serious no-no's. Making neat use of a lo-tech flipchart where other comics
might use a voiceover, Bishop jumps quickly from subject to subject. Juggling
comedy in this way can be a bit hit and miss (and the Catholic ramble probably
belongs to another show) but he clearly likes to live dangerously onstage. He
visibly warms up as the show progresses and connects on a personal with the
entire audience - admittedly it might take Bishop a while to warm up the guys,
but he has the girls right from the start. Nick Awde
Des
Bishop Assembly
Although he is big in his adopted country, comedian Des Bishop still seems more
American than Irish, not just in what he admits is a marginally less repressed
emotional life, but in his ability to observe behaviour and mores 'on this side
of the Atlantic' with some objectivity. Repressed emotions are the theme of
his show, as he explains that Irish Americans don't express themselves openly
lest they appear too self-absorbed, while the native Irish tend to feel things
and then apologise for the presumption and the English just think it is all
in bad taste. Bishop's stories about growing up among less inhibited Italian-Americans
in New York, about discovering how to stop a brawl in an Irish pub, or about
revelling in the emotional openness of a visit to Australia all illustrate these
national patterns of inhibition. Other topics include jogging, post-coital conversations
and masturbation. He's in favour of all three, unsurprisingly, and the audience's
strong response to his arguments for their uninhibited embrace may well be generated
as much by their enthusiastic agreement as by the comic quality of the material.
Gerald Berkowitz
Bitch
Got Owned! Laughing Horse @ Espionage
Sajeela Kershi is not your usual comedian, but she certainly is a natural. She
has Bollywood, Josef Fritzl and real life stories about the BNP and the Taliban
all in one set - and you'll still be happy to eat cut up fruit out of her hand.
You'll even forgive her for drying up occasionally as all the incidental digressions,
sharpness of wit and ad libbing in her Joanna Lumley cut-glass vowels will be
more than worth it. And that's before I've even mentioned her own take on Loreal...
She'll flirt with you and remember it and come back to remind you at just the
right moment, without ever making you feel uncomfortable. And you might also
just find yourself an innocent passer by, watching her show from afar, and getting
drawn in without realising it. Because - and this is the best bit! - her show
is absolutely free and taking place in a busy but delicately chosen bar: the
oriental-looking Kasbar at Espionage. Be quick to discover Edinburgh's best
kept secret as she won't stay that way for too long.Duska Radosavljevic
Bite-Sized
Breakfast in Bedlam Bedlam
White Room Theatre offers a rotating programme of ten-minute plays in its morning
slot, including what it calls its Best Bites from previous seasons, the selection
I saw. While the five short plays on my menu were all of a high order, they
were unsurprisingly uneven in effectiveness. The weakest, Paul Randall's Mind
The Flak, is a character sketch of an impatient London tube passenger that,
like the frustrated character, ultimately goes nowhere. David Bulmer's Suspicious
Minds, about cops ineptly handling a grieving widow, is a funny review sketch
stretched just a bit too long. More successful as short but complete plays are
Jonathan Gavin's Sleepless Nights, a nice variant on the rom-com formula of
the couple who at first dislike each other on sight, and Adam Gelin's Tangled
Net, a comic tale played out entirely in e-mail messages and given an extra
layer of absurdity by being done in Victorian dress. But the playlet most fully
developed and satisfying despite its brevity is Philip Linsdell's sweet and
comic Quiet Table For Four, in which a nervous couple on a blind date are accompanied
by actors playing their confidence-destroying inner voices. Gerald Berkowitz
Borges
and I Zoo
This dreamy, unusual celebration of writer Jorge Luis Borges, who died in 1986,
is a little gem that uses the frequently startling motifs typical of the Argentinean's
writings to illustrate the story of his life and aspirations. Created by Idle
Motion, this poetic and visual feast neatly criss-crosses between a book group
and the world in which Borges grew up. As the members of the book group discuss
fiction, network, bicker and even fall in love, parallel stories develop when
one of their number applies for a job at the Bodleian Library as another starts
to lose her sight. Interleaved are scenes from Borges' childhood in Europe,
his problematic schooldays, the slow process of going blind. Irony of ironies,
as he himself acknowledges, is that he finally loses his sight just as he is
appointed director of the National Library. Linking to that, in a deeply powerful
scene based on one of his best known short stories, Borges describes existing
in a ghostly library made of identical hexagonal rooms that stretch away into
infinity. The economy of Borges' words contrasts with the piece's lush images.
Subtle costume changes, balletic rearrangements of chairs and the hundreds of
books piled around form a world of limitless imagination where old tomes become
crumbling roads, airplanes, even the tigers of Borges' childhood imagination.
A true ensemble piece, Borges and I is a magical piece that deserves to be developed
further to tour to a wider audiences. Nick Awde
Boy
in Darkness Zoo
Dark, haunting and uniquely inventive, Curious Directive's adaptation of Mervyn
Peake's story is nothing short of phenomenal. This play is everything you came
to the Fringe for: visually striking and astonishingly creative theatre, brilliantly
acted across the board - special mentions going to Bertrand Lesca as the Hyena,
and Lydia Rynne's bright-eyed, inquisitive Goat. The whole production burns
with collaborative energy. Kim Pearce's skilful and artful direction not only
brings out the best in each performer, but also creates a remarkable atmosphere
of tension, wonderment and fear throughout. The ensemble - spread out and moving
not just across the stage, but into the vacant seats and behind the audience
- bring about a very unsettling experience and an aura of constant menace envelops
not just the young Boy at its centre, but each audience member as well. The
nightmarish quality of this production never lets the audience out of its grasp
until the closing moments. Everything about Boy in Darkness shines with quality
and imagination: the two ordinary armchairs turned into hidden passages and
chimneys, the several clever comic touches (watch out for Sellotape), the incredible
make-up, the eerie, distorted music. This is extraordinary theatre. James
Hamilton
A
British Subject Gilded
Balloon
A few years ago Daily Mirror writer Don Mackay reported on the plight of Mirza
Tahir Hussain, a British citizen who had spent almost two decades in a Pakistan
death row on trumped-up charges. Mackay and his wife, actress Nichola McAuliffe,
became active in the ultimately successful campaign to free Tahir, and now McAuliffe
has written this play about it, in which she also appears, as herself. As a
docudrama, a lightly fictionalised version of the facts, the play has a special
immediacy and emotional power, but it also suffers in purely structural ways.
Had McAuliffe been free to write the play as pure fiction, she would probably
have involved herself and McKay much earlier in Tahir's story, rather than making
them latecomers to the campaign, and she would not have had to rely on the deus
ex machina of Prince Charles getting involved at the last moment and, against
all political advice, doing a bit of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting with the
Pakistani President. Other problems arise from the little fictionalising that
she does - surely Mackay couldn't have been as shocked as she makes him that
the downmarket tabloid Mirror wouldn't publish the 37-page article he wrote
about Tahir, and while the former prisoner may indeed be the saintly Gandhi
figure she paints, it plays as a bit of a dramatic cliche. Still, there is a
built-in power to the story, and to the strong performances by McAuliffe, Tim
Cotcher, Kulvinder Ghir and Shiv Grewal. Gerald
Berkowitz
Bully
Gilded Balloon (Reviewed
at a previous Festival)
The title of Richard Fry's monologue is misleading, since the character he plays
is not a bully, but rather a man who spends his life in fear that he might become
a bully, only to discover that he has become a victim instead. He tells of a
childhood with a violent and abusive father, and the conviction that textbook
psychology requires history to repeat itself, not realising that it was equally
possible that he might replicate his mother's role when he grew up, came out
and found what seemed to be the man of his dreams. That dark twist, and its
tragic results, come fairly late in the hour, much of which is devoted to the
lighter memories of childhood happiness stolen from the shadow of the father
and some of the more comic aspects of a young man's introduction to the gay
scene. The whole is written in unobtrusive and frequently witty rhymed couplets,
and indeed the whole tone of the hour is understated and unsensational, Fry's
performance consisting of little more than sitting in a chair and telling the
story, when more in the way of acting it out or investing it with emotion could
have enriched it. Gerald
Berkowitz
Burn
Underbelly
Andy McQuade's variation on a theme from Sartre's No Exit moves the damned trio
to a kind of desert island, makes them strangers to each other, and changes
the details of their earthly crimes, but otherwise makes the same point that
hell is being in the presence of others who will eternally remind you of your
damnation. One of the women, as in Sartre, is a lesbian, who drove her lover
to suicide, while the second killed her child because it made her feel too old.
The man is now an international banker who single-handedly destroyed the world
economy with his fund manipulations. That particular bit of updating has the
paradoxical and unintended effect of trivialising things by making this just
another credit crisis play, while McQuade's vision of hell as a constantly repeated
cycle of discovering one's damnation afresh (rather than being stuck with the
awareness forever) actually seems a charitable gift to the damned. Nika Khitrova,
Lucinda Westcar and the author fight the bad acoustics of their playing space,
along with their own inclinations to speak either too quietly or too loudly,
in an ongoing struggle to be heard and understood. Gerald
Berkowitz
Cambridge
Footlights Pleasance
The implicit annual competition of revues between Cambridge and Oxford (with
Durham frequently topping both) has been won by Cambridge this year. Though
rarely fall-down-laughing hilarious, their sketches are all marked by a delightfully
skewed sense of the absurd, so that some twist or throwaway bit will catch you
by surprise. The punchline of a beachcomber sketch may be a letdown, but before
then the idea of a beachcomber able to find only sand and water is funny. A
lifeboat sketch somehow morphs into group therapy, a sketch about not-very-bright
drug dealers suddenly starts footnoting Othello, and typical wedding party chatter
somehow develops into the conviction that the bride is a witch. Surrealism is
all, and it happily carries the hour over the occasional low spot or more conventional
gag. Gerald
Berkowitz
Cardenio
C Cubed
It is the Holy Grail for theatricals and academics alike: Shakespeare's lost
play, The Tragicomicall Historie of Cardenio. It was omitted from the First
Folio of 1623, for unknown reasons. Dr. Bernard Richards' reconstruction of
the script is eminently watchable and, for the most part, charmingly performed.
This is particularly true of the deft and nuanced performances given by Benjamin
Blyth (Henriquez) and Katie Alcock (Violante). The decision to present the players
as a travelling band, replete with wagon, is an intelligent one. Playing in
a small space, to an audience on three sides, produces an intimacy that, on
occasion, the cast plays to beautifully. However, the vocal power and clarity
of movement required for this arrangement are not always achieved, causing certain
moments to become obscured. TACT are taking up a gauntlet with this production
and, for the most part, doing so successfully. The recreation of this script
is an academically admirable exercise, but it is through the class and verve
of this company that Cardenio finds new theatrical life. Katrina Marchant
Cardinal
Burns Pleasance
Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns, formerly two-thirds of the comedy group
Fat Tongue, offer a collection of sketches notable not only for their funniness
but for the ability of the two writer-performers to extend their comic material
to unusual length. With only a half-dozen pieces in the hour, each develops
and sustains its premise beyond the point at which most other comedians would
have started to flag or lose focus, and the delight in watching them skilfully
keep the imaginative ball in the air so long becomes part of the fun. A couple
of the sketches, like the guys considerably less cool than they think they are,
or the actor desperately trying to follow his director's instructions, are clever
variants on familiar comic premises, while the idea of a shop with only one
product - here, potatoes - is invigorated by being played entirely in French
and Franglais. Meanwhile others, like the singing minicab drivers and especially
the chat show guest who is an ordinary store clerk, open unexpected new comic
territory and find a lot to explore and develop there.Gerald
Berkowitz
Nathan
Caton Pleasance
Dear family of Nathan Caton, you have very many reasons to be proud of your
boy. Not only is he clearly a highly intelligent, talented, sensitive and witty
young man, but he has painted a beautiful loving portrait of you all in this
show which only appears to suffer from the lack of your approval. Please don't
think that his study of architecture has gone to waste when he has constructed
such a beautiful home in his heart for you all and created such a warm and happy
place for his audience, even if for just an hour of their time. The soft interior
however is well supported by a sturdy and cool exterior - the kind of bearing
that spells out 'don't mess with me'. Yet he will not use a single swear word
before he has properly excused himself on account of his grandma. OK, he does
have a bit of a go at his little brother, but that too is because he cares.
And what more could you ask for when he gives the last word of the show to his
dad! And it's a punchline at that. Quite perfect really. Duska Radosavljevic
Catwalk
Confidential Assembly
Robyn Peterson is not the first former model to be re-packaging her life story
into a theatrical monologue. A career in the fashion industry is after all a
fine source of rags-to-riches stories as well as juicy tales of cunning, envy,
gossip, destruction and self-destruction. It's all cattiness galore in Catwalk
Confidential, and there'll also be some pictures to jog your memory with or
simply marvel at if need be. Peterson delivers her story with panache, keeping
it light, though not too bubbly, and certainly betraying no unprofessional sentiment
at all. She only occasionally indulges in sending particular lines in the direction
of teasing innuendos and then rescuing them back to innocence before they get
there. Interestingly too, she knows where to cut her story short in order to
rescue it from any suggestion of a faded career, or the triumph of time and
age over her dream. So, unlike some of the other similar stories I have heard
there is no condemnation of her industry's inherent sleaziness or a celebration
of wisdom and a new lease of life in the aftermath of a modelling career. No,
Peterson ends on celebrating her Vogue cover, at all costs. Duska Radosavljevic
The
Chair Zoo
Set in the 1940s, this choreographed piece explores one character's relationships
with his partner and mother through powerful, explosive bouts of physicality.
