Theatreguide.London
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The Theatreguide.London 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 Edinburgh 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
another page and M-Z here.
Scroll down this page for our reviews of Man Made - Manolibera - Matinee - Max and Ivan - Alistair McGowan - Meesterlijk - Memento Mori - Metamorphosis - Me Too - Michael Clark Dance Company - Midsummer - Patrick Monahan - Monday - Mong Yeon - Montana Ranch - Justin Moorhouse - Morecambe - Mother/Son - Murder Mystery Musical - My Grandfather's Great War - My Life With The Dogs - My Mind's Eye - My Name Is Sue - Myriad -
Normality - David O'Doherty - Odyssey - Oh My Green Soapbox - The One and the Many - Andrew O'Neill - Ophelia (Drowning) - Optimism - The Origin of Species - Origins - Orphans - Out of Chaos - Oxford Revue -
Palace of the End - Pan Pa'Tim - Parents Evening - Party - The Penny Dreadfuls - Philberto - Plagiarismo! - The Play About Charlotte - Play On Words - Precious Little Talent - Matt Price - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Private Peaceful - Pullman Car Hiawatha - Pythonesque - Randy's Postcards From Purgatory - Re___ - RealiTV - Regret Me Not - Rich Hall's Campfire Stories - Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes - Rogue Males -
Scaramouche Jones - The School for Scandal - Screwloose - Sea Wall - Selective Hearing - Serate Bastarde - The Shade Ain't Right - Shakespeare for Breakfast - Show Down - Shed Simove - 6.0 - Slave Trader - The Sociable Plover - The Sound of My Voice - Stalag Happy - The State We're In - Stitches - A Stroke of Genius - Success Story - Super Situation - Sweeney Todd - Sweet -
Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies - This Mortal Coil - Three Women - Tim - Time Out of Joint - Timeshare - The Ultimately Doomed Life of Charlie Cumcup - Unit 46 - Up - Ava Vidal - The Virginia Monologues -
Felicity Ward - Ward No. 6 - Weepie - We Made a Funny - Why Do All Catherines Call Themselves Kate? - The Wind in the Willows - Wolfboy - Glenn Wool - Words of Honour - The World's Wife - Tom Wrigglesworth - The Yellow Wallpaper - Your Number's Up - Zeitgeist - Zemblanity - Zoo Lodge
Man
Made: 1,2,3 C
The Midlands-based co-operative of artists, On the Verge, is presenting
three physical theatre and dance pieces across three weeks of the
festival, all themed on the idea of humans coming to terms with man-made
existence. The week I caught up with the company - unaware of their
changing repertoire - they were running Man-Made 2, dealing with
masculinity. At times a bit too consciously influenced by DV8, the
nine-strong ensemble, dressed in blue workers' overalls, offered up a
repertoire of rituals, games and insecurities contained within the world
of man-to-man interaction. Physically, this allows for a warm up routine
consisting of press ups, jumps and lifts as well as some rough and
tumble to be woven into the opening minutes of the testosterone-driven
show. Inevitably an arm wrestle as well as some competitive games and
more serious confrontations will grow out of this particular set up.
Graham Ireland's piece, co-choreographed with Lee Simmonds and John
Rouse (all of whom perform as well) touches on an interesting theme when
it explores pressures on an individual to fit in with a gang. This
particular aspect of the piece's journey could have gone much further
beyond some comedic grimacing however. Duska Radosavljevic
Manolibera C
This inventive import from Italy is great fun for a while as a pair of
actors perform in mime and gibberish while a third projects cartoon
overlays on them, occasionally drawing in alterations. So, for example,
they sit down on two stools and he puts them in a car, adding others and
moving the cartoon background as they drive along. A cartoon tap left
running threatens to drown them in rising cartoon water until they find
a real plug and pull it, and a harmless-looking fish becomes a menace
when the image-manipulator draws in piranha teeth. There's a loose
ecological theme to the show, with the automobile sequence generating
drawn-in air pollution and a shopping expedition leading to mountains of
rubbish, but the point is not belaboured to the detriment of the comedy.
More of a problem is the fact that the device is not developed beyond
its basic use, so that the episodes become somewhat predictable and
repetitious, losing the element of delightful surprise, while a glacial
pacing repeatedly allows the charm or inventiveness of a sequence to
drain away as it lingers on. Gerald Berkowitz
Matinee Pleasance Dome
A very inventive Israeli mime company offer this salute to B-movie
genres, with the cast acting out loving parodies in mime and gibberish.
Superman foils some bank robbers, catches the girl falling off the
building ledge, and battles a super villain who somehow morphs into King
Kong. A detective of Clouseau-ish thickness solves a crime. A kung-fu
hero is defeated, retreats to years of meditation and training, and
returns to avenge himself, all to the sound of out-of-sync dialogue. A
horror film catalogues and salutes every cliche of the form. The company
of six are all inventive writers, skilled mimes and inspired comics -
consider the difficulty of miming, say, Superman's transformation into
Clark Kent, and then see how cleverly, clearly and comically they pull
it off. They're also smart enough not to stretch any of the gags beyond
their natural life, so that the fun never flags. Gerald
Berkowitz
Max
and
Ivan: Televisionaries
C
Working on the premise that TV programmers believe all their viewers
have the attention span of a gnat (might be true), Max Olesker (the one
with long hair) and Ivan Gonzalez (the one with the beard) have
programmed a set-top box of sketches that flip through the channels
non-stop. No theme is spared. In Toyland Mr & Mrs Flobberdob fall
into a domestic dispute over infidelity, tonight's Partly Political
Broadcast is courtesy of unsavoury Nazis Neville Hatred and Brian who
dismally fail their own citizenship tests, while footballers get florid
about soccer in The Beautiful Game culture show which goes back-to-back
with Art of the Day where artist Lucien Freud gormlessly reels off
footballer cliches about his latest moves in painting. Music gets a
look-in with the 'Credit Crunch' rap, as do video games with Super Mario
and sibling Luigi in the gritty crime drama 16 Bit Streets. Punctuating
the live action are a flurry of ads, sketches and public announcements
via videos and lo-tech animations projected behind the duo. Memorable
are the commercials for spurious loans and the Russian Technologycoat,
and the Spy Sport cloud race. It may all seem a tad obvious but Max and
Ivan effortlessly find a different angle on their targets. And don't let
the cuddly delivery fool you - this can be close to the bone, as proved
by the Chuckle Brother ('singular') and Eaters Anonymous (for models who
inadvertently eat) episodes. With panto-like skill the pair guide the
hard stuff safely over the heads of any audience members who happen to
be minors, making this one of the best all-round value shows of the
festival. Nick Awde
Alistair
McGowan - The One and Many Assembly Hall
It has been thirteen years since Alistair McGowan's last Festival
appearance, but he shows no hesitancy in taking and holding the stage.