Nasae Evanson gives a fully committed central performance as a prisoner, athletic
and agile, with excellent support from the other female dancers. The problems,
though, are manifold. The music, for a start, is often repetitive and grating,
while the choreography can feel blurred and overly jerky. Sometimes it tries
to illustrate a narrative, but it's hard to work out what is going on. Themes
of sexual conflict and abuses of authority by a female prison guard do emerge
but there's a troubling lack of coherence. Stubs of ideas, such as the man and
woman communicating through tapping on a desk, could have been taken much further,
but when the choreography does not have a distinctive performance vocabulary,
things start to unravel. That said, Kimberly Clarke, Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster
and Raquel Gaviria support Evanson with intensity, and despite all the flaws,
the show ends up leaving a strong impression. William McEvoy
Changing
the Wheel - Bert Brecht and Me Spotlites at the Merchants' Hall
Peter Thompson's solo show attempts five things - a lecture on the life of Bertolt
Brecht, a reading of about three dozen Brecht poems, an exploration of how Thompson's
own life relates to Brecht's, a voicing of Thompson's own political beliefs,
and an integration of all these parts into a unified performance. The last is
not at all successful, as the various parts remain separate without illuminating
or resonating against each other. Thompson's life proves to have nothing in
common with Brecht's, and that strand is quickly dropped, while he is unable
to make his politics seem any more worthy of our attention than those of the
person in the next seat. Brecht's life story might be of interest, though those
who choose to see this show would be likely to know much of it already. Which
leaves the poems. Brecht's poetry is not his strongest suit, and only a very
few of those Thompson reads, like the one in his title, seem to be of real merit.
Thompson's presentation is amiable and low key, much like a particularly entertaining
university lecturer, and he thoughtfully lets us know when he is being Brecht
by picking up a cigar. Gerald
Berkowitz
Chatroom
The Zoo
With the rise of social networking
sites a whole new arena has opened up for anonymous and malicious cyber- bullying.
Chatroom follows the online conversations of a group of middle class teenagers,
exploring their motivations for seeking contact online and offering touching
insight into issues of depression, suicide and the urge to manipulate and damage
others. Exeter University Theatre Company's production presents these interactions
as a series of conversations with the characters seated on stools, foregrounding
the text and allowing for interesting character development through reactions
and facial expressions. This form, however, conveys little about the disjointed
nature of internet communication or how the language used online affects the
identities constructed by users. Although the space is used well, changes between
scenes sometimes lack the unity of movement needed to make them effective and
slick. The delivery of text is excellent, with some subtle and layered performances,
but more could be done to explore the vocal/ physical presence of teenagers
as opposed to the slightly older university age of the performers. Overall,
Chatroom is a thought-provoking and surprisingly humorous drama that highlights
some important issues, hinting at what is lacking in online communication whilst
unpicking the complexities of how and why some teenagers engage with it. Alex
Brown
Chortle
Student Comedy Award Final
Pleasance Dome
Edinburgh is awash with stand-up comedy during August, and most festival goers
will have sat uncomfortably through some kind of dire attempt at humour in a
near empty room. Thankfully, the talent on display at the final of the Chortle
Student Comedy awards was a world away from this familiar scene, with a packed
house at the Pleasance Dome presented with some genuinely funny material by
the 12 finalists. Many of them would have comfortably stood their ground alongside
professional comics, and a few in particular are clearly names to watch in the
coming years. The panel of judges, made up of agents and critics, chose 21yr
old Joe Lycett, an English student from Manchester University, as their winner.
Instantly likeable, with a keen eye for witty observations, his intelligent
humour had the audience in stitches. Runner-up Ian Stirling, an Edinburgh local,
possesses the kind of gleeful charm that makes stories hilarious in the telling.
Tom Rosenthal's inventive and quirky comedy is definitely worth checking out,
and Nicola Bolsover's extended love song to Sean Bean was a delight. Sam Gore's
biting sarcasm will no doubt prove popular on the comedy circuit, and Mat Ewins
and Max Dickens both have the potential to be very funny comics indeed. MC Elis
James kept the energy up throughout the near three hour show, and a dark surreal
short story from last year's winner Jack Heal was packed full of clever and
giggle-inducing word play. The audience appreciated intelligent humour and were
patient and supportive of acts who seemed less at home on stage or whose material
fell short of the generally high standard on the night. There was a refreshing
lack of the reductive jibes and small minded quips that are the bread and butter
of inferior comics. Alex Brown
The
Chronicles of Irania Pleasance
On the surface this seems a deliciously kooky hour celebrating traditional hospitality
and the myths of Iran, a nation still proud of its ancient (and distinctly non-Islamic)
origins. You certainly get a traditional welcome as Maryam Hamidi's cheery Iranian
housewife alter-ego offers cup of tea around the audiences and politely inquiries
if anyone's a state spy. From the outset however, her cute Aladdin's cave of
cushions, kilims and storytelling props throws up a harsh mirror on not only
Iranian society but also our own in an unexpected two-way process. Hamidi's
infectiously cheery delivery is aided by model moons, suns and finger puppets
as she tells tales of the world's creation, the first man and woman, chronicles
of Iran's ancient kings and viziers. Woven into all this in are contemporary
accounts by Iranian women such as an acid attack by a husband and watching a
son die, hanged for being gay. The message emerges that such a combined onslaught
on the status of woman drags down all of society - ironic to say the least,
given the idealisation of women in the stirring myths Hamidi relates. The mix
of saccharine traditional storytelling and hard-nosed current affairs may seem
odd bedfellows but Hamidi makes it work via her character's charm. The script
and direction need a great deal more focus to make things less devised while
the accent needs fixing for clarity. Nevertheless this remains a thought-provoking
yet entertaining piece that should be seen across the country and beyond in
any form. Nick Awde
Chronicles
of Long Kesh Assembly
Hall
It will be hard to find a better ensemble performance than that of the six Irish
actors who together take us to what was more perhaps commonly known as the Maze
Prison (on this side of the Irish Sea at least) with its notorious H Blocks.
The story starts in 1971, when the Westminster Government introduced what was
known as Internment, holding primarily IRA prisoners for indefinite periods
without charge. The actors play prisoners from both sides of the political divide
with equal commitment and also Prison Officers stuck in the middle. Indeed in
a chilling scene, one of them is told all about the daily routine of his family,
prior to some minor blackmail. In the end though, the worst enormities are perpetrated
on the prisoners, men who are loyal to their respective causes and so quickly
returning to prison after their release. Chronicles of Long Kesh builds through
the relatively relaxed early years (all things are relative) to the Dirty Protests
when prisoners refused to wear uniforms and decorated cells with their own excrement.
This led to hunger strikes and the play's most moving moments, as first Bobby
Sands and then nine of his compatriots starved themselves to death for the IRA
cause. Chronicles of Long Kesh works impressionistically, using short scenes
and can be very effective, as the actors play numerous roles to inhabit the
prison with believable characters. This could be irredeemably grim but is leavened
with a capella hits of the 70s and some excellent gallows humour. Playwright
Martin Lynch directs with Lisa May and if there is a criticism, the material
could have been cut a little to sharpen the overall impact. However, this should
not detract from a powerful script and fine performances from every member of
this excellent cast. Philip Fisher
A Clockwork
Orange C
Chelsea Walker's ambitious and imaginative production of Anthony Burgess's dystopian
classic is visually fantastic, with excitingly choreographed ultra-violence
and engaging flourishes of physical theatre. The first half suffers from a lack
of the macabre menace that underpins the tale. Too much in a rush to proceed
to 'real horror show' set pieces, it sacrifices narrative exposition and character
development. Placing actors amongst the audience is effective at times, unconsidered
at others. This confuses our position between experiencing the cleverly conceived,
institutionalised and immoral futurescape with Alex, or judging him for his
part in it. Inexplicable stylistic decisions such as the use of a window-frame
or the appearance of a Kubrick-styled alter-Alex have little narrative function,
and tend to undermine the production as a whole. Good performances from Jacob
Taee and James Corrigan - as Alex and Pete/The Doctor - stand out, but suggest
nevertheless that the cast would have benefited from more rehearsal time spent
on the text. Poor projection makes it a struggle to keep up. This is a little
too blunt for an effective re-examination of the controversial content of a
well-known piece. Oliver Kassman
Colin
Hoult's Carnival of Monsters Pleasance
If we admit it, everyone can be a bit of a monster... sometimes. But there are
those who walk amongst us who possess something seriously sinister inside that
seethes away, gnawing at their sanity. It could be the neatly turned-out gentleman
beside you on the bus, the respected teacher, the well-meaning activist - all
of whom, be warned, feature in this Carnival of Monsters. For openers, a cloaked
carnival henchman, hunched Igor-like and with an appropriate fear of fire, emerges
with a frightening plea to become friends before the ringmaster bids us welcome
to the dark visions that await. Loping from character to character, we meet
the man who after 20 years of Greenpeace has decided that the answer to life's
ills is to exterminate all baboons, a faded star of the stage bullies us into
listening to tales of her golden years, while there is a cringe-making tour
de force in the shape of the karate instructor from hell. A lasting image is
that of the hoodie penguin who plays on the disbelieving audience with astonishing
cheek. The true horror or course is that these are dreadfully normal people,
brought to life by Colin Hoult's slick, edgy writing and the acting talents
of Zoe Gardner, Stephen Evans and Dan Snelgrove. Every few years Edinburgh produces
the buddings of comic genius - League of Gentlemen, Dutch Elm Conservatoire
(mostly poached for The Office), Flight of the Conchords - and here surely is
the latest. Hoult is a mere step away from creating a hideous, hilarious universe
in which to perch his characters - and for that he needs a TV series of his
own. Nick Awde
Jason
Cook: Fear Stand
Jason Cook's show has got everything one would want in a stand up: wit, originality,
attitude, Geordie accent, excellent material and a fantastic audience rapport.
To top it all he also has that vital ingredient for a performer which so many
of his colleagues shy away from - vulnerability. He puts himself on the line
every step of the way as he works through a list of commonly held fears and
phobias, not neglecting of course to share his own deepest secrets and irrational
anxieties. And he hasn't had it easy living next door to a dentist's surgery
as a boy, or spiraling into alcoholism in his early twenties as a result of
a stint in a Middle Eastern prison. He never fails to recount these memories
with characteristic light-heartedness and self-irony despite any residue of
trauma. What's more, he'll throw in a film of his attempt at overcoming his
fear of heights by doing a 600 feet freefall jump in Auckland. And in case that
doesn't make you laugh, film footage of his left foot will. There is an ultimate
punchline to the show, but you'll have to wait for it, or better still - go
and enjoy it personally. Duska Radosavljevic
Cool
Cutz C
A quartet of hairdressers gossip, bicker and discover darker sides to themselves
as they cut, highlight, primp and perm. Dreams of haute coiffure stardom beckon
in this energetic comedy but the reality of snipping for a living is to be an
agony aunt for the customers' tiresome gossip. Maggie (Wendy Tenbeth) is the
kindly but tetchy boss whose sexless marriage is a constant reminder of her
unrealised ambitions. Her staff are no less complex: Monica (Laura Lowndes)
exasperates the whole salon with her lurid sexual exploits, Verity (Natalie
Reed) bores them with reports of her kid and seemingly absent husband, while
dark horse Susie (Jody Williamson) struggles to keep everyone on good terms.
Whenever the tension rises, the girls break into gloriously Old Skool songs
(and yes, the hairbrushes serve as mics) and there's a thumpingly good 'Mickey'
routine. Original numbers include a heated rap between two customers: a pensioner
and a teenager oblivious to the fact that they're both getting blue rinses.
Gags abound of haircutting and smalltown life and, under Dawn Richmond-Gordon's
careful directorial eye, the cast work hard and keep things well paced. Scripted
by Lowndes, Williamson and Stephanie Doyle, with more work on the characters
this should easily expand to a successful full-length show. Nick Awde
Crave
C Soco
Sarah Kane's plays present directors and performers with unique and potentially
very productive challenges. It was therefore an exciting prospect to see how
as reputable an institution as Royal Holloway Theatre would approach Crave,
Kane's beautiful, tragic outpouring of human desperation and isolation. The
set looks great. A dim cafe - with four tables in front of a red and black chequered
counter - situates the tortured characters firmly within the wretched everyday.
Sadly, the set is the most creative thing about this production. Once we have
got used to the difficult confessional mode of the writing and the confusingly
de-individuated characters, static delivery and unimaginative use of space make
for an increasingly monotonous second half. While EJ Martin and Steve Wickenden
give engaging performances, they seem to be in a separate play, entirely usurping
the other two actors with their finely drawn characterisation. Unvaried, tormented
delivery, particularly from the waiter, becomes increasingly difficult to listen
to. This is a shame as the character has the most beautiful monologue of the
whole play, yet the performance manages to render it utterly meaningless. The
relationships between the characters, or lack thereof, are haphazardly dealt
with, resulting in an awkward half naturalism that sits uncomfortably with the
lyrical style of the writing. This production seems to consist of a string of
observations about the text which, although perhaps interesting in themselves,
are not developed enough to justify the creative decisions they have informed.
Eleanor Williams
The
Critic C
Sheridan's 18th-century satire takes the mickey out of theatre buffs, theatre
critics and theatre practitioners, some of whom you might well encounter, in
their modern equivalents, in your wanders about Edinburgh this month. The scenes
of luvies effusively praising each other's work and taste, only to express their
real opinions in asides, might well be set in the Pleasance Courtyard, and the
rehearsal of a particularly awful play, with enthusiastic commentary by the
author, may be the funniest play-within-a-play since Pyramus and Thisbe. The
actors from the University of Lincoln should be encouraged to play even more
broadly and over-the-top than they did at an early performance, since excess
and high camp are big parts of the fun, and once they've loosened up a bit this
will be a thoroughly delightful antidote to any temptations you may feel to
take the Fringe too seriously. Gerald
Berkowitz
Crush
Underbelly
Paul Charlton has written a two-hander, made up of alternating monologues, that
pieces together the portrait of a marriage in deep trouble. Sam and Anna are
29 and past the first blush of passion, though there is no question that they
love each other. But their sex life is almost nonexistent, and Sam's energy
is distracted by his new job, a slowly growing gambling problem and a cyber-flirtation
with a younger woman. Hating herself for thinking in these terms, Anna decides
to lose weight, to re-attract him, but he perversely leaves sweets and pastries
lying about. And then he makes a very big bet on the day she makes a very big
discovery. The challenge for a writer of monologues is to create a sense of
the relationship even when the two never relate, and Charlton is certainly successful
there, dropping little clues in one speech that may only resonate later in another
(as when she casually mentions a second mortgage that has boosted their bank
account). As Sam, Neil Grainger starts slowly, seeming a perfectly ordinary
guy and only gradually exposing his anxieties and danger areas, while Claire
Dargo's Anna peaks earlier, giving us the character in a rush and then letting
us anticipate the effects of his actions on her. It's not a major work, but
there is a real writer here, and two sensitive performers. Gerald
Berkowitz
Curtains
Church Hill Theatre
Curtains is the final collaboration between Broadway stalwarts John Kander and
Fred Ebb, produced after Ebb's death, with Kander and book writer Rupert Holmes
filling in some additional lyrics. Curiously, its British premiere is not in
London's West End, but on the Edinburgh fringe, by students from Archbishop
Stepinac High School in White Plains New York. And let us begin by admitting
that the kids are far from professional, though they are also far closer to
it than I remember my American high school theatricals approaching. The main
attraction is the show itself, a spoof murder mystery set backstage during the
out-of-town tryout of a Broadway musical, and the central joke is that the detective
is a closet theatre buff who keeps interrupting his investigation to offer suggestions
for restaging problem numbers. The songs are a bit of a disappointment for those
hoping for echoes of the hard-edged music and lyrics of Cabaret and Chicago,
as many of them are pastiches for the musical-within-the-musical and therefore
have to be self-parodies. There is a nice acerbic song about critics and a mock
dirge for an unloved murder victim in the spirit of Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Poor Jud Is Dead ('The skies are blue. Her lips are too.') In fact, you're likely
to be reminded of other shows as much as of K&E's own - Show People is openly
a salute to Irving Berlin, the mockingly sexy Thataway recalls A Little Brains,
A Little Talent from Damn Yankees, and only the cynical It's A Business has
a bit of the Chicago flavour. The show is not especially strong, and would depend
on star performances the schoolkids obviously can't provide, though Julian Amato
as the cop and Jillian Sayegh as the brassy producer give some hint of the personality
and energy their roles want. Gerald Berkowitz
David
Leddy's White Tea Assembly
A rather ordinary melodrama of family secrets uncovered and troubled relationships
somehow resolved is given a freshness and even beauty through a production that
literally clothes it in freshness, purity and exotic otherness. The audience
of perhaps 20 is ushered into a small all-white room and dressed in white kimonos,
to sit against the walls mere inches from the story being enacted by one Western
and one Japanese actress. The European was the adopted daughter of a famous
Japanese woman from whom she has long been estranged, but the mother is dying
and an intermediary has been sent to bring the daughter to Tokyo. They're too
late, but the two younger women bond and together uncover facts about the mother
that allow the daughter some emotional closure. The story itself is close to
banal, and full of red herrings and loose ends, and evocations ranging from
Hiroshima to Yoko Ono seem arbitrarily imposed on it. But the pure blankness
of the setting, along with the grace and respect given to the depiction of Japanese
customs, holds interest and emotional involvement, as do the impeccable performances
of Gabriel Quigley and especially Alisa Anderson. Gerald
Berkowitz
Destination
GB Pleasance
I'm of two minds about this show. On the one hand, it is a 'must see'
satire of racism and cultural stereotyping, created by a company with an original
voice and excellent comic timing. On the other hand, their own treatment of
the subject is a bit unsure of itself, and therefore appears dangerously close
to the bone. It's not so much the conclusive - and a bit too seriously angry
- rant about immigrants that gives cause for concern. It is rather their underlying
anxiety to match every reference to England with a reference to Scotland and
their Benetton approach to additional casting that betrays a lack of confidence
in the show's inherent innocence. That said, Lost Banditos create an hour of
uninterrupted fun, exhilarating role-play and the kind of joy found only at
a children's playground. As a result, their show about a group of Night Shift
Dover workers on a secret mission to Azerbaijan - is rough at the edges and
occasionally a bit too cramped on the stage. Still, your journey will be worth
every penny and every minute, and it might just take you places you never even
knew existed. Duska Radosavljevic
Dirty
Love C
Looking like a duet between a 1970s porn-star-wannabe and a die-hard nerd, Guy
Combes and Dan Lees predictably have a musical repertoire featuring subjects
such as masturbation, porn, beans, bad knickers and pretending to be lesbians.
While they also have a regular comedy show in town, Dirty Love is an Edinburgh
version of their London-based comedy club featuring different line ups of every
night. Despite their decidedly sleazy or just plain awkward demeanour, Lees
and Combes manage to achieve a surprisingly effective rapport with willing audience
members. The success of the evening will also depend on their chosen guest acts,
and on this occasion they had a perfect counterpart in goofy but cool Eric Vampire
and silly but handsome Dave Florez. As Combes and Lees progressively descended
into the self-made hell of sexual frustration, no amount of enthusiastic audience
banter could really save their act. But their guests did - which might well
have been the point of Dirty Love, for all I know. Duska Radosavljevic
Doctor
Whom - My Search for Samuel Johnson Assembly
Many Fringe shows are works in progress, and a reviewer must consider both the
shape they're in now and their potential as they are developed further. I ran
into David Benson just before the Festival, and he admitted that he had not
yet written his Samuel Johnson show, due to open in Week Three. Well, he still
hasn't. Benson has a lot of respect and enthusiasm for the eighteenth-century
writer, lexicographer and wit, and he has amassed a lot of research and memorised
a lot of Johnson's aphorisms and longer quotations. But he hasn't quite made
a show out of them. He meanders through his material trying to communicate his
delight in it, but the effect is something like the friend who spends an evening
playing you bits from his favorite musicians, trying to get you to share his
conviction of how great they are. What Benson needs is a hook, some angle that
will provide a structure for the show and a core idea to hang the anecdotes
and quotations on. Certainly there's a lot of great material here, and Benson
is an attractive and personable performer. What there isn't, yet, is a show.
Gerald Berkowitz
Domestic
Goddi 2: How to Cope Pleasance
Rosie Wilkinson and Helen O'Brien must have a lot of time on their hands. Their
show - fittingly entitled How to Cope - is a catalogue of numerous but often
under-developed sketch comedy ideas ranging from cheerleading songs, inarticulate
school-girls' spats, female-slant parodies of Top Gear and Radio 4 programmes,
Spanish ads and various leisure-time activities including am dram Shakespeare,
Irish folk singing and Wii fit. The problem is that I have probably just given
most of the show's best bits away by merely listing some of the Domestic Goddi
numbers. When they do get down to it and begin to scratch the surface of some
of their more interesting characterisations, they often run the risk of inadvertent
ambiguity - such as the hotline-girl/nanny of indistinct 'European' origin,
or the slang-talking school dinner ladies who could be mistaken for farmers.
Wilkinson and O'Brien could clearly do well to apply some home economics to
their repertoire and spend more quality time baking their characters and layering
their routines, than just churning them out one after another.Duska Radosavljevic
Double
Art History Udderbelly
Hullabaloo
If hype were the guiding principle, this would be one of the best shows in Edinburgh.
As director of the Tate Galleries, Will Gompertz clearly has friends in high
places. This show does what it says on the packet but not too much more. Mr
G is an eccentric in big glasses, who clearly enjoys the chance to wow an audience.
His chosen subject in Modern Art, 1870 to the present day, covering 25 or so
genres in 45 minutes showing his 'class' no more than 60 representative images
to make points. Audience participation is the norm, from the initial request
for each pupil to draw a penis in any style they wish to a final quiz to test
memory of the illustrated lecture. Will Gompertz runs quickly through his topic
but in doing so reveals deep knowledge and the ability to impart this in plain
English, not a trait normally associated with experts talking about the visual
arts. This show might well return, as it has sold so well and if so, do catch
it. You will have some light-hearted fun, learn something about art and a great
deal about the man in charge of the Tate. Philip Fisher
The
Doubtful Guest Traverse
Edward Gorey's thin book contains fourteen drawings, each accompanied by a couplet,
succinctly telling the story of some thing (It looks a bit like an auk in tennis
shoes) that invades a stately home, does some occasional minor vandalism, but
mainly just Won't Go Away. The couplets are witty, and the drawings are the
sort that make you want to look in all the corners for small comic details.
It is, in short, a beautiful piece of black comic minimalism. Hoipolloi, by
turning it into a 90 minute stage version, do just about everything wrong to
violate the spirit of the book and spoil all the fun. (To be fair, the one thing
they get right is costuming and posing the actors to resemble the family members
in the drawings, though surely you'd expect them then to have a stage set that
resembled the drawings as well). Every scene is introduced at ponderous and
generally unfunny length, played at ponderous and generally unfunny length and
then followed up at ponderous and generally unfunny length - and then Gorey's
couplet is projected on a screen, instantly putting what we've just seen to
shame. Meanwhile, although the concept of a cartoon Something terrorising cartoon
people makes some sense, real actors pretending to be afraid of a Something
represented variously by a drawing, a stuffed toy or one of the other actors
just doesn't work. It is possible to put Gorey onstage successfully, but what
we have here, I fear, is a textbook example of adapters who Just Don't Get It.
Gerald
Berkowitz
Durham
Revue Underbelly
I've always had a great deal of affection for the Durham Revue. Almost alone
outside Oxbridge, they've continued to fly the flag for student sketch shows,
once a backbone of the fringe. And in recent years they've consistently outshone
both Oxford and Cambridge in writing sketches that were not just potentially
comic concepts but were actually funny. But this is a down year for them, I
fear. Too many of their pieces are the ideas for comic sketches but not the
sketches themselves. Wouldn't it be funny if obituary writers killed people
for the material? Well, no, as it turns out. How about parodies of The Secret
Garden or Crimewatch? Not unless you find something actually funny to do with
them. Mac users bullying a PC user? There's just no joke there. And so it goes.
Some bits, like the Argos blackout, have absolutely nothing. Others may have
a bit of surreal humour in passing or around the edges - a policewoman who walks
around making siren noises - but not enough to save the otherwise lifeless sketch.
Let's just hope they're back in form next year. Gerald
Berkowitz
East
10th Street Traverse
Performance artist, professional wanderer, friend and fellow eccentric to Quentin
Crisp, Edgar Oliver found a small room for rent in New York's East Village thirty
years ago, and has lived there ever since, despite - or, indeed, because of
- the primitive facilities and deeply odd neighbours. He tells his story in
a very mannered and sonorous voice, enunciating and elongating every syllable,
with broad gestures and from-below lighting that suggest a slightly demented
and more than slightly camp scoutmaster telling ghost stories around a campfire.
There are ghosts in his story, amiable sorts who like to lie around on the floor
of his landlord's office. But mainly there are the neighbours - the 90-something
woman who commandeers the communal bathroom, the alcoholic postman whose life
purpose lies in harassing her, the homicidal midget caballist, and Oliver's
own sister, who paints the walls of her room under the artistic direction of
the I Ching. His tale touches in passing on the giant rats of Paris, cats named
after Roman emperors, and his own propensity for walking for hours through the
most deserted streets of whatever city he's in. (His producer told me in the
Traverse bar that Oliver almost didn't make his first show because he was meandering
around Edinburgh.) Your enjoyment of the hour will depend entirely on your taste
for eccentricity but, as directed by Randall Sharp, Oliver does tell his story
engagingly, and may well lure you into his skewed and undeniably colourful world.
Gerald
Berkowitz
Ernest
and the Pale Moon Pleasance
Oliver Lansley's new play with Les Enfants Terribles is a highly atmospheric
piece of gothic storytelling. Channelling Edgar Allan Poe and Henry James of
the Turn of the Screw period, the company produces a compelling and macabre
account of obsession, immurement and murder. Directed by Emma Earle, the show
has a beautiful, simple set composed of an assymetrical metal frame, figuring
a world out of joint. This warped image translates into the story of three characters
in a building whose desires turn deadly. Accompanied by accordion music, the
sounds of a metronome and cello, the piece is strong on atmosphere, gloomy,
beautifully lit and rich in texture. The performers create sound effects onstage,
much like companies such as You Need Me and Filter Theatre, demystifying stage
illusion at the same time as weaving a narrative spell over the audience. There's
a sense of deep traumas contained in some of its images. With some stunning
coups de theatre and clever shifts in perspective, text and theatricality intersect
in the work of a company very adept at showing how physicalized storytelling
is at the heart of some of the best theatre around. William McEvoy
The
Event Assembly
John Clancy's monologue play is, for at least three-quarters of its length,
a brilliant piece of self-reflexive metatheatre. Taking and holding the stage
with quiet authority, David Calvitto explains that the titular event is what
we are experiencing right now, with strangers sitting in the dark watching a
man in the light speaking words written by another man for him to memorise and
rehearse. The monologue continues in that key, describing itself as it happens,
and even allowing for deviations from the script which are, we are assured,
all scripted. Beyond the cleverness, though, the event is effortlessly expanded
into metaphor, the audience passivity reflecting a larger inclination to let
others think and speak for us, the anonymity of both speaker and listeners hinting
at urban isolation and lack of social bonds. It is there, roughly at the point
Calvitto sits down, that Clancy's writing weakens its hold and the metaphor
almost collapses. Rather than continuing to comment on and through the event,
the speaker mounts a soapbox and lectures the audience directly on the failures
of modern society, becoming merely a mouthpiece for the author. Perhaps sensing
this lapse, playwright and actor struggle to re-establish the original mode,
though never fully succeeding. David Calvito's performance throughout is a tour-de-force
of control and complexity, sustaining the speaker's reality while simultaneously
commenting on it from outside. Gerald Berkowitz
Everything
Must Go Augustine's
Kristin Fredrickson created this solo show as a love letter to her father, but
as inventive as it frequently is, it does not succeed in making him come alive.