So confident is he, in fact, that the first ten or fifteen minutes of
his act are pure stand-up, without a hint of the celebrity impressions
most of his audience have come for. He does get to the impressions
eventually, and even then does not let himself coast too easily. While
many would be satisfied with the uncannily accurate voices alone,
McGowan makes sure each is used in the service of a legitimate joke. The
Terry Wogan having sex gag builds to a punch line that would score even
without the voice, as does the impression of Jonathan Ross interviewing
Mrs. Beckham. McGowan's victims are about equally divided between
performers and sports figures, the latter group leaving athletes and TV
commentators vying for most brainless. Only political figures, as a
group, get relatively short shrift. Inevitably, those targets with
particularly identifiable voices or speech patterns are easiest to
imitate and provide the most fun for the audience, and so McGowan's
Rowan Atkinson is stronger than his Frank Skinner, his Jo Brand more
successful than his Graham Norton. Other moments that score pretend to
confuse Simon Callow with Simon Cowell, or find familiar voices in
unfamiliar settings, as with Nicholas Cage doing housework. It is clear
from the opening section and the few times along the way that he drops
the imitations for jokes in his own voice, as well as the from his
insistence that every impersonation have a real joke in it, that there
is considerably more to McGowan's talent and dedication than the ability
to sound like others . Gerald Berkowitz
Meesterlijk:
Showcasing
the Best of Dutch Theatre
GRV
In keeping with the agenda of Utrecht's Theatergroep Ponies and with the
pertinent subtitle 'Why Are You looking?', Scala is a play that serves
up a subtle glimpse of alienation in modern society. As a well-dressed
woman arrives at a swanky restaurant for dinner with her best friend,
her grip on reality abruptly vanishes. At first she lurches in shock but
soon finds a certain pleasure in the surreal objectivity her newfound
condition provides her as she mentally floats around the other diners.
From the moment she steps onstage and dizzily debates which hook to hang
her coat on, Anna Hermanns hits an unsettlingly dark balance of humour
and paranoia. And although the performance is a tad too high-octane from
the outset and so loses a degree of emotional finetuning, she is utterly
compelling as the hapless guest coping with her social breakdown.
Meanwhile Lize van Olden is delicately long-suffering in the challenging
role of the ever silent dinner partner. In a team effort, Anna adapts
Enver Husicic's Dutch text in a fluid English translation by Terry Ezra,
while director Ria Marks crafts from the result a tautly emotional
setpiece that gets all your thought buds working by the climactic final
course. This is the first in a new series of plays selected from the
cutting edge of Dutch theatre ('meesterlijk' translates as 'virtuoso').
Scala successfully whets the appetite for more. Nick Awde
Memento
Mori Spaces at
Jury's Inn
If you have a spare thirty minutes, you could do a lot worse than go the
eighth floor of a hotel, to the tiny venue hosting Leicester
University's production of David Campton's play. Set in a house 'far
from the living', an old man is selling it to another, younger man. Each
has a sinister plan for how it may be used. This is unpretentious
student theatre at its best. Kirsty Lawrence's directing makes the most
of minimal space and set, mixing comedy with the uncanny to great
effect. The audience is transported away from the polished hotel and
into a dusty, cobwebbed old house that even Miss Haversham may have
entered with trepidation. The two actors relish in their characters'
abuse of its isolation. As the two men, Sam Illingworth and Dom Rye work
extremely well together, complementing each other's performances
wonderfully. The characters are slightly clichéd in their conception at
times, yet remain consistently enjoyable and engaging. Although limited
by the venue, there is still scope for improvements in lighting and
sound which would heighten the atmosphere and benefit the production
enormously. This theatre company deserves more funding, and then a
bigger venue and a full hour to really show what they are capable of. Oliver
Kassman
Metamorphosis C Too
Steven Berkoff's Metamorphosis, based on the novella by Franz Kafka,
tells of the sudden, bizarre transformation of the hard-worked and
downtrodden Gregor Samsa into a gigantic insect. Cambridge University
Amateur Dramatic Club's production captures the horror of such a
situation excellently. Staged largely on and around scaffolding, with
frequent excursions into the aisles, the performance hits the stage with
an explosive energy and rarely lets up. The ensemble, for the most part,
cope very well with the physical demands placed upon them. They seem to
never tire and only occasionally lose cohesion. Unfortunately, because
the choreography is, in the main, beautifully precise, those moments
that seem less thought out or under-rehearsed are glaringly obvious.
Some comedy juggling in particular falls flat. The extreme
characterisation of the Samsa family at times threatens to cross into
over-acting but is generally in keeping with the frenetic energy of the
production as a whole. Director Max Barton is to be praised for the
fantastic use of space from beginning to end. The whole cast are very
strong but particular credit must be given to Nick Ricketts playing
Gregor whose vocal and physical performance does not falter despite
spending much of the fifty minute running time contorted or upside down.
Overall this is a highly entertaining and visually stunning production
that only occasionally falters. Joseph Ronan
Me
Too - A Sideshow
New Town Theatre
Ulrike Quade is a lady of remarkably rich imagination and the
wherewithal to put it on the stage with originality and charm. In her
burlesque puppetry show she draws us into the world of Siamese twins
Daisy and Violet - inspired by the real life musical vaudeville act from
the 1920s - the Hilton sisters. Although the script, penned by her
director Ron Bunzl, is often superficial and rudimentary when it comes
to bringing her characters to life, Bunzl does provide a video backdrop
to the story which serves to layer the content in an interesting way.