Despite a performance mode that ranges from narrative through dance and gymnastics
to lip sync, and stage effects including films, puppetry and larger-than-life
cut-outs, and despite the fact that her father was a soldier, PE teacher and
part-time transvestite, Fredrickson's story never transcends the specific and
never convinces us that this man should be of as much interest to us as he quite
properly is to her. Her fictional premise, of trying to find some key to her
father while clearing out his house, is almost immediately forgotten, and nothing
is put in its place to give shape or meaning to what never amounts to much more
than a collection of someone else's home movies. The show originally borrowed
much of its limited emotional power by having the man himself appear onstage
in the final seconds, and now, with dubious taste, ends with the announcement
that he died in June. For all her artistry, Fredrickson has not made art out
of her personal story. Gerald Berkowitz
Facebook
Fables GBT
Apparently based on personal experience, this ultra-relevant and very watchable
show combines elements of character comedy, revenge tragedy and some slick dance
routines to deliver a seamless cautionary tale of just where our Facebook obsessions
may lead. Andreya Lynham, Amber Noble and Samantha Lyden are the brains and
bodies behind the piece which took just over a year to develop and which intertwines
the fates of three women around one man. William Desburgh's spurned girlfriend
Isabelle hatches a plan to discover who her rival might be by secretly setting
up her ex-boyfriend's Facebook profile. This nets her a former school-friend
Keeley - a feisty wannabe model, and a delusional acquaintance Fiona he flirted
with during a telemarketing call. And since 'hell hath no fury like a woman
scorned', Isabelle spares no one in avenging her broken heart... Nine deftly
observed characters are woven into this story of mistaken identities, and that's
without the invisible lover-boy Desburgh and a certain Mr Seely. Even though
the narrative loose ends are all tied up a bit too neatly to be believable,
this is the kind of comedy show that will go down extremely smoothly and leave
you ever so slightly concerned. Highly recommended. Duska Radosavljevic
The
Fall of Man Pleasance
The co-authorship of The Fall of Man is somewhat unusual, with John Milton on
whose Paradise Lost the play draws, taking second billing to Red Shift's Jonathan
Holloway. To be fair, the 45 minute long plot is all Holloway. It tells an old,
old story of co-director Graeme Rose's Peter, a happy businessman and father
of Constance and Toby and his not very undying love for the Slovenian au pair.
Stephanie Day plays Veronica, every husband's dream but also inevitably a nightmare
in waiting. The unusual twist is that as the affair flames and then expires,
the protagonists quote highly appropriate, generally diabolical (in the Satanic
sense) extracts from Milton's classic. By doing so, they render what might otherwise
have seemed gratuitously graphic depictions from the storm-lit bedside something
rather more artistic and on occasions beautiful. With two good performances
and intensity that never diminishes, The Fall of Man is among the better Fringe
offerings. Philip Fisher
Fascinating
Aida Pleasance
This may be their third or fourth Absolutely Final Farewell Tour, but who are
we to complain? The mistresses of comic song are back. If you know their work,
you'll be delighted; if you don't, you have the opportunity to become a fan.
Dillie Keane, Adele Anderson and, in the current incarnation, Liza Pulman channel
the spirits of Gilbert and Sullivan, Flanders and Swann, Noel Coward, and Tom
Lehrer into a wholly new collection (Sorry, fans, no sequin song) of witty and
frequently telling lyrics. Regulars might sense a slightly stronger political
bent than usual this time around, with a couple of songs on the monetary crisis,
a calypso set in post-warming Scotland, and a running gag of Bulgarian folk
songs skewering public figures. But other topics include middle-aged dogging,
the unexpected hazards awaiting Girl Guides, and a hymn to the Church of Tesco.
Longtime fans know that Dillie (the pianist) was there from the start, Adele
(the tall one) joined soon after - and, with Dillie, writes all the songs -
and that there have been a string of Third Ones over the years. Most took on
the persona of being befuddled to find themselves in this company, but bouncy
Liza Pulman joins enthusiastically in the fun, keeping the energy level high
whenever her colleagues (who admit to being in the general vicinity of 50ish)
feign flagging stamina. Gerald
Berkowitz
Faust
Lowland Hall, Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston
It is easy to see how the programming of Purcarete's Faust within this year's
Edinburgh International Festival fits in with Jonathan Mills' chosen theme of
the Enlightenment. To tell the story of the man trading his soul for greater
knowledge, the Romanian director chooses Goethe's text - the version of the
myth which in itself constitutes a radical departure from its predecessors and
stands as a major masterpiece of the epoch. Unlike many before him, Goethe's
Faust is redeemed by the power of human love at the end of his quest, offering
hope and reassurance that it is never too late to take risks - or at least that
is what fifty nine year old Silviu Purcarete seems to suggest. In tandem with
his long-term collaborator - designer Helmut Stuermer, Purcarete places his
aging Faust within a barren, clinical and unstable landscape of academic knowledge,
a massive school room whose walls will be pulled down to usher us into an exhilarating
world beyond. Courtesy of Ofelia Poppii's sinister, sprightly and shape-shifting
Mephisto - this Walpurgisnacht will be an affair to remember. Witches dangling
off the top of a fork-lift truck are flying over spectacular processions, while
others are dancing and cavorting before an awe-stricken audience. A person standing
next to me remarked that this was far better than any of the raves he used to
attend at this same site - a former aircraft huger, now used as a conference
centre. Originally staged in Sibiu in one of many disused factories of the communist
era, this two hander with a hundred-plus member chorus is unlikely to have much
of a tour anywhere else. Its brief visit to Edinburgh was therefore a unique
opportunity for some of the more traditional Western European audiences to have
their attitudes towards theatre making shaken up and potentially enlightened.
Duska Radosavljevic
Faust
in the Box Underbelly
Bridge Markland is a Berlin-based dance-theatre-performance-artist specialising
in transgender performance. In this particular show she lends her androgenous
looks to a series of characters in Faust as well as manipulating a number of
hand puppets while standing in a cardboard box. Her particular twist on what
would otherwise be an elementary puppetry show is that she interlaces the voice-over
of the English translation of Goethe's verse with a collage of famous pop music
tunes. To make matters worse she lipsyncs to it all through the entire show.
Looking like a bad parody of puppetry made by a teenage Rocky Horror Show fanatic,
the show is mildly amusing for the first ten minutes but then descends into
an interminable stint of what could only be seen as self-gratification. The
cut up tunes and radio voices evolve into an unmitigated audio nightmare in
which you might find yourself fantasising about packing Markland's box up and
sending it back to Berlin. Duska Radosavljevic
A
Fistful of Snow
C Soco
This is what I come to the Fringe for - a play that may be imperfect in itself
but that is clearly the work of a real writer - or in this case, two. Indeed,
the cooperative authorship may be one of the play's handicaps, since it suffers,
not from lack of invention, but from a surfeit of material and some trouble
in focussing its many thematic and theatrical ideas. At its core is a sympathetic
portrait of the one-hit wonder, here a writer whose first book was a fluke hit
and who knows in his soul he will never be able to repeat it, though he must
devote immense amounts of energy to sustaining the denial of that awareness.
Authors Danny Alder and Chris Hislop set this not-uncomic internal drama in
a comic exterior, as the guy takes a job at an Arctic outpost to recharge his
creative batteries and slowly goes crazy from the isolation, arguing with a
stuffed moose head ('I'm a reindeer, damn it.'), placating a doorbell-ringing
polar bear and submitting his book ideas to a critical budgie. While the guy-going-crazy
comedy sometimes threatens to displace the blocked-writer-in-denial drama, both
are inventively imagined, well written, engaging and thought-provoking, so that
one feels almost ungrateful in complaining that there is too much of a muchness
here. Directed by Hislop and performed by Alder (with recorded guest voices
for the animals), it's more fun than a barrel of polar bears.Gerald
Berkowitz
Five
Characters in Search of Susan
Underbelly
Here is a character comedy showcase with a difference. Although not particularly
ground-breaking for its concept - whereby a show that doesn't go on is being
populated by random passers-by - Susan Harrison's collection of passers-by is
indeed a real treat. The first to grab the limelight is of course the Underbelly
usherette Shakira who takes us through accounts of her failed X Factor auditions
and her disturbed family life. Other intruders upon the stage include a 16 year
old latecomer JBS - an MC from Tunbrdige Wells and premature university student
in maths and science, and a neurotic pill-popping theatre critic with a secret
and a foul mouth - Lynne Scrupples. Slightly more fanciful portrayals are given
to a wayward mermaid in a wheelchair and an Australian teddy bear therapist
on the run from the police. Nifty and nimble Susan Harrison introduces us to
her alter egos with remarkable ease, brilliant comic timing and a sense of authenticity
- creating suspense and raising the exciting question of just what she will
be capable of in a few years time? Duska Radosavljevic
Micky
Flanagan: Spiel Pleasance
You can easily see Micky Flanagan becoming the voice of the nation - or at least
a newly-middle-aged section of it. The fortysomething comic is a late starter
who has only recently settled down with baby and mortgage. By virtue of being
(technically) middle-aged, he has a lengthy life experience to help him pass
comment on the effects of the transition which many younger comics simply don't
have. And that's lucky for us since this is one of the funniest spots of the
festival, even for those not blessed to be under 50 and over 39. Flanagan puts
his life into perspective by setting out to compare how he changed from a seventies
punk teenager to a noughties vest-wearing suburbanite. It's the cue for a steady
stream of funny and wickedly accurate observations on posh South London of today
and the East End of yesteryear: building a hierarchy of neighbours worth talking
to, flashing a commercial caller at the front door, how his dad disappeared
each weekend as all dads once did, booking sex into the family's weekly diary,
walking around the house to the strains of Radio 4 and the skills of doing sweet
f***-all. On paper it all seems pretty ordinary stuff, but when seen from Flanagan's
socially warped viewpoint even the lowly bath tap has unlimited comic potential.
His laid-back laconic Cockney tones are infectious and lull you into rambling
stories before the punchlines spring out of the blue and catch you unawares.
Flanagan effortlessly tops my laughometer for this festival but of course that
might just be a sign of my advancing age. Nick Awde
Flanders
and Swann Pleasance (Reviewed at a previous Festival)
This salute to the duo who pioneered genteel song-and-patter comedy in the 1950s
is a delight that does not rely on nostalgia or even knowledge of the originals
for the fun, though I must admit I was surprised that everyone in the audience,
young and old, could join in the chorus of the Hippopotamus Song ('Mud, mud,
glorious mud...') without prompting. Perhaps it's one of those things, like
the Goon Show voices and the Dead Parrot sketch that have entered the British
DNA. Duncan Walsh Atkins, quietly droll at the piano, and Tim Fitzhigham, boisterously
welcoming at the microphone and singing in an attractive baritone, take us through
a dozen F&S classics, from the aforementioned Hippo through Have Some Madeira
M'Dear, Transports of Delight and I'm a Gnu. Tim's intersong chatter is new
but fully in the F&S mode, taking on the blimpish persona of a Kensington
Tory deigning to work alongside his south-London accompanist, and the moment
in which he plays a french horn concerto by blowing into one end of a music
stand is truly remarkable. All together now, 'I'm a gnu, a gnother gnu....'
Gerald Berkowitz
F.L.O.W.
Bedlam
Performance artist Neel de Jong evidently gives a different half-hour show each
time, depending on her mood and inspiration. I saw her in a bedraggled puffball
dress, slowly rotating and swaying drunkenly for several minutes before inching
forward on the stage and dropping the single shoe she was carrying. At one point
she lifted her dress, at another she removed her sunglasses and leered at us,
suggesting a deranged woman suffering under the delusion that she was graceful
and seductive. Eventually she spoke, platitudes like 'Don't do what they ask
you to do' and 'Only when I like it.' But another reviewer saw her dance more
conventionally to the onstage pianist who was silent at my performance, while
a third reports her dressed in a suit coming down to accost audience members
individually. I suspect that, consciously or not, there is a strong element
of aggression toward the audience in her art - she looked at us and said 'Look
at all the boring faces. Not mine.' Strictly for those who collect bizarre performers
with no clear evidence of talent, and if you care, it's 'Fabulous lucky outrageous
world'. Gerald
Berkowitz
Forever
Young Augustine's
Using poetry, songs and personal
writings from the First World War, the Yvonne Arnaud Youth Theatre have achieved
what they set out to. Adam Forde has edited these historical sources into a
script that acts as a testimonial for those who lived and died during the Great
War. The idea itself is not particularly original since both source materials
and staging strongly evoke the 1963 stage musical Oh! What a Lovely War. Despite
this, the show ably reanimates the voices of history. The performances are all
beautifully delivered; subtle, sincere and precise. The cast's clear talent
for both song and storytelling is enviable, especially given their age. They
are mesmerised by the history they are enacting, shocked by such an enormous
loss of life, determined to do it justice. They do. As an audience member we
are being granted a privilege that is normally reserved for the most successful
teachers - we are seeing the powerful moment when learning grips a young mind.
We are being allowed to watch the results. Only a dyed-in-the-wool cynic would
not be moved by that! Katrina Marchant
Francis
the Holy Jester Pleasance
Veteran Dario Fo associate Mario Pirovano delivers Fo's characteristically folksy
monologues about Francis of Assisi with a verve and informality that closely
resemble Fo's own performance style. There is one animal story, but the emphasis
is on Francis's democratic and pacifist impulses. His 1222 'harangue' to the
war-loving citizens of Bologne ironically praises them for their skill and efficiency
at killing both their foes and themselves. Describing the miracle of the water
into wine, Francis plays Mary, Jesus, the Cana caterer and a passing drunk,
effortlessly domesticating the tale, while a high-ranking Cardinal is described
as knowing the Pope so well he can call him Innocent, without the number, and
even the account of Francis's death is lightened as the saint auditions singers
for the mourning choir. This is the first performance of the monologues in English,
in a fluid and colloquial translation by Pirovano himself, that even manages
a few jokes and puns, as when a tipsy Cana guest tells Jesus 'You are de wine.'
Pirovano performs with enthusiasm and high energy, accompanying every line with
movements, facial expressions or gestures that sometimes approach the manic
style of Robin Williams but that, like his stories, are rendered friendly and
unthreatening by his obvious pleasure in sharing with us. Gerald
Berkowitz
Frank
Spaces
Frank brings something of a fresh take on the murky tale of how Frank Sinatra
sold his soul to the Mafia, revitalised his career and guaranteed him an eternal
place in the pantheon of world superstars. The string of historical vignettes
created here to chart his highs and lows is a handy device that throws up an
unholy array of the characters who populated the crooner's turbulent life. It's
the early fifties and Sinatra (Sean Cook) is washed up, dumped by his record
company with not a movie role in sight. In desperation he becomes bagman for
the mafia, taking millions in cash to hoodlum Lucky Luciano (Robin Kirwan),
on the run in Cuba, or using Marilyn Monroe to 'fix things' with sexual-fuelled
President Kennedy. Faust overlays Sinatra's own story and so his Mafia godfather
becomes the Mephistoclean Mr Fixit Momo (Neil Jennings) and the deal is done
for the singer's soul. And there's a lot to be sorted: Sinatra argues with second
wife Ava Gardner (Laura Murray) over the role he wants in the movie From Here
to Eternity (he got it and won an Oscar), he fights indifference to get back
into the concert and recording business, while forced to appear before official
investigations into organised crime. The cast works hard, although David Keller's
direction and AR Cox and Simon Rae's script could be tighter. And just as I
am honour-bound to mention the epithet Ol' Blues Eyes at least once in this
review, I must also mention The Voice. Although Cook captures Sinatra's fifties
era swagger, his admittedly pleasingly rich baritone captures neither the star's
mood nor phrasing that is not helped by an eclectic selection of songs. Nick
Awde
F**ked
Assembly
Penelope Skinner has written a sad little portrait of a young woman whose life
did not turn out anywhere near what she might have hoped, and underlines the
irony by telling the story in reverse order. (I should say at the start that
I have almost never seen this device work, and I don't think Skinner's story
would have been hurt, and might have been helped, by being told in normal chronology.)
We encounter the 20-something played by Becci Gemmell as an unsuccessful pole
dancer reduced to trading sex for drugs and then move backwards a year or two
with each jump to see how she got to that point, ending as the teenager planning
her obligatory loss of virginity on the way to university. What is clear at
each stage is that the character defines herself entirely in relation to her
man of the moment or the one she's carrying a torch for, and that her expectations
are so low - she takes it as a particular honour that her first boyfriend uses
a condom, and accepts another's casual abuse as no more than her due - that
there is no motivation for the men to treat her any better than they do. These
elements, more than the ironic backwards movement, are the core of the story,
and it is to Gemmell's credit that she makes them clear and touching even while
the author's attention seems to be elsewhere. Gerald Berkowitz
Funny
Assembly
Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em talk. In the war against terrorism, a
number of suspects are reported to be resisting our interrogators. Their weapon?
Meditation to blank out psychological and violent techniques. The Ministry of
Defence's solution? To send in the comedians. Purportedly based on fact, this
fast-paced drama looks at a bizarre episode in the theatre of war. Accordingly,
a British Army interrogator tries out comic routines in preparation for questioning
a major suspect who has just been captured in the Middle East. Such is his dedication
that he runs through the A to Z of comedy from corny music hall ('kids blow
up so quickly these days') to the Borscht Belt to in yer face stand-up. He knows
the material is corny but his mentor, a civilian comedy writer, is at hand to
help. The problem is that the mentor knows nothing of the interrogator's motives
and this sparks a deadly chain of confusion as their partnership provokes the
suspicions of another soldier on the interrogation team. Interpreted by this
focused cast along with Katherine Morley's tight direction, Tim Nunn has written
a highly ambitious play that hits most of its objectives and, with a bit of
extra care, wouldn't look out of place on any major theatre stage. What needs
fixing however is the yawning gap in logic where we are asked to believe that
anyone can slip into the military intelligence machine unscreened - this totally
shots in the foot any credibility in the play's climactic conclusion. Nick
Awde
George
in the Dragon's Den Zoo
Southside
In this inventive and ambitious satire, Las Productions takes the legend of
St George and the Dragon and uses a traditional mummer play to transpose it
into our modern today where the monster-slayer ventures into the lair of TV's
venture-capitalist reality show Dragons' Den. Within the den lurks a many-headed
monster whose fiery breath punctuates never-ending financial motormouth musings.
The update is a thoroughly contemporary: St George appears in the guise of an
immigrant Polish workman whose lowly status cannot hide his lofty morality.
Inevitably he encounters the Princess and, at first suspicious of her intentions,
the unlikely knight finally falls for her charms and is cajoled into becoming
a contestant in the Den. There he slowly ropes in the fat cat dragon to his
doom via the commercial allure of an eternal food production device. Told entirely
in verse with entertaining rhymes aplenty, Louise Seyffert and Bart Vanlaere
swap costumes and accents in a show that is in the direct tradition of British
agitprop and Theatre Workshop - the sort that was once the bread and butter
of past festivals but has become lost in our Mammon-obsessed present. So only
one criticism: more songs please. Nick Awde
Rhod
Gilbert and the Cat that Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst
Pleasance
The far from snappy title, Rhod Gilbert and the Cat that Looked Like Nicholas
Lyndhurst takes a long time to explain. It doesn't really matter, but to give
Wales' top comedian credit, he gets there in a satisfying final flourish. Rhod
Gilbert is now a TV star but still obviously relishes his time on the Fringe,
lager as always in hand as he chats but more often rails against the constant
vicissitudes of his life. Gilbert ignores the many highlights of the last year,
exemplified by his presence at Pleasance 1 in front of 400 delighted fans every
night (and fiery argument with the Prince of Wales at the Royal variety show).
His aggressive style works far better in a bigger space and there is no doubt
that the stand-up has hit the big time and deserves it. His topics seem diverse
but determinedly inconsequential. Battles with inanimate objects and those who
sell them are always favourites. This year, he had the misfortune to need a
new washing machine and Hoover, much to the amusement of the audience. His friends
also persuaded the Welshman to try Anger Management and hypnosis but thank goodness,
they fuelled his comedy rather than killing it. And the Cat? If anyone cares,
this was a childhood memory chosen to frustrate a gent in Canterbury. Rhod Gilbert
and the Cat that Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst is by far the best show that
the popular comedian has ever delivered in Edinburgh. If you can't get in, put
the promised DVD on your Christmas list. Philip Fisher
The
Girls of Slender Means Assembly
Muriel Spark's novel and Judith Adams' stage adaptation follow the inhabitants
of a London hotel for women over a few months in 1945. The young women are a
predictable cross-section - the glamourous one, the deep one, the older one,
the overweight drudge, and so on. Generating a plot is the appearance of a Byronic
anarchist-poet, who sleeps with the glamour girl but is most drawn to the poetry-reciting
deep one. Much of the play version is told in flashbacks from a what-happened-later
perspective, and some who didn't know the novel coming in have had trouble following
things. But the shifts in time and place are clearly central to the production's
vision, and the slight disorientation is actually underlined through designer
Merle Hensel's projections and sliding translucent panels, which not only move
us fluidly from one time and place to another, but hint at the paper-thin walls
separating the residents and our own voyeuristic position as observers. Jamie
Lee is appropriately dashing as the hero and Melody Grove coolly enigmatic as
the poetry lover, while Teresa Churcher smoothly carries much of the narrative
burden as the drudge. Gerald Berkowitz
God:
A Comedy by Woody Allen
Pleasance Dome
As the subtitle makes clear, the strongest presence throughout this production
is Woody Allen himself. The one act comedy concerns the struggle of ancient
Greek writer Hepatitis and actor Diabetes to find a suitable ending for their
play. The ensemble - almost all of whom sport Allen's trademark thick-rimmed
glasses, and deliver their lines in usually consistent New York accents - deal
with the madcap intricacies of the piece very well, keeping on top of the constantly
flipping locations and time periods as the play-within-the-play hurtles onwards
toward an undecided end. Dan Pick's direction makes brilliantly versatile use
of a simple set, and the rapid pace keeps the audience on its toes. Much use
is made of planting actors in the audience, and having them unexpectedly join
the action on stage. While on one level very effective, on another this highlights
the main problem with the production. Those actors who emerge from the audience
speak with the same accents as the onstage cast, removing any feeling one may
have had that we are a part of that same audience. Metatheatrical references
to this all taking place in 'some theatre on broadway' are rendered meaningless
by our firm knowledge that this is not at all the case. The production seems
to assume that we are the same audience Allen may have opened to on Broadway
in 1975. Whilst this keeps very true to Allen's brand of humour, a few updated
and production-specific references would have been welcome. The entire cast
are essentially impersonating Allen to varying degrees, and though this serves
to remind us just how good he is, by keeping the production so very 'Woody',
Runaground miss opportunities to localise the comedy and really engage with
the audience. That said, strong performances all round and confident, effective
direction ensure that while Woody Allen's voice and influence may be pervasive,
he certainly isn't the only star of the show. Joseph Ronan
Stefan
Golaszewski is a Widower Traverse
In 2008 Stefan Golaszewski wrote and performed a monologue about a girl he may
have known years ago and the life they might have led. This year he projects
himself into the future, imagining a fictional Stefan in 2056 thinking about
the wife he lost after forty years together. As the widower grieves and relishes
the warm memories, hints creep in - activities not shared, dislike of her friends,
resentment of an old boyfriend - that things were never as rosy as he likes
to believe, or wants us to believe. Sustaining that double vision is the core
of Golaszewski's monologue and, though it occasionally wavers, the portrait
of a cold and bitter man that ultimately emerges is chilling, as when he actually
gets satisfaction from her terminal illness because it means she is completely
dependent on him. Surrounding this central picture are other pleasures, as the
speaker makes casual topical references to what is to us the future, demonstrating
that the author has imagined an entire world around his characters, and as he
creates verbal images of striking beauty or power - recalling the bride's entrance
at their wedding, he says 'Like birds surprised by a gun, everyone stood.' As
a performer Golaszewski does full justice to his writing, maintaining the cheery,
confident image of the public man while guiding us behind the facade to glimpses
of the ugliness beneath. Gerald
Berkowitz
A
Grave Situation Pleasance
This is Young Pleasance's 25th anniversary show. Five grave digging brothers
from Huddersfield find themselves shipped off to Dunkirk where they spend a
week drinking and flirting in a local brothel until they miss their ship home.
The sizable but shabby Pleasance 2 space is transformed into a 1940s England,
perfect down to the last blue-rimmed tea cup and complete with immaculate costumes.
There are some wonderful World War II stereotypes on display - a ruddy-faced,
curly moustachioed colonel and a group of cocky RAF boys in blue. On the downside,
there is not much original about the story and the musical numbers are too few
and far between. Despite this, the energetic cast work incredibly well as an
ensemble, led by the talented five brothers, and creating some wonderful visual
images, in particular a human spitfire from which the brothers skydive to safety.
You can end up enjoying the predictability of a play like this, ignoring the
plot holes and delighting in the ending. Anna Coghlan
Hangover
Zoo
David Elliot's play is given a visceral performance by two strong actors. It
is about moral consciences, the excesses of alcohol, and the damage it can do.
Yet the script gets overly didactic as the piece progresses, and too obviously
signposts its final revelation. Daniel Flynn (David Elliot) wakes to find himself
with an almighty hangover. His dingy post-session bedroom is created onstage,
pictures cut from girly mags on the wall, and a bed centrestage. He is soon
greeted by an aggressive, bullying friend called Hangover (Stuart Nicoll) who
interrogates him about the previous night's drinking. The play is set in Edinburgh
and local references abound, but this character seems to be from another world.
The text is sometimes crude, and because the characters are not as strongly
developed as they could be, unpleasant references to female genitalia and other
things do not feel integrated. The show is rather too one-note in its tone,
and its culmination can be spotted a mile off. That said, Elliot and Nicoll
give sometimes intense performance but the script's clumsy monologues and crude
plotting leave them with a hard task. William McEvoy
Her
Yellow Wallpaper Sweet
ECA
A first person account of patriarchal dominance and the common 19th-Century
diagnosis of hysteria, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story (published in
1892) is excellent material from which to devise theatre. Confined to a room
in a rented house, the protagonist becomes increasingly obsessed by the pattern
and colour of the room's yellow wallpaper. A sense of claustrophobia, from the
room itself and from the society outside the door, is captured well by the five
cast members. But ensemble movement sections are sometimes laboured and are
at their weakest when they attempt to represent directly what is being said.
The sometimes sentimental music evokes the sadness and isolation of the woman
but not her inner turmoil. Key issues from the book - that writing is a release
denied to her, that her husband is (ironically) a physician - are skirted over
and too much attention is paid to the mannered and vapid nature of society ladies
of the period. The central importance of her terrible fascination with the wallpaper
itself is not fully captured in a production with interesting moments and some
good ideas that doesn't quite deliver the full impact or nuanced message of
its source material. Alex Brown
Heyton
on Homicide Spaces at Royal College of Physicians
The wife of a scientifically-minded Victorian criminologist is fascinated by
spiritualism, and when their neighbours seem to become prey to a poltergeist,
solving the mystery becomes a competition between husband and wife, science
and mysticism. Things heat up with one murder, one report of an earlier murder,
and a couple of attempted assaults, and there's an exotic South American plant
involved, and the curse of a murdered witch doctor, and a medium who somehow
knows more than she should, and some hallucinogenic seeds that may be driving
one or more of the characters mad. All the elements are there for a satisfying
Sherlock Holmes-ish mystery melodrama, or even for an ironic parody of the genre,
but in either case it would really have to be a lot more fun than it is in this
fairly stodgy play by J. M. Golder, which can't quite decide whether it is serious
or parody, and also makes the mistake of wrapping everything up neatly, when
a little ambiguity about the solution would have been more satisfying. Although
all involved have professional experience, neither play, direction nor performances
are able to rise above the sweet earnestness of community theatre. Gerald
Berkowitz
Bec
Hill: If You Can Read This, My Cape Fell Off
GBT
What do you get when you cross an IT professional and a librarian? Well, at
least this is how the Australian comedian Bec Hill tries to explain the origins
of her show about superheros, and her inherent geekiness. But, you also get
lots of charm and warmth, harmless fun and - cheese on toast. Aware of her cuteness,
she beams a big dimpled smile all the way through her routine consisting of
regular banter as well as video footage and her very own comic-style paper puppetry.