The centrepiece of Quade's concept is a puppet twin for herself as a
performer designed to aid a thematic exploration of the sisters'
desperate desire to experience individuality. The audience is therefore
in a position to witness a multi-tasking feat of nuanced
characterisation occurring by means of both conventional acting and
object manipulation. In addition, the performer at times handles an
additional puppet - the sisters' son Arthur - while also singing and
dancing an occasional revue number. And just in case any of that sounds
too safe and sedate, there's some vibrator puppetry in wait to shake
things up. Duska Radosavljevic
Michael
Clark: New Work Edinburgh Playhouse
Michael Clark's return to the Edinburgh Festival for the first time
since 1988 opens with a back projection of the words The End. There are
two parts to the evening. The first, entitled Swamp, is a revamped
version of his 1984 piece which also won him an Oliver in 2005 upon his
return to public life. Functioning as a kind of Micheal Clark primer,
this is where his particular dance vocabulary consisting of arched
backs, slick pointy limbs, and tilted one-legged balancing acts is at
its clearest. Although BodyMap signs off the costume element of this
show too, there are no bare bottoms or provocative add-ons on this
occasion. Instead, Clark's dancers, adorned in metallic blue body
stockings are more reminiscent of Olympic gymnasts than the ballet
rock-stars one might have expected. It is the second part of the show
'come, been and gone' that forms the anticipated return to his roots.
Underscored by the songs of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and David Bowie, and lit
by Charles Atlas' range of primary colour schemes, the line up of up to
ten short and often elegant numbers is often closer in its visual effect
to a Paris fashion show than a rock gig. Clearly, the notorious enfant
terrible of British ballet, the iconic fallen angel and the prodigal son
has grown up, matured and obtained great wisdom and sublime beauty. And
in the process of his resurrection, he opts for a studied and elevated
tribute to the 'heros' and 'heroin' of his youth, rather than
sentimental nostalgia. Duska Radosavljevic
Midsummer
Traverse
An obviously mismatched couple meet-cute, have sex and other improbable
adventures, and only then begin to realise that they are each deeper,
and good for each other, than they knew. David Greig's play, with
amiable songs by Gordon McIntyre, not only finds fresh ways to retell
that familiar rom-com story, but effortlessly overlays it with thought-
and emotion-provoking philosophical meanings you wouldn't expect the
genre to be able to carry with such grace. Upscale girl meets petty
crook on a rainy Edinburgh night, and almost before they can get their
kit off they are speculating on death, ageing, identity and the meaning
of life - all presented through inventive and constantly entertaining
theatrical devices. Their adventure somehow includes a disrupted
wedding, a goth drinking party, a bondage club and a parking meter with
a philosophical bent, proclaiming as it does that 'Change is possible.'
Scenes are played and then replayed to consider alternative paths, the
two characters take turns breaking the fourth wall to editorialise on
each other's actions, and surprises ranging from ukulele-accompanied
songs to inviting questions from the audience keep us entertained and on
the mental alert throughout. David Greig directs with a sure and
inventive hand, and Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon hold our interest,
our affection and our faith in their happy ending from start to finish.
Gerald
Berkowitz
Patrick Monahan Gilded
Balloon
Patrick Monahan's act depends more on a general jollying of his audience
than on any particularly strong comic material. He quickly establishes a
conspiratorial comraderie by opening the fire escape doors to the
sweltering Gilded Balloon room and even inviting some passing strangers
in. He carries the standard 'embarrass the guys in the front row' ploy
to unusual length, making them take a friendship test from a women's
magazine and eventually join him onstage in an elaborate dance. Women's
mags make up one strand of his monologue, as he reads and expresses mock
horror at the agony aunt letters and replies. Other material includes
the impulse to join in overheard conversations, his half-Iranian
background, and growing up as the square while his friends were
experimenting with drugs. The connections between the various topics are
tenuous and the transitions frequently abrupt. But with little that is
especially original or funny in any of them, it is Monahan's enthusiasm
and ability to generate and sustain a party atmosphere that keep his
audience happy and carry the hour. Gerald Berkowitz
Monday
C Soco
Gloria Williams' solo play tells a sadly familiar story in a mode so
fresh, individual and passion-filled that she invests it with a new life
and reality. Performing the monologue herself, Williams plays a North
London teenager whose family is about to crumble as her stepfather fills
the house with his hyper-religious zeal, her mother senses something
amiss and blames it entirely on her, and she herself has internalised
this accusation enough to think herself a loser pre-ordained to be the
slut and school laughing stock she is becoming. You will guess the core
of the problem long before the character allows herself to say it (Hint:
she has a lock on her bedroom door), but her reticence and, more sadly,
her inability to talk to her closed-minded mother, are believable and
central to the story's tragedy. A big part of the script's power lies in
Williams' style, a mix of West Indian grammar and London teen slang and
casual obscenity, with occasional overtones of rap rhythms and rhymes, a
beautifully crafted and sustained mode that elevates the real-sounding
into poetry. Of a crazy lady shouting in the street she says 'Her vocals
be bouncin' off the locals,' while a sympathetic teacher 'passes me a
smile, and I take it.' Williams may try to sustain her heightened
reality and the withholding of the key revelation a bit too long, and
some judicious trimming might keep the intensity from occasionally
flagging. But there is a real writer here, and a performer of great
power. Gerald Berkowitz
Mong-Yeon
(A Love in Dream) C
This haunting show from Modl Theatre has sold out in Korea for the past
three years and it is easy to see why. You find yourself drawn
immediately into the simple yet multi-layered tale of a straitlaced
Korean woman mourning the death of her beloved (Nam-Soo Jin). In the
bereft widow's dreams the couple become reunited and so defy time and
reality but as she demands more, the barrier between the worlds of the
living and the dead starts to blur dangerously. Speaking in both Korean
and English and led by Ae-Ri Park and Nam-Soo Jin as the doomed lovers,
this focused 13-strong ensemble expertly balances drama with music as
they sing or play instruments at pertinent points to propel the plot
along. Stand-out scenes include the colourful wedding ceremony taken
over by an ebullient singing beggar (Wook-Hyun Sun), the poignant ritual
of the widow toasting the departed or her vain search through the
gigantic nuptial bedsheet that billows across the stage. Visually
sumptuous and emotionally breathtaking, A Love in Dream is all the more
remarkable for its seamless mix of traditional and modern genres where
Ho-Sung Kwon's sensitive direction melds movement with Jung-Sook Kim's
sweeping script and Kyung-Wha Lee's lush compositions. Nick Awde
Montana
Ranch C Central
Author Dylan Dougherty may not realise it, but his play reworks the
basic situation of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow in what may be a more
timely setting. Where Mamet had one of a pair of Hollywood hustlers
convinced by a woman that he was really an idealist, Dougherty imagines
two guys raising money in a scam save-the-environment campaign when one
is made to see the light by his tree-hugging girlfriend and argues for
actually donating the loot to good causes. Much of what follows is, as
in Mamet, the still-crooked guy's attempt to win his buddy back to the
dark side, though there is little hint of Mamet's satire or insight into
the kinds of mind games men play on themselves. Dougherty seems really
interested in the debate, which goes on long after each side has made
its case, and in the goal of alerting us to the danger of eco-crooks. If
there is a satiric or comic intention to the play, it does not come
across in performance, and either some mistiming, flubbed cue or just
clumsy writing makes the final moments, and thus the final message,
totally opaque. Gerald Berkowitz
Justin
Moorhouse:
Seven Pleasance Dome
If you are the fortunate possessor of an accent from the north-west
people already start thinking you're funny. Regional stereotyping aside,
there is a birthright to humour in Greater Manchester, Merseyside,
Blackpool and thereabouts that you just wouldn't find, say, in Sussex.
Being from Hyde, Justin Moorhouse is already comically blessed as soon
as he opens his raucous mouth. The title of his latest show is Seven, a
digit that refers not to the seven dwarves (although enticingly there is
a Snow White costume onstage) but to Christopher Booker's 2005 study
'The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories' - which Moorhouse hadn't
realise was critically panned before buying it. Undeterred, he embarks
on a ripping theme-led tour of the modern subjects that intrigue us all,
peppered all along the way with wickedly personal asides from his own
life. The motif of 'Tragedy' sparks an onslaught the OTT reaction to
Michael Jackson's death, 'Rags to Riches' brings a wonderful rant about
the credit crunch while 'The Quest' provides an excuse for a very funny
recurrent dig at humourless Yorkshire stereotypes - although Bolton gets
it in the neck too. A throwaway line about Harold Shipman unexpectedly
leads to an extraordinarily bizarre revelation about Hyde's serial
killer GP (and let's not forget that Moor Murderers lived there too). In
amongst the patter, asides and red herrings, Moorhouse promises to make
us laugh and not think, but, though slipping occasionally away from good
taste, sneakily he manages to do both. Nick Awde
Morecambe Assembly Hall
I think of it as the ongoing Dead Comics Chronicles, as almost every
festival brings a solo show devoted to some iconic comedian - Hancock,
Williams, Cook, Hill. The authors and performers differ but the format
is almost always the same, as we encounter the comic either just before
or just after his death, and he reminisces about his life and career,
mixing familiar parts of the story with the occasional obscure or
surprise fact. And Tim Whitnall's salute to Eric Morecambe is strictly
by the numbers. We hear the news report of Eric's death and then Bob
Golding steps through the curtain in the raincoat and flat cap that were
one of Morecambe's familiar images. He then just tells us the story,
most of which most of us already know - the beginnings as a child
performer, the teaming with Ernie Wise at age 12, the transition to
adult stardom on the variety circuit, the disastrous first TV series
that almost finished them, the years of rebuilding their reputation and
finally the 1970s and 1980s TV classics that made them icons. Golding
doesn't especially resemble Morecambe or attempt a close impersonation,
but he and director Guy Masterson are astute enough to see that the
eyeglasses, the Lancashire accent and just a few hints at Eric's posture
and speech rhythms are enough. And of course the script throws in
references to bits (the paper bag trick) or episodes (the Andre Previn
sketch) that automatically generate nostalgic laughter. I've never
understood the appeal of Elvis impersonators or ABBA tribute acts, but
if you'd rather see someone pretending to be Morecambe than a DVD of the
real Eric and Ernie, here it is. Gerald Berkowitz
Mother/Son Sweet at the Grassmarket
Jeffrey Solomon is a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn who finally gathered
up the courage to tell his mother why all those nice Jewish girls she
kept setting him up with were wasting their time and why she really
shouldn't be planning on grandchildren. His solo show is about what
happened then as his mother struggled to come to grips with the news.
Solomon plays both himself and his mother, most often giving one or both
sides of a telephone conversation, as his mother, guided by an
unwavering love, moves from denial to acceptance and pride. Solomon is
astute and honest enough to recognise that for every two or three steps
forward - attending her first Parents and Friends meeting, venturing
into a gay bar with him - there was likely to be a step back, as when
she asked him not to bring his boyfriend to a family wedding. But mama
proves to be the heroine any son could hope for, and if Solomon's
portrayal of her occasionally wanders toward caricature, there can be no
doubt that this touching and warmly humorous show is a sincerely felt
and communicated love letter to a remarkable woman. Gerald
Berkowitz
Murder
Mystery Musical George Square
A parody and salute to Agatha Christie-style mysteries, this slight but
entertaining musical provides an evening of light-hearted fun without
ever transcending a fringe-level feel. The book by Alister Cameron and
Shaun McKenna, who also provide lyrics to Richard M. Brown's music,
follows tradition by bringing a disparate group to an isolated location,
where they begin dying off as they realise the murderer must be One Of
Us. In this case, they're at the island estate of a dead entertainment
executive for the reading of the will - the unfaithful wife, the
unfaithful mistress, the bitter businessman, the faithful secretary, the
clean-cut brother and the like. All the characters are quite openly
cartoons, and much of the fun - and of the undergraduate revue feel of
the show - comes from the witty exploitation and subversion of cliches.