Unsurprisingly, there is a clear journey through the show taking us through
the four chapters of what makes a superhero, including superpowers, costume,
sidekicks and transport. There is even some interesting internet research resulting
in an inconspicuous bit of trivia for the enthusiasts and some truly hilarious
sidekick audition tapes for the rest of us. And even though I'm not too fond
of the slightly soppy - and slightly sloppy - 'moral to the story' ending of
the show, multi-talented Bec Hill certainly has a glorious future ahead of her
- on stage and off. Duska Radosavljevic
His
Ghostly Heart Pleasance
Ben Schiffer's thirty-minute play, performed entirely in the dark, lets us eavesdrop
on a young couple making love and then engaging in post-coital chat, the only
odd note being her insistence that the lights be kept off. We will soon discover
that this is not what is happening at all, but to explain further would be to
spoil the play's effect. Suffice to say that we will learn the true nature of
the scene and its implications for their lives to come, forcing us to reconsider
and reinterpret all that we've heard so far. Schiffer's conclusion, voiced by
the girl, is somewhat dubious - that the boy is wrong and in some way cowardly
to think of things as happy then or to try to make them happy in retrospect,
rather than to accept failure and its consequences as she does. Audiences are
likely to exit with more sympathy for his position, both theoretical and emotional,
than for her cynicism, though none of that can be blamed on performers James
Rose and Marina Niel, who convincingly create a reality and then deconstruct
it and create another with their voices alone. Gerald
Berkowitz
Hooked
George Square
Every once in a blue moon there pops up an innovative musical that grabs you
by the (metaphorical) balls. And, for all its imperfections, Hooked is one of
those - and I'll get round to that in a sec. But first the action: demure Angel
(Laura Bailey) is a Romanian singer newly arrived in Britain to work in a London
nightclub. The hitch, as hard-nut club manager Parnell (Terence Burns) breezily
informs her, is that it is a lapdancing club. Trapped, Angel has no choice but
to accept the guidance her co-dancers sassy Odette (Manal El-Feitury) and sultry
Monique (Lucy Smethurst). Forbidden romance rears its head when she discovers
a soulmate in troubled client Ben (Jason Langley) whose visits to the club are
at odds with his respectable wife Emma (Jessica Sherman), pressurising him for
the baby she so desperately craves. Sex workers, mid-life crisis, biological
clocks, it will only end in tragedy... or will it? The strength of characterisation
and spot-on dialogue creates a credible contemporary world of dreams and disappointments.
The songs neatly reflect this: the rocky lap dancer opener 'You Can Have It
All', Angel's slow-burner ballad 'You Come Alive', Emma's torch song 'We're
Gonna Find Another Way' and the exquisite 11th-hour trio 'Don't Let Me Down'
where Emma and Angel face up to the confused triangle Ben has wrought. With
gritty plot and glitzy songs from the team of Nick Hale, Matthew James and Max
Kinnings, and impeccably timed direction by Anna Ostergren, Hooked works because
it tackles serious issues without losing the intimate quirks of these very human
protagonists. And for precisely the same reasons it almost fails, since its
scope is so ambitious that it is hard to know whether you are watching a musical
or straightahead drama. So tighten up that script, smooth over the styles and
arrangements of the numbers and give each of these realistic characters a story
(and song) of their own. That should convert this into the theatrical phenomenon
that other productions can only dream of. Oh, and kill to keep the ensemble
- one of the best cast and hard-working I've seen in a long time. Nick Awde
Horse
Underbelly
Following the success of Throat in 2002 and a string of projects on the circus
and physical theatre scene, Flick Ferdinando and John-Paul Zaccarini are back
with a new show. The roles are reversed with Ferdinando performing and Zaccarini
directing, and they appear to swap physical lyricism for slapstick too. This
is a shame because Ferdinando's concept of a single woman's hippophilia potentially
has a lot of mileage, which she repeatedly undermines with unnecessary flippancy.
Good humour and frivolity are all well and good, but sexual innuendo is often
taken to extremes for no obvious reason here and, as a result, the eventual
sublimation of our heroine's love and loneliness comes across as irrelevant
and anti-climactic. There are some interesting visual moments in the show involving
hay bales, a gym horse and a trapeze-saddle - many of them short-lived and too
quickly discarded. Similarly, Fernando's costumes - combining a satin corset
with jodhpurs and stilettos, or a sequined dress emerging from a drinking trough
- are inspired to the point of being a cross between haute couture and art installation.
Overall though, the show trots along rather than ever being capable of a gallop,
and occasionally even loses the rider by the wayside. Duska Radosavljevic
The
Hospitable Venue 45
Queen Mary Theatre Company stage a dark, dramatic piece exploring the consequences
of war for young people left to fend for themselves without parents, friends
and lovers. Unfortunately the young actors, who approach the production with
enthusiasm and emotion, are sold short by Rosalyn Smith's script and direction.
The futuristic, post-civil war setting is intriguing, but the script is bland,
lacking the passion that the actors try so earnestly to inject. There are redeeming
features - quietly nostalgic monologues and vignettes define the contrast between
pre- and post-war life, referring tenderly to memories of families, holidays
and the scent of a mother's perfume. When not speaking, the cast adopt strikingly
captivating poses on a row of chairs upstage, more communicative than moments
of direct address which tend to bombard the audience with expletives. The play's
dramatic peak, where an estranged boyfriend and girlfriend's reunion ends in
tragedy, evokes a more uncomfortable than emotional reaction. Smith's defensive
direction has isolated the audience and the only tears in the room come from
the eyes of the actors, and seem inappropriately melodramatic. Lighting and
sound create an eerie, apocalyptic atmosphere, complementing the acting, which
is intense and generally of a high quality. With a script more sensitive to
the relationship between actor and audience, these young performers would no
doubt have created something far more memorable. Ellen Willis
The
Hotel Assembly
No detail has been spared to make The Hotel a total experience as the guests
are invited proudly by the (mostly) courteous uniformed staff to avail themselves
of its many facilities. Created by Mark Watson and The Invisible Dot, the hotel's
slogan is ÒClassic, Modern, ComfortÓ and takes up an entire New Town building,
festooned with corporate logos, tourism board brochures, fully-staffed restaurant,
well equipped work-out room and even a masseuse. The meditation guru and the
white-walled Kafkaesque admin room appear odd touches at first but you rapidly
realise that the whole set-up is odd as you delve further. Could that inebriated
individual wandering around in a dressing-gown have anything to do with it?
Certainly the guest in the nook under the stairs is a startling discovery (ÒPlease
don't feed him, sir,Ó pleads a hovering bellboy), as is the top guest room,
minus occupant but disturbingly cluttered with the detritus of what is a clearly
wasted and now obsessive life. Picking your way through these private belongings
is strangely voyeuristic. It is an impressive total experience where the seemingly
disparate parts are neatly brought together at the very end. I do, however,
have reservations over the ability of some of the performers to interact with
the audience's unscripted but anticipated questions and attempts at conversation.
Nevertheless, this was more than offset by a wonderfully manic improvised response
by the two nervous job interviewees in the boardroom after an audience member
(I figured he wasn't a plant) suggested a Kylie-Jason sing-off. Nick Awde
Hugh
Hughes in 360 Pleasance
Shon Dale-Jones' alter ego as Hugh Hughes was a total delight when he appeared
out of the Welsh mists two years ago, and just as much fun in his second show
last year. A total naif, Hugh liked to put on shows but wasn't quite sure what
shows were, so he repeatedly violated some conventions while being trapped by
others of his own imagining, explained things that didn't need explaining while
leaving others unexplained, and in general created a delightfully skewed alternative
theatrical universe wholly appropriate to the imaginative tales he was telling.
But Hugh seems to have grown up and mastered his chosen art form, and so, while
he is still as charming, friendly and slightly mad as ever, his new show has
become more conventional in form and thus, well, more ordinary. His monologue
is about friendship - about how, in a dark moment, he returned to a childhood
friend to recreate the warmth and security he remembered from their schooldays,
how that almost didn't work, and how it ultimately did. It is a charming monologue,
sprinkled through with Hugh's askew humour, and perhaps only those who remember
the absolute theatrical magic of the earlier shows will be a bit disappointed.
Gerald
Berkowitz
Icarus
2.0 Pleasance
This group-created play from the Camden People's Theatre attempts to graft the
Icarus myth onto a more realistic and melodramatic story of grief and parental
abduction. Some people found the ambitious vision and theatrical imagery exciting,
but by midway through the Edinburgh run the production and performances had
lost too much precision and coherence to work. We are introduced to a mad scientist
who has cloned a boy designed to develop wings, and is in the process of training
him to be ready to use them once they appear. It would be wrong to add too much
more, but suffice to say that we eventually learn that everything in that previous
sentence is incorrect. But the mystification is maintained far too long and,
unless they skipped a page of the script near the end, far too much is left
unexplained for the conclusion to be satisfying. Meanwhile, if the two performers,
Sebastien Lawson and Jamie Wood, had developed characterisations and a chemistry
between them at the start of the run, it had all disappeared by the time I saw
the show. Neither made me really understand or believe in his character, especially
as the plot twists developed, and a series of tightly choreographed sequences
of training and medical measurements had lost all their snap. The show may once
have had charm, and if director Matt Ball cracks the whip it may regain it,
but everyone involved let the level drop too far for me to give them the benefit
of the doubt. Gerald Berkowitz
If
That's All There Is Traverse
A couple planning to marry hit a wall of last-minute panic. He consults a bored
heard-it-all-before shrink and prepares multi-volume power point presentations
on his fiancee's good and bad points. She daydreams the day away at work, oblivious
to anything around her, or wanders the streets imagining apocalyptic scenarios
that might forestall the event. He takes lessons in feeling and expressing emotion
while she buries her face in a chopped onion to try to release the tears. They
carefully plan out a moment of spontaneous passion that inevitably fails, and
can't even make it through a rehearsal of their first dance without panicking.
All this is shown with impressive theatrical inventiveness and high spirits
by the three writer-performers of Inspector Sands, Lucinka Eisler, Giulia Innocenti
and Ben Lewis. And yet one can't escape a sense of overkill, of immense creative
energy devoted to insights and theatrical effects that don't require, or warrant,
all that work. Because if you take away the razzmatazz this is just standard
rom-com sitcom stuff, and might just as well star Jennifer Aniston. Gerald
Berkowitz
Il
Ritorno d'Ulisse King's Theatre
The combined appeal of Monteverdi's late masterpiece and the South African Handspring
Puppet company of the War Horse fame was bound to draw in a diverse audience
for this sell out run. William Kentridge, the director, animator and set designer
of the piece certainly offers a truly synaesthetic experience in return. A warmly
lit seven piece string orchestra - featuring viola da gamba, a harp as well
as the bass, guitar and some period instruments - are positioned centre stage
so to envelop the unfolding action. Meanwhile, the singers dressed in elegant
but simple evening wear help to manipulate the puppets to whom they lend their
voices. All of this is frequently accompanied by animation and film footage
mixing internal bodyscapes with urban settings and mythical landscapes in such
a way where ultra-sound scans sometimes serve as a background to some shadow
puppetry too. Although the puppets' eyes sparkle seductively in the glare of
the footlights, the piece seems to be a far more restrained achievement than
the Handspring's London show. This might be partly because Kentridge's concept
revolves around a hospital bed-bound Ulisse, whose return is ostensibly from
an operating theatre. Although the singers create some magnificent performances
to breathe life into their characters - Romina Basso's birdlike rendition of
tormented Penelope is particularly memorable - there is very little action here
until the decisive contest of the final act. This keeps the overall experience
closer to a beguiling concert with frills, than an operatic extravaganza we
might have expected. Duska Radosavljevic
The
Importance of Muffins
Spaces at Royal College of Surgeons
Just like the irreverently silly title, The Importance of Muffins is a witty
and entertaining show, guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Without descending
into preachiness, the play critiques the safe, cosseted and dull existence of
many contemporary Westerners. It observes the absurdly cautious and self-disciplined
lifestyle of a young businessman as he works in the executive lounge of a Transcomfort
International Express Hotel (complete with requisite basket of complimentary
mini muffins). After a rather average opening, the show really takes off with
an exciting revelation half way through and the arrival of Freddie Bowen to
provide a slick, animated and very amusing performance as the celestial 'Manager'.
Although Roberta Bellekom's performance as 'The Girl' fails to capture convincingly
the caprice of her troubled character, Conor Clarke's portrayal of 'The Man'
makes him an engaging and sympathetic character. Jenny Andrew's script, despite
treading some well-worn themes, is original, intelligent and highly humorous.
It takes a droll and impressively blunt U-turn when it looks to be heading for
a rather trite happy ending. A funny and enjoyable show which occasionally lacks
polish but is well worth watching. Lana Harper
The
Improverts Bedlam
I didn't laugh once during this whole hour-long performance. The five Edinburgh
University performers guide the audience through a series of twelve games. Each
of these confronts us with boring situations, awkward interactions - which constantly
fail to evolve into anything even mildly funny - and unimaginative story lines.
Even the inevitable heckling is badly dealt with. Instead of feeding off the
shouting that punctuates the show, and thereby showing their audience that they
deserve their place on the stage, the Improverts seem to go to an impressive
amount of trouble to pretend not to notice any of it. Luckily, the audience
is saved from total boredom by the odd one-liner - mainly coming from Martin
Heavens - that makes you smile just enough to remind you that you still knew
how to. As with Christmas, it is inevitable that the Improverts' show will be
back, and as with Christmas, I can only hope it will be better next year.
Simon Englert
In
A Thousand Pieces Pleasance
(Reviewed at a previous Festival)
The subject is the trafficking, exploitation and abuse of women in the sex trade.