The songs are fun without being memorable, and the fact that several in
the cast double as instrumentalists, sometimes from beyond the grave,
adds to the general silliness. There may be a bit too much reliance on
broad double entendres - and on broad mugging to underline them - in the
book, and on in-joke topical references in the songs, for the show to
have much of a chance outside the charitable environment of the fringe,
though there could be some touring potential. Gerald Berkowitz
My Grandfather's Great War Gilded
Balloon (Reviewed
at a previous Festival)
It's not an original concept, but Cameron Stewart's presentation of
his grandfather's war memoirs is one of the very best of the genre
I've ever seen, the combination of Captain Alexander Stewart's vivid
and eloquent writing and his grandson's passionate performance both
illuminating the familiar material and making for an exciting hour's
theatre. David Benson, himself a talented solo performer, has shaped
the material so that Stewart constantly gives us a double view, his
grandfather's immediate account and his own awe and horror. Captain
Stewart miraculously survived some of the bloodiest and most futile
battles of the War, and his descriptions embody all the horrors and
absurdities, from the flies and mud to the matter-of-fact heroism of
the soldiers around him, all of which the actor brings alive in his
energy-filled performance. Cameron Stewart's position is one of
unflagging admiration mixed with wonder that young men of a century
ago could be so unquestioningly patriotic and the humble recognition
that his own generation was not called upon to meet a similar
standard. You come away not only reminded of the horrors of war but
asking yourself how you would measure up against such heroes. Gerald
Berkowitz
My Life With the Dogs
Pleasance
In recent years, New International Encounter (NIE) have distinguished
themselves as the makers of really exciting multi-lingual music theatre.
The stories they choose to tell - interrupted love affairs, soldiers
returning from wars and displaced children fighting for survival - are
often quite sentimental, but always rooted in Europe's complicated
history. Their latest piece is slightly unusual in that it focuses on a
true event from the 1990s when a six-year old feral boy Ivan Mishukov
was found in the Moscow underground, having apparently chosen to live
with the dogs for two years rather than his mother and her alcoholic
boyfriend. The company swap their trademark violins and accordions for
electric guitars in the rendition of this tale primarily themed on that
end of the Cold War Scorpions' hit 'Wind of Change', as well as
sprinklings of Sinatra, and his Russian equivalent Visotski. This
provides moments of light relief and some really interesting theatrics
featuring a radio set in the front portion of the piece. However, as we
progress deeper into the story's bleakness, it becomes harder to sustain
a sense of hope and playfulness, and the company's undertaken duty
towards authenticity leads them to an anti-climactic rather than a
dramaturgically considered ending. Duska Radosavljevic
My
Mind's Eye Sweet
ECA
My Mind's Eye. a University of Wales production, seeks to explore and
interrogate Shakespeare's Hamlet through a stimulating blend of
multimedia and live performance. The show uses a mixture of video,
sound, dance, mime and physical theatre to explore the themes of the
famous tragedy. What we get however is less of a stimulating
exploration, and more simply a demonstration. Not new ideas, just a
different way of communicating them. Each sequence appears to represent
a theme of the play, but without the desired effect of provoking thought
or question. The format does produce some effective moments, a dance
sequence between Amanda Mulford and Thomas Rhys taking on love and
rejection is engaging, and the death of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as
individually disappearing silhouettes is an impressive effect. What we
crave however, is a strong, clever link between the action on the stage
and visuals on the screen that both impresses us and makes us think.
Whilst examples of this are not entirely absent, they ultimately only
punctuate a series of disjointed images. Most overwhelmingly, the
production lacks a clear sense of identity. The actors are absent from
the stage for well over half of the 40 minute show, which relies heavily
on video montage to create any atmosphere in the space. The space
itself, Edinburgh College of Art, is at least appropriate. The piece
shares more in common with an installation than a coherent piece of
theatre - and not one I would necessarily spend 40 minutes in. Kevin
Williams
My
Name Is Sue Pleasance
Like the hitherto-unacknowledged daughter of Hugh Hughes and Eleanor
Rigby, Dafydd James' creation treads the line between the real and the
grotesque, the comic and the pathetic. In a nondescript dress and
real-looking long hair, James as Sue sits at the piano and sings her
relentlessly cheery falsetto songs about having tea with her family,
watching her favourite movie, riding on the bus, and the like,
occasionally backed by a small band who look like the Kransky Sisters
(or Wynona Rider in Beetlejuice) on downers. But as the bizarre
performance goes on, we might notice that the family tea was a respite
from being bullied at school, the movie ends in bloody vengeance, and
the happy bus trip morphs into a vision of hell. Sue's story, co-written
by Dafydd James and Ben Lewis, gradually becomes like one of the small
tragedies in Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood, a cheery exterior disguising
a dark and complex inner life. My Name Is Sue can be appreciated as a
bizarre comic creation, the subtle presentation of a quietly sad
characterisation, and a cleverly written and entertaining song cycle. It
is certainly one of the most unusual, remarkable and memorable hours on
the fringe. Gerald Berkowitz
Myriad
Zoo
Collisions Dance's beautifully crafted cycle of interlocking dances
looks at the assumptions we make about solitude being a lonely state.
'Myriad' refers to the many out there for whom solitude is simply one of
several states they can choose from, and so the pieces are vivid scenes
where, in their quest for solitude or company, the lives of three people
cross, intertwine and are then unleashed in different directions. Some
seek solitude as momentary relief from the social maelstrom, while
others who enjoy their own company take a breather with others. The
languid lines fit the laidback looselimbed routines of the jaunty pop of
Nouvelle's Vague's 'Dancing with Myself' as an opener and other styles
follow, each encapsulating a mood or social situation. The line-up
changes and flows as easily as the music, such as the female duet with
classically neat, mirrored symmetry that gradually turns competitive
before the man appears to redress the balance resulting in a trio of
slow flowing moves. Throughout, subtly repeated motifs grow in
significance and embellish the routines. Dancers David Beer, Verity
Hopkin and Jo Lamaison make it all look enticingly easy - you feel you
want to just jump up and join in. As choreographer, Beer has created is
a refreshingly lyrical blend of narrative and movement that deserves to
be seen on the larger stages. Nick Awde
Normality
Pleasance
A devil bounces onto the stage and spins the Wheel of Misfortune
dispensing congenital diseases, inherited conditions and terminal
sicknesses on undeserving humans as they are born. Cue the present and
suddenly he morphs into the twisted body of Alex. His prize was juvenile
rheumatoid arthritis, which starts disabling the body from the age of
three onwards. Joint replacements provide relief but otherwise it's a
slow, painful and permanent condition. To Alex, though, it's the way he
is and so quite normal - and he explains how he dresses, where he hurts
and what he dreams of. And, chuckling, he is the first to point out the
absurdity of it all. However, things turn serious when an able-bodied
female journalist turns up to interview him at the hospice where he
works (it makes the dying folk feel better when they see him, he says),
Alex is smitten and the cosy routine of his life is upended. What
transpires is as funny as it is heart-rending. This brilliantly realised
multi-layered production plays deftly with our perception of normality
while managing to be rippingly entertaining at the same time. All this
is helped by Hennie van Greunen's sparkling script and Shirley Ellis'
sympathetic direction - and the fact that Pedro Kruger is an
accomplished all-round performer who creates characters with an easy
physicality while also playing piano and singing a string of catchy
narrative songs. Rarely has taboo-busting been this much fun. Nick
Awde
David
O'Doherty:
David O'Doh-party
Pleasance
David O'Doherty is so infectiously, well, nice as he delivers acerbic
observations on modern life. So nice that he would have a hit on his
hands if he merely read out pages from the Fringe programme. And as if
to prove it, his latest show is packing them out and, on this particular
night at least, the result if one of the most mixed audiences I've seen
this festival in terms of age, demographic, nationality, other comics
and even critics. O'Doherty gets down to business swiftly. The trademark
cheap keyboard gets pulled out regularly - all tacky sounds and cheesy
rhythm sections - accompanying rambling ditties that form a seamless
extension of the spoken material. Rapport with the crowd is similarly
seamless - his opening song, for example, urges mass lowering of
expectations of all present as a means of achieving maximum enjoyment of
the show, and everyone falls for it, repeating his increasingly absurd
mantras with gusto. The show's centrepiece is a startlingly candid
account of how a prepubescent glimpse through a telescope of a naked
neighbour led to a decade's worth of fantasy. Was it a good or bad
thing, he ruminates as he embellishes the story with layer upon layer of
teenage male angst. Sex rears its head again plus drugs as he recalls a
blissed-out mate on ecstasy jumping into bed with his straitlaced
parents. The rants against new technologies such as Twitter and Facebook
are a bit throwaway and of the moment, although the put-down of Guitar
Hero obsessives is spot-on. In fact you suspect O'Doherty is playing it
a little safe this year, and yet his winning storytelling style and
sheer confidence in knowing what makes his audience tick make this a
masterclass hour of comedy. Nick Awde
Odyssey Pleasance Dome
In a tour-de-force of solo performance, George Mann tells the epic story
of Odysseus' journey from Troy, more-or-less in the order Homer told it,
and not leaving out much that I could spot - and all on a bare stage in
one hour. Mann is a dynamic story-teller, narrating with enthusiasm and
colour, and playing all the key roles, from Odysseus and Telemachus
through Penelope and Circe. He skilfully individualises each one through
voice, posture or some shorthand signifier. Calypso sings her lines in
an operatic mode, the leader of the suitors has a Salvador Dali
moustache, and the gods come down to earth in a swooping flight we
quickly come to recognise. If there is one criticism to make of Mann's
performance style, it is that the determination to accompany almost
every word with a gesture, and to fill in any pauses with other
gestures, sometimes makes him seem to be providing his own simultaneous
sign language translation, and he might consider Hamlet's advice not to
saw the air too much with his hands. Still, the mode gets less
distracting as we get used to it and get caught up in what is, after
all, one of the greatest adventure stories ever told. Gerald
Berkowitz
Oh,
My
Green Soapbox Pleasance
Lucy Foster's solo show is a delightful piece of theatre mixing
performance genres, whimsical comedy, audience interaction and some
beautiful stage images. It's a utopian production about the threat to
the polar bear and the icecaps, an ecocritically alert piece that is
entirely distinctive and charming. Foster starts the audience
involvement from the beginning. Her humour is zany, a little whimsical,
creeping up on you with its odd, quirky vision of the world. A surreal
quality comes in the form of video images of Foster dressed in a polar
bear suit approaching people in the street. At one point, Foster end up
in bed with one of the audience members. She takes him on a miniature
journey across the icecaps and the mountains. Her script is evocative,
elegant, glinting with moments of tenderness and wistfulness. This is a
brave, understated show, a wonderfully poised, multi-layered text that
plants lines in the mind that linger on. Foster urges us to 'give in to
the proximity of another body' at one point: sex is, or could be,
something beautiful in this new white world. The piece ends with one of
the simplest and most beautiful images I have seen in the theatre
recently. I recall it vividly now as I write these and know I won't
forget it for a long time.William McEvoy
The
One and the Many GRV
Flustered by a date that doesn't happen, alienated by his flatmate's
slick Swiss Toni-style advice on how to seduce the opposite sex,
appalled when his longlost adoptive mother turns up at the door leading
to a bizarre case of mistaken identity with said flatmate, our ever so
slightly naive protagonist Martin could be forgiven his exasperation
with the innate selfishness of humankind. We can easily understand too
why he needs relief and heads out for a long relaxing massage.
Unfortunately, and entertainingly predictably, he asked his flatmate for
a recommendation and has now ended up baffled but partially relieved in
a brothel. Ah, and did I mention that he has just fallen for the veiled
Virgin Whore of Prague, the infinite beauty of whose face strikes terror
into the man who observes her? Trevor Lock's 'romantic philosophical'
comedy plays neatly on our expectations but the premise is slight and it
reads more like an extended sketch than the sitcom pilot it should be.