The company is The Paper Birds, committed to a fluid style that incorporates
dance, music and mime with the spoken word. The result is a frequently evocative,
sometimes harrowing and sometimes ineffective picture of those unfortunates
drawn to Britain by hopes of opportunity and a new life, only to be brutalised
and forced into prostitution. The show opens on a light note, as the three performers
- Elle Moreton, Jemma McDonnell and Kylie Walsh - read from file cards the words
of young women planning trips to Britain, about what they imagine it to be like
and what they hope to do there, and then mime and dance the wonder of arrival.
But then, as recordings give us the words of the women picked up by the traffickers
and repeatedly raped and beaten into submission, the actresses reflect the story
in mime and dance. At its best, this mode, while not graphic, does capture the
horror of the experience. But at least some of the time it is either too literal
to add much to the recorded accounts or, conversely, too distanced from what
is being described to resonate with it. Some of the strongest moments have little
to do with the company's performance style - a film showing Brits trying to
draw a map of Europe, demonstrating how unaware of the world outside they are,
and the simple adding up of the number of rapes the typical victim endures in
a year. Gerald Berkowitz
The
Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church
Traverse
On a virtually bare stage, without the elaborate sets that accompanied his most
recent experiments in storytelling, Daniel Kitson weaves a tale so textured
and so fully imagined that many in the audience (and half the reviewers so far)
will be convinced was a true story. He tells of finding more than twenty years'
worth of a dead man's correspondence and of reading it all, recreating a sense
of the man and his life. The hook is that the first few letters in the pile
were suicide notes, but the suicide was delayed enough (and the postal service
efficient enough) that he actually got replies to some before he got around
to killing himself, and so felt the need to reply to the replies, and then to
react to the response he got to those letters, forgetting about the suicide
as he renewed or began relationships and a richer social life than he had known
before. As Kitson reads from selected letters, dating them precisely and cross
referencing them to others in the collection, we trace a constant friendship
with one writer, an ongoing argument with another, a relationship with a third
that changes with the years - and have to keep reminding ourselves that this
is all fiction, so fully does Kitson imagine the man and his world. As a performer,
Kitson is more relaxed and engaging than he has been in recent shows, creating
an informality and rapport with the audience that contribute to the complete
believability of his tale. Gerald
Berkowitz
Internal
Traverse
I knew it wasn't a real date but still I found myself declining the pungent
curry lunch in the hour before presenting myself at speed-dating masterpiece
Internal. I also made sure I had enough deodorantÉ oh, wait a minute, that should
be the actor's responsibilityÉ hang on, I am the actor. And so I am. And these
are the rules: five audience members meet five (attractive) performers and dive
immediately into a speed-dating and group therapy session. One guest is going
to get a psychological surprise. That much I can reveal, the rest is up to you.
The show's outcome depends on how you respond to your date partner and how much
you can (or want to) give away about yourself in half an hour. I suppose the
worst people to invite are critics (and stalkers) since you need to have to
have a relaxed, open mind to step into Ontroerend Goed's daring total experience.
It's a compact encounter at 25 minutes but how many shows can you name that
guarantee one-to-one attention throughout? And remember to include the time
spent in the street afterwards, chatting with your other co-audience members
and comparing experiences - the vital, unscheduled second part of a remarkable
show that blurs reality and fantasy and breaks down all four walls of theatre.
Nick Awde
Jane
Austen's Guide to Pornography Zoo Southside
Billed as Australia's longest running gay theatre company, Out Cast theatre
is by no means restricted to its chosen niche market. On the other hand, the
current show may not be every Austen-enthusiast's cup of tea either. However,
Steve Dawson's play about an imaginary encounter between the 'pornographic playwright'
Brett and the 18th century author of most beloved romantic English prose will
reach a good deal of theatre-goers in between the two extremes. As Austen battles
to finish her very last story before her death, and Brett is struggling to overcome
a writer's block, both authors are desperate to surpass their own limitations
when it comes to writing love scenes. Their characters, being developed before
us, gradually begin to receive each other's treatment - even though the pair's
duel is not exactly a bed of roses. The main charm of this piece is contained
in the very exercise of literary cross-fertalisation between regency-style elegance
and the language of the gutter, which is generously seasoned with hilarious
and timely one-liners. I also liked Nathan Butler's effortlessly delicate portrayal
of Jane, who I'm sure will appeal to the widest possible cross-section of the
audience too. Duska Radosavljevic
Janis
Gilded Balloon
Born 1943, died 1970. Age 27. Pioneering female singer in the testosterone-fuelled
world of sixties rock. Fatal casualty of that same world. That was Janis Joplin.
Her legacy is still celebrated and Nicola Haydn's one-woman show gives a fascinating
if lurid insight into the private and public personas that created a legend.
Plain, dumpy, acne-scarred, insecure, Joplin was an unlikely star. On the eve
of her death from an overdose in an LA hotel, she describes her escape from
Port Arthur Texas, wild years in San Francisco before moving on to front Big
Brother and the Holding Company, where she found fame and more thanks to vigorous
heroin use by band members. In fact, all her adult life Joplin would take any
substance on offer - the more illicit the better - and seemingly ball anyone
who took her fancy. Alternately dippy and hardnosed, Janis reveals how her trademark
traits, born out of rebellion against the tedium of the small town values she
grew up with, became her undoing as she evolved into a full-time junkie. While
Haydn's bubbly script could find more light and shade in what amounts to a straight-ahead
biopic format, she shines as the troubled rock diva. Wearing a feather boa a
la Pearl - Joplin's posthumous bestselling album - in both speech and song Haydn
nails that boozy, deliciously rasping voice and infectious cackle. No mere mimic,
she captures Joplin's edgy confidence, in the process allowing us to share some
of that magical charisma. Nick Awde
Simon
Jenkins Plus One Laughing
Horse at the Counting House
Part of the Free Fringe, young comic Simon Jenkins opens with the usual 'Where
are you from?' chat with the audience, before passing the mike to guest Matt
Brown, who does fifteen minutes or so before Jenkins' main turn. Between them,
the show runs barely a half-hour. Both comics are personable but clearly beginners,
each telling a string of essentially unrelated jokes, with no continuity or
transitions and, partly as a result, each having to rely on notes to remind
themselves of the running order. Brown actually hands his notebook to someone
in the front row, to prompt him and grade the jokes, and Jenkins ends the show
by reading a poem he hasn't gotten around to learning yet. Though Brown affects
a hearty drinking-buddy persona and Jenkins is more laid-back, neither has developed
a real identity or style of delivery, and so the random selection of stories,
about flatmates, dating problems or the differences between Glasgow and Edinburgh,
are strictly generic. Jenkins is marginally the stronger of the two, if only
because he loses his place less often and screws up fewer punch lines. Gerald
Berkowitz
Pete
Johansson Underbelly
Comedian Pete Johansson is in his thirties and has discovered that's different
from being in his twenties. He is married, and has realised that's different
from being single. Other discoveries include the fact that pregnant women go
a bit bonkers, that being a bit out of shape at the gym can be embarrassing,
that some of the women he dated when he was single were a bit strange, that
men have difficulty understanding women, that size-0 fashion models are not
most men's idea of beauty or sexiness, that it is dangerous to answer any question
a woman asks about how she looks, that men and women have different arguing
strategies, and that in fact men and women are different in a lot of ways, including
their attitudes toward anal sex. In short, he is a thoroughly generic comic
with thoroughly generic material and, while some of his jokes work and he is
amiable enough, there is nothing in his act to make him stand out from dozens
of other thoroughly generic comics with thoroughly generic material. Gerald
Berkowitz
Jumpers
Sweet ECA
Focusing on the mentality and motivations of those who commit suicide by jumping
from the Golden Gate Bridge, 'Jumpers' fails to effectively pull off this difficult
theme. The central story of two women - one a tourist, the other intending to
commit suicide - is scripted rather predictably and too often tends towards
cliché. While both
leads demonstrate fair acting ability there is no opportunity to engage or empathise
with them. This is perhaps due to the brevity of the scripted character interaction
and development, which is frequently interrupted by scenes with masked mimes.
The mimed sections - designed to illumine issues raised in the plot - are not
objectionable in themselves. The very slight interaction between the realistic
characters and the mimes works surprisingly nicely, lending a cohesiveness to
the piece, and acknowledging its abstract style. The most effective moments
of the play are created physically, particularly the tableau of the bridge,
represented by a long piece of material held at intervals to create its iconic
shape, and a single piece of rope held in front. Nonetheless, the mimes still
lack the precision of movement required to make them wholly engaging and, like
the rest of the production, remain unpolished. Lana Harper
Russell
Kane's Fakespeare Pleasance
Comedian Russell Kane set himself the challenge of writing a modern comedy in
cod-Shakespearean style, and the result is pretty much a technical success though
somewhat more hit-and-miss as an hour's entertainment. As a writer, he's got
the rhythm and rhymed couplets down, and a few sprinkled 'thees' and 'thous',
along with nice coinages like a suicidal 'self-toppage' catch the cod-Elizabethan
flavour. For the pedant, a nice touch is his take on Shakespeare's signature
extended similes, with something described as being 'as disrupted as a Ryan
Air passenger with moderately heavy luggage,' while a suggestion is dismissed
as 'less likely than Jim Davidson in a burka'. As those examples suggest, much
of Kane's comedy depends on name checks, with the audience laughing pavlovianly
to every mention of Piers Morgan, Jeremy Kyle, Ant and Dec or Howard from the
Halifax. The plot has something to do with a disgraced banker given the opportunity
to regain his fortune by destroying an African country's economy, and the only
surprise is that he hesitates. Sadie Hasler provides some comedy as his loyal
secretary-mistress, though Kane himself seems more at home in the non-Shakespearean
warm-up sequence. Gerald Berkowitz
Kataklo
- Love Machines Assembly
Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical and anatomical drawing studies serve as remote
inspiration for Kataklo's new show. Not that you'd be able to guess by looking
at the ensemble's flourescent costumes, pointless swimming caps and plastic
feet, or indeed the set consisting of what looks like six moving sails. To make
matters worse this is all accompanied by some mind-numbing electronic music
and mostly disappointing choreographies. Much as you may try to attribute some
semblance of meaning to this display of vacuity, you'll be repeatedly defeated
by the spectacle's persistent refusal to yield any coherence. At times it looks
like the piece might be about the difficulties in communication between men
and women - but I am not entirely sure that the eight creatures on the stage
are indeed envisaged as representatives of the homo sapiens species. This is
not helped by the fact that the two main protagonists at first descend onto
the stage from a hanging saddle, only to find that by the end of this hour of
'transformation' - there is no going back. I can only say that Leonardo is bound
to be turning in his grave. Duska Radosavljevic
Shappi
Khorsandi Pleasance
The core of Shappi Khorsandi's show is how ill-equipped she is to be a political
activist or even commentator, a role the press and TV keep trying to cast her
in, since she's one of the two British Iranian women they've heard of. Her problem
is that she either comes at causes from the wrong angle or keeps wandering off
the point. Reading Anne Frank's diary as a teenager, all she could think of
was what a fourteen-year-old boy's diary might have included. Joining a protest
march, she gets lost in the syntax of the chanting, and she can't help feeling
that a party with the words National and British in its name must be a good
thing. But it is quite likely that Khorsandi will not get all the way through
her prepared material on any given night, so happy is she to be diverted into
spontaneous digressions and byways of thought. She is particularly adept at
working off the audience, on this occasion developing profitably comic lines
of thought and even running jokes off the presence of a couple of pre-teens
and their half-Iranian mother. Gerald Berkowitz
Killing
Alan Underbelly
In the medieval epic Sir Gawain And The Green Knight the hero must undergo a
quest within a quest within a quest - to keep a potentially fatal appointment,
to live up to a symbolic bargain along the way, and to discover the legitimacy
of his claim to honour through the other two. Failing the second threatens the
first, but the sobering and maturing experience leads to success in the last.
Playwright Phil King has translated that into modern terms, with Alan a shallow
prince of the City who must learn whether he is capable of commitment to anything
deeper than instant gratifications. But King follows the plot of the original
too closely, and most of its elements, including the framing challenge and a
surprise revelation of a key character's identity, aren't believable in the
modern context. Exactly what self-discovery Alan is striving for is never clear,
nor is how his adventure takes him toward it. An expressionistic nightmare sequence
and the occasional appearance of puppets clash unfruitfully with the rest of
the play, and we are too often told the meanings of events rather than having
them dramatised. The cast directed by Simon Pittman and led by Peter Stickney
as Alan strive earnestly to make clear and dramatic what is too often static
and opaque. Gerald
Berkowitz
King
Arthur New Town Theatre
When it comes to epic verse drama, what we usually get nowadays is a struggle
of contemporary theatre makers to make it all accessible to today's audiences
through considered and exciting design and performance choices. Contemporary
writer Lucy Nordberg presents herself with the opposite type of challenge by
choosing to render the legend of the liberal Christian ruler King Arthur into
a 'renaissance' mode. Illicit love, courtly intrigue and a rustic play within
the play are all harnessed here in the interest of exploring the theme of kingly
hubris, and Nordberg's wordy script is duly set by director Andy Corelli on
a decidedly stylish contemporary stage. Many playwrights and poets have succumbed
to the challenge of rewriting classical themes, texts and characters and giving
them a deeper, more playable, more contemporary voice. However, they often had
a formal reason that was more significant than just being an imitative exercise
in style. Nordberg's iambic pentameter play does not appear to carry any such
reason at all, but at least her exercise achieves an adequate imitation. Duska
Radosavljevic
King
of the Gypsies Pleasance
Pauline Lynch's monologue play is based on interviews, and verbatim excerpts
in various voices are heard throughout, almost like inter-scene music. But the
bulk is an invented monologue by actor Paul McCleary, not as king of the gypsies
but as an ordinary modern member of the tribe who intermittently channels ancient
voices or racial memories. Those sections are the weakest, as the little information
they give, such as the theory that the Romani were originally natives of India
enslaved by the Turks, is not especially important to the play, and they do
not successfully evoke either mysticism, poetry or a sense of cultural history.