While the surreal misunderstandings create a very genuine humour helped
by well-rounded characters, you just wish there was a bit more for these
clearly talented performers - Lock, Tom Fynn and Jen Brister - to sink
their teeth into. Playing it more romantically or expanding on the
Bottom potential, for example, would either way up the comic ante and
allow the audience to laugh where we so clearly want to. Nick Awde
Andrew
O'Neill: Occult Comedian Downstairs at the Tron
'Occult Comedian' is the subtitle of Andrew O'Neill's latest show and it
does what it says on the tin: he's a comedian and occultist. Oh, and
he's wearing a dress. Plunging into a flood of rapid thoughts on
history, philosophy, politics, religion, sex and Satan, in no particular
order, O'Neill packs in more gags and info than anyone else on the
circuit - probably. And he's wearing a dress. The subjects just whizz
by: occultist ubermeister Aleister Crowley's sexual predilections, the
Devil has the best jokes, why be an online vegan anarchist, the BNP and
World War II, world-turning differences between death metal, black metal
and hardcore. You also start to realise that O'Neill honestly wears his
beliefs on his sleeve. And he's wearing a dress. The comic is a fully
paid-up part-time transvestite. The fact he's also heterosexual cues in
a mad routine about how to act like a full-blooded bloke when trying to
get served down the High Street in a goth frock plus devising strategies
for deterring queerbashers, usually in Camden Town. The dark arts might
seem an unlikely launching pad for comedy but I doubt you'll find a
funnier (and more thought-provoking) hour. Well, unless of course you're
transphobic, homophobic, a Nazi or Christian teen pop group the Jonas
Brothers (for legal reasons I am unable to reveal why O'Neill has put a
£5,000 bounty on all their virginities). Nick Awde
Ophelia
(Drowning) Sweet
Grassmarket
Staged in an atmospheric hotel swimming pool, Ophelia (drowning) is an
exploration of Shakespeare's tragic character from Hamlet. Based in part
on a play by Deborah Levy as well as the original, Levy's dialogue works
better than Shakespeare's, which can feel stilted when taken out of
context. Helen Morton gives a committed performance as Ophelia and Rose
Walker is solid support as Gertrude, helped largely by a text that is
geared towards exploring their characters. Less successful are Pete
Wheller as the Prince and Serafina Kiszko as the Lover, a newly added
character. They lack complexity, but then there is little for them to do
except jump in and out of the pool and kiss. Daniel Marchese Robinson
and Daniel Pitt's direction is at its best when they create simple but
striking imagery that exploits the uniqueness of the venue. Flowers and
clothes litter the pool and are beautifully uplit through the water, an
effect that could have been developed further. But the text eventually
lets the production down. Lyrics from pop songs are also used as
dialogue - this is more often confusing than insightful. An interesting
production that needed a more innovative use of the venue and a more
cohesive text to work fully. Christopher Harrisson
Optimism
Royal Lyceum Theatre
From the day it was published in 1759, Voltaire's classic novel Candide
has captured imaginations thanks to its wicked lampooning of those
seeking higher meaning in the appalling things that happen on earth.
Retitled Optimism, the satire is given new life by plunging 18th-century
protagonists into a 21st-century world of air travel and globalisation.
In Malthouse Melbourne's reimagining, a string of oddball characters
insist that Òall is for the bestÓ as every conceivable misfortune
afflicts them, all the while observed by the baffled Candide. Only too
aware that his own life is freefalling towards similar ill fate, he
embarks on a journey of self-discovery where, like all good picaresques,
he encounters the strangest of races and rogues, and has improbable
reunions in farflung places - the Americas and the Ottoman Empire
feature prominently. Frank Woodley is a convincingly hangdog Candide,
whose doleful asides and adlibs establish an immediate rapport with both
the audience and the rest of what is a hard-working, energetic cast. But
while Tom Wright's script is strewn with enticing roles and situations,
it ultimately undermines their promise by sacrificing content for form.
What allegory there may be for a modern audience rests mainly on the
visual material, such as the airplane cabin and subsequent crash. Also
supportive are mood-setting songs such Altered Images' I Could Be Happy,
delivered in ironically lugubrious tones. The real dichotomy, however,
lies in the fact that whereas Anna Tregloan's slick metal set and
costumes belong on an EIF stage, the fringe-styled play under Michael
Kantor's direction does not. That, combined with utter disbelief at a
company that finds a blacked-up Slave funny, fatally undermines this
production. Nick Awde
The
Origin of Species Pleasance
Remarkably inventive, thoroughly entertaining and even quite
educational, John Hinton's monologue with music in the guise of Charles
Darwin is a show for adults that reminds you what you always wished
theatre in schools had been like. We find Darwin in his study, happily
working on his years-long study of barnacles until he learns that Alfred
Russel Wallace is about to pip him to the post on evolution. Having
attended a school that specialised in Latin grammar and acoustical
guitar, Hinton's Darwin has already covered much of his life story in
song, and now he explains natural selection with absolute clarity and a
funky beat. He is aided by audience members recruited to illustrate,
among other things, the mating habits of finches, and by the suggestion
that Darwin's uncle Josiah Wedgewood may have mastered more than one
kind of pot. This is either an extraordinarily effective piece of
teaching disguised as entertainment or a delightful entertainment that
somehow carries more weight than you'd expect from a solo comic show. In
either case, nineteenth-century science can rarely have been so
fascinating, and never so much fun. Gerald Berkowitz
Origins Pleasance
What better way to understand Charles Darwin's life and work but to
apply his own method to it! Writers Steven Canny and John Nicholson take
Darwin for his word on the importance of genetics, and go right back to
Charles's grandfather Erasmus in order to bestow on him the role of this
particular story's frisky narrator. They must have skipped Dr Robert
Darwin because Charles' father - played with humour by Joseph Alford -
seemed to have no interest in un-useful pursuits. The five strong
ensemble piece together Charles' early life with balletic elegance in a
theatrical fantasy featuring plenty of entertainment, mesmerising
artistry and intriguing insights. Who would have thought that young
Charles' greatest ambition was to be a beetle, or that an early
encounter with a garden worm, followed by those with a few eccentric
professors and a freed South American slave, would have resulted in such
a 'marvel of interconnectedness' that has changed our view of the entire
species. Directed by Pentabus' Orla O'Loughlin, the show revolves around
numerous adventures, involves some well known Victorian personalities,
as well as picnics, puppets and an animated insectarium; and most
importantly - it is quite 'useful' after all. Duska Radosavljevic
Orphans
Traverse
Danny and Helen are having a quiet dinner at home when her brother Liam
appears, covered in blood. The explanation is innocent - he had helped a
wounded man in the street. But it takes so long to come out, since none
of these three people is very good at sustaining a thought long enough
to complete a sentence, that they keep getting sidetracked into
digressions, some of which open emotional minefields of their own, which
they then have to struggle to focus on and address. And then it appears
that the bloody encounter wasn't all that innocent after all. Dennis
Kelly's play is about the mad world and disintegrating social order that
waits just outside the doors of modern urban dwellers, and about what
happens when it passes the threshold and comes inside. It is about
discovering how very fragile one's own confidence in not being a
sociopath can become, and how difficult it is to sustain relationships
of any sort in such a world, especially when these call for mental and
emotional processes which have not previously been so tested. And, in an
odd way, it is frequently quite funny. Among the questions the play
raises and makes dramatically real is whether it is still possible to
say 'I'm not the sort of person who would do that' when you have just
done the thing in question. And if that does make you the sort of person
who would do that, then what happens to all the other things in your
life that you have built on the assumption that you weren't? Kelly's
play may have one or two too many plot twists along the way, sometimes
threatening to push it into soap opera territory, and the ending may be
a bit rushed and undeveloped, but it is always engrossing to watch and
to mull over afterwards. Under director Roxana Silbert's guidance
Claire-Louise Cordwell as Helen trying desperately to keep her hold on a
crumbling reality, Jonathan McGuinness as Danny learning things about
himself no one should have to, and especially Joe Armstrong as Liam with
a troubled soul and a mental ability inadequate to deal with it all give
impeccable performances. Gerald
Berkowitz
Out
of
Chaos Underbelly
Every once in a while there comes a show which owes its origins to the
unique chemistry of the group of people who came together to make it.