Somewhat more successful are the speaker's own stories, from his amiable telling
of the legend that the Romani are cursed because it was a Gypsy who made the
nails for the Crucifixion to a schoolroom sequence in which the child's innocent
questions betray the teacher's - and, by extension, the whole larger society's
- complete ignorance of Romani history. But the strongest effect of the monologue
lies in the total ordinary guy-ness of the speaker, communicating better than
anything he says that modern Gypsies are just people trying to get along. Gerald
Berkowitz
King
Ubu Zoo
At just 50 minutes long, UCLU Runaground's is a heavily edited version of absurdist
Alfred Jarry's controversial Ubu Roi, but a highly successful one nonetheless.
Brilliantly adapted from the original by Luke Davies - who also directs - the
script keeps the plot essentials, throws in modern references, then frames the
whole thing with twisted vaudeville. Telling of the rise and fall of the eponymous
character and his wife - played superbly by Evan Milton and Hannah Berry- this
production gives the ridiculous a hearty embrace. The gallery of bizarre grotesques
parade before us in what is a highly charged and highly amusing piece of absurdity
that condenses and updates a classic, making it fresh, exciting, and most importantly,
brilliantly funny. The staging is simple but effective - it never tries to do
more than is necessary. Likewise with the performances; there is little room
here for serious character development, but the cast present the story in a
highly engaging and entertaining fashion very much in keeping with the exaggerated
absurdity of the original. One leaves the theatre with the very strong feeling
that here is a production that really understands what and why it is, and that
delivers precisely its intended result. Joseph Ronan
Kit
and the Widow Edinburgh Academy
The veteran cabaret duo have been playing the Festival for almost 30 years,
and continue to produce an hour of guaranteed pleasure for those who like their
entertainment witty, musical and ever-so-mildly risque. As always, Kit Hesketh-Harvey
does most of the singing while Richard Sisson plays the piano to self-penned
comic songs ranging from the topical - a calypso number about Obama - through
the not-so-topical - a mock Schubert lieder about cosmetic surgery. There's
a jolly song about economic doom and gloom, a sweet one about the end of an
affair, and a salute to TV competition winner Susan Boyle that manages to rhyme
'Les Miserables' with 'lost my marbles.' This year's show is a little lighter
on political satire than recent years, which is fine with me, as I and most
of their fans would much rather hear them sing songs like 'Get a Room', '27
Reasons to be Gay', and their unique take on 'Scotland the Brave'. This is hardly
cutting-edge stuff, and the K&W audience is notably older and more settled-looking
than the typical fringe house - Kit calls them the Edinbourgoisie - but only
Fascinating Aida come close to the urbane wit and polish of this always-reliable
pair. Gerald Berkowitz
Knuckleball
St George's West
In baseball a knuckleball is an unpredictable
pitch designed to rattle a batter. One of the characters in William Whitehurst's
two-hander is a working-class guy whose days of glory with a best buddy on the
high school baseball team are behind him, and who can't believe his luck in
catching the beautiful, sexy, high-class girl who loves him. But the girl has
a couple of secrets that are going to be the emotional equivalents of a knuckleball.
The play footnotes Terrence McNally's Frankie and Johnny, Ed Graczyk's Come
Back To The Five And Dime and Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof on its
way to finding its own voice and focus. The fact that the big revelations are
telegraphed so long in advance that we can't be as rattled as the guy is doesn't
weaken it as much as you might fear, because it isn't about the surprises but
about what happens to both characters, and to their relationship, once the secrets
are out. Judy Merrick and Bryan Kaplan convincingly play two people attempting
to deal with thoughts and emotions they've never had to exercise before, and
as extremely unlikely as their situation is, they create and sustain a reality
that makes you believe and care about their struggle to find a way toward an
ending. Gerald Berkowitz
Lady
Bug Warrior Spaces@ The
Royal College of Physicians
More of an inspirational talk on a children's theatre set than a conventional
stand up comedy, Vicky Ferentino's show is certainly one of a kind. Not least
because she is doing it so to tick it off her to do list. She personally greets
everyone on their way in and out of her quirky world in which she is the superhero
named Lady Bug Warrior and whose mission it is to ensure some common courtesy
in this world, as well not taking things personally and telling the truth to
herself. There are real pearls of wisdom here mixed in with some crafty punchlines
and lots of character sketches. Often they are the kind of portrayals done in
child's hand - good natured but revealing, and she doesn't shy away from some
dark undertones either. In any case, one can't help but admire her as she shares
her tale of rescuing her self esteem from the pits of loveless, hopeless suburbia
and going off to New York to find her own voice. And there's nothing mind-blowing
about it - it is just a simple feel good heroic piece.Duska Radosavljevic
Land
Without Words Caves
In Dea Loher's monologue play an artist already suffering from a creative block
and crisis of confidence goes to Kabul, where the horrors, particularly the
sight of one badly wounded child, paralyse her creativity even further - and
have you spotted the problems already? First of all, the two halves of the text
don't hang together logically - you don't have to be an artist to be horrified
by war, and you don't need war to create artistic self-doubt. Indeed, I'm not
even sure the script ever explains why the speaker went to Kabul (My mind may
have wandered for a few seconds), so the connection between the two seems arbitrary
rather than organic. And remember that wounded child? The whole focus of her
description is not the horror of war, but the emotional pain of the artist on
seeing her, and that is patronising at best and offensive at worst. There is
some interest in the first half of the monologue, as the artist explains how
each style and approach to her art proved disappointing, but even there the
play has a structural problem. The internal logic of the plot requires the artist
either to return from Kabul ready to create a masterpiece or driven to suicidal
despair, but all Loher gives us is despair-once-removed in the mention of another
artist (not named in the play, though the programme says it's Mark Rothko) who
did kill himself when he reached an artistic dead end. As the speaker Lucy Ellinson
writhes around a lot to indicate internal agonies, and covers her face in clay,
sand, dirty water and anything else she has lying around, to show self-abasement.
Gerald Berkowitz
Last
Night Things Happened... Underbelly
This play tells the story of a boy's journey home and his encounter with numerous
captivating characters, each with their own touching and hilarious story. There
is an air of fantasy and the absurd, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, except
that it is a darker rendering of Lewis Carroll's celebrated tale. SUDS exercise
an imaginative approach to costume. A large piece of cloth, for example, hangs
over an umbrella to create the illusion of a larger-than-life obese man, played
with gusto by Beth Cannon. The piece, written by Chris Harrisson and directed
by Alex Sayer, is visually enchanting, thanks to its vibrant physicality and
sometimes disturbing imagery. Definitely worth seeing, if only to witness the
actors transform themselves into the many weird and wonderful characters. In
particular, Mildred (Lily Pollard) and Mitch (Sam Caseley) - a couple who have
been fused together by lightning - whose constant bickering and maddening behaviour
suggest the influence of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. There are moments in the
play which had me speechless with laughter, particularly the 'mime' who is imprisoned
for 'silent anarchy'. Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable experience, which has
the audience engrossed from start to finish. Sophie Robins
The
Last Witch Royal Lyceum
Theatre
Rona Munro's speculations on the half-legendary story of the last woman to be
burned as a witch in Scotland unsurprisingly gives a twenty-first century colour
to the eighteenth-century events. She imagines Janet Horne as a woman with an
almost Falsaffian love of life, and the imagination to believe that magic would
be possible if she only knew the words, or at least that it is fun to believe
it might. Her vitality gives her an authority that makes the villagers half-believe
in her, and that, along with his fear of her sexual energy, is enough to move
the ambitious new sheriff to push through a prosecution, conviction and execution.
So, while Munro does leave the door slightly ajar for supernatural and demonic
forces to be at work, the play becomes about the clash between a large woman
and a small world frightened by her. This puts a lot of weight on actors Kathryn
Howden as Janet and Andy Clark as the sheriff. Howden strides the stage with
a natural energy and authority that are as theatrically appealing as they are
clearly life-affirming and not demonic, and even in the prosecution and torture
scenes it is Janet who clearly holds the power. Clark turns what could be a
stock villain into a small man frightened by the passion the witch inspires
in him and fighting to repress that as much as to prosecute her. Strong support
comes from Hannah Donaldson as the witch's daughter, who may ironically be pushed
toward her own Satanic pact by her mother's fate, and by Vicki Liddelle as a
particularly brave neighbour. Gerald Berkowitz
Andrew
Lawrence Pleasance Dome
Andrew Lawrence is a miserable git. That's his stock in trade, complaining about
just about everything. He hates critics, shop clerks, policemen, waiters, cheese,
Coldplay, Gordon Ramsay, anyone ahead of him in a queue, the latest Star Trek
film and anyone who likes it, and sometimes even his girlfriend. What carries
the hour is the sheer force and eloquence of his invective, as any one of these
topics is likely to set off a motormouth string of excoriating adjectives gradually
building in violence and obscenity and more likely than not to end with the
word vagina or one of its shorter synonyms. The sheer eloquence and invention
of these rants is awe-inspiring, and if they're not always exactly what you
could call funny, they generate an exhilaration closely akin to pleasure. Even
when Lawrence is being relatively calm and unruffled, a seemingly innocent sentence
is likely to take a surprisingly grotesque or obscene turn, and his repeated
assertion that he doesn't particularly care whether we laugh only encourages
further naughty delight and laughter. On the other hand, those who have seen
Lawrence in past years will recognise some stories and rants being recycled
from earlier shows, and it may be time to retire the older material. Gerald
Berkowitz
Micaela
Leon - Kabaret Berlin C
German chanteuse Micaela Leon dedicates her current act to eight of what she
calls Weimar Girls, heroines in various ways of 1920s Berlin culture. The list
is eclectic, ranging from Marlene Dietrich to revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg,
each introduced with some background, a moment in character and a song from
the period appropriate to the individual image, though little attempt is made
to imitate the styles of the performers in the group. The spoken sequences are
the weakest parts of the hour, much of what is said, including the names themselves,
lost in Leon's accent and the impersonations are generally poor. The songs,
ranging from the trivial to the dramatic, are stronger, and Leon might profitably
discard the concept in favour of a simple recital. Appropriately, her singing
is strongest in the best-written songs, including the Eisler-Brecht Supply and
Demand, the Hollander Liar Liar and the Weill-Brecht Threepenny Opera finale.
Though performing in a small space with a single muted piano accompaniment,
Leon is miked in a manner that exaggerates her occasional shrillness and produces
the disorienting effect of the singer being over here while her voice comes
from somewhere over there. Gerald
Berkowitz
Lilly
Through The Dark Bedlam
This offering from the young River People is part live performance, part puppetry,
part story theatre, and almost uninterruptedly touching and delightful. Its
dark fairy tale is about a girl so saddened by her father's death that she chooses
to die to be with him. But the journey to death passes through a kind of limbo
where she literally jumps ship to search for her father, meeting instead a string
of comic, threatening and comforting figures who guide her toward a decision
of whether to go forward or back. Lilly is a small puppet, with the four live
performers taking turns narrating, operating her and playing the other characters,
who include the impatient ferryman, a girl lost in limbo, a tree that takes
away memories, and the moon who rules over all. I think that quite young children
could understand this story and even explain Lilly's decision to their parents,
and I know that children and adults would both respond to the story's delicate
beauty, the skill and invention of the telling, and the moments of pure theatrical
magic. Gerald
Berkowitz
Little
Gem Traverse
There's enough plot in Elaine Murphy's portrait of three Dublin women to carry
a soap opera through an entire season, but what dominates the play is not the
over-abundance of melodramatic incident (some of which we might have lived without)
but a growing admiration and empathy for characters stronger than they themselves
realise. Grandma Kay is tending her dying husband and considering her first
vibrator; mother Lorraine, who hasn't felt human contact since she threw her
junkie husband out years ago, puts a tentative toe into the dating pool; and
young Amber is up the duff by a guy inconveniently off to Australia. In the
course of a year or so there will be a birth and a death and a new suitor for
Lorraine, and each of the women will prove more adaptable and resilient and
capable of happiness than they might have guessed, and we will have been carried
along on their emotional journeys. The play is structured as interlocking monologues,
with none of the actresses ever interacting with each other, but Sara Greene
(Amber), Hilda Fay (Lorraine) and especially Anita Reeves as Kay create a reality
and draw us into it, guiding us to see their world and engage fully with their
emotional adventure. Gerald
Berkowitz
The
Lost Letters of Mr. Corrigan
Quaker Meeting House
The Newbury Youth Theatre has produced a wonderful show for this year's Fringe.
Amongst a beautifully crafted set - dozens of mounted letterboxes, walls with
yellowing maps, a floor carpeted with letters and piles of old mouldering boxes
- the imaginings of a tired, lonely clerk are brought to life on stage. Mr.
Corrigan reads undelivered letters, hoping to restore them to their rightful
owners, or failing that, to the person who would benefit most from receiving
them. Directed with imagination and pathos, the show reminds us of the romance
of writing and receiving letters. The sizeable cast all deliver committed and
skilled performances with professionalism, energy and exuberant dedication.
The performance also has a live musical accompaniment, adding a cinematic feel
to the scenes forming in the mind of Mr. Corrigan. With charming characterisation
and effective touches of physical theatre, this is one of the best pieces of
youth theatre I have seen in a long time. Oliver Kassman
Love
Letters on Blue Paper Spaces
at the Radison
Arnold Wesker's very minor play might have the potential of being a quietly
moving study in the ways British reticence and emotional closedness are subverted
by true feelings, but it would require a more skillful production than this
attempt by the Up In Smoke Theatre, which just underlines all the script's weaknesses.
Wesker imagines a dying old man whose wife can only communicate her feelings
through letters, even though they're in the same house, letters that he not
only does not acknowledge, but shows to a friend. So dying man and friend talk
about dying but not about the letters, man and wife are rarely in the same room,
wife and friend barely notice each other, and the wife is heard mainly in recorded
voiceovers of her letters. At best, the play comes across at a heavy-handed
attempt at pathos and irony, and the production has all the earmarks, including
uneven acting and discrepancies in the apparent ages of the performers, of well-meaning
amateur theatricals. Gerald
Berkowitz
Go to second - M-Z - Edinburgh 2009 page.
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(Some of these reviews appeared first in The Stage.)
Reviews - Edinburgh Festival - 2009