Here we have one Spaniard, one Dane, one Japanese and three Brits
comparing their personal stories to those of the Greek gods and heros.
It sounds surprisingly simple - yet it works as a magic formula,
responsible for a good hour of fine entertainment and enlightenment.
Even while listening to entire stories in a language as foreign as
Japanese, you'll find yourself nodding with a smile of recognition.
Stories of Prometheus' arrogance, Zeus' philandering, Thethis'
fickleness and Narcissus' - well, narcissism - will all find their
common everyday equivalents whether in the London underground, a busy
bar, a family dinner table or a child's bedroom. Temple Theatre enhance
their storytelling with some clever editing techniques and an
impressively rich physical vocabulary that lends their show an easy flow
and visual charm. Whether you are in it for the Greeks or for personal
pleasure - you will find order in this exhilarating chaos, and are bound
to come out satisfied. Duska Radosavljevic
Oxford
Revue Underbelly
I'm afraid that the implicit annual competition of revues between
Cambridge and Oxford (with Durham frequently topping both) has been won
by Cambridge this year. Oxford's entry is made up almost entirely of
great ideas for sketches, but not the sketches themselves. You can
imagine the delight when someone suggested Slumdog Deal Or No Deal, but
they haven't found much to do with it. Parodies of Neighbours and TV
infomercials hardly seem worth the effort any more, and the idea of the
vowels having a party and not inviting Y unsurprisingly turns out not to
be funny. There are some clever twists and sketches that work, usually
the brief blackouts not extended beyond their natural life - a nice
twist on the obligatory Harry Potter joke, an explanation of why Wally
is hiding, guesses as to where Freud, Shakespeare and Darwin got their
inspiration. There's nothing wrong with blackout gags and, given this
group's evident strengths and weaknesses, a whole hour of quickies might
have been a refreshing success. Gerald
Berkowitz
Palace
of
the End Traverse
Judith Thompson's drama is made up of three independent monologues
related to the Iraq War, two by real people and one by an imagined
composite figure. The first, My Pyramids, was actually performed
independently in Edinburgh a couple of years ago, and imagines the voice
of US soldier Lynndie England, infamously photographed abusing prisoners
in Abu Ghraib. The second presents David Kelly, the civil servant who
blew the whistle on exaggerated estimates of Iraqi weaponry and later
killed himself, and the third is an imagined Iraqi woman who testifies
to the atrocities of the Saddam regime but fears that the liberators may
not prove much better. Clearly Thompson is not shy about her political
position, and your reaction to the monologues will depend to a large
extent on your own political sympathies. As strong as the last two
speeches are, they assume your agreement and don't do very much to argue
the case or to develop the characters into anything more than
spokespersons. That's what makes the first monologue the best written,
because Thompson's version of Lynndie is trying to defend herself and
her actions, and only gradually and unconsciously lets slip evidence
that unacknowledged racism, a desire to fit in with her macho buddies
and a cultural history of casual cruelty and violence lubricated the way
toward going too far. Put another way, Lynndie is the only one of the
three to undergo any sort of change or growth, and thus the only one to
actually be in a play. All three actors give impressive performances,
with Kellie Bright (Lynndie) the most complex and textured, Robert
Demeger the most subtle and understated and Eve Polycarpou the most
eloquent and passionate. Gerald Berkowitz
Pan
Pa'Tim New Town
Theatre
Primate Theatrical Percussion from Venezuala bring us this loud carnival
of a show with energy, clownlike humour and some of the most skilful
beatbox and body-as- instrument music you're likely to see. From the
humdrum noises of an office orchestrated into a symphony of drumming, to
the stamping, clapping, body-slapping, clicking and singing elsewhere,
the company perform with consummate delight in their own talent. A sink,
taps and cutlery are turned into drumsticks and snares, while the human
voice is used with a kind of anarchic, frenzied exhilaration. The
dancing, too, has a kind of frenetic quality as the drumbeats force the
performers to push their bodies to extremes of abandonment. The clownish
humour, the not-so-subtle games with gender, the feeling of a Brazilian
street carnival, all combine in riotous fashion. A cursory attempt at a
plot sees a female Japanese restaurant owner oppressing her staff, who
manifest their irritation and subversiveness by playing out noises in
and through their bodies. At several points, the audience gets to join
in the impromptu music-making, and by the end, people are whooping in
their seats. Just the antidote to a soggy Fringe, this show transports
you to the street sounds of Caracas in a wonderfully uplifting hour's
performance. William McEvoy
Parents' Evening ECA
Ritual humiliation of one kind or another will be part of most people's
memories of their school days. The same is the case with this show which
promises to introduce you to the teachers 'you wish you'd had' but
delivers the usual stereotypes - ranging from a sexy French teacher to a
scatter-brained Head of History and a hollering PE one. The victims of
humiliation here are the parents rather than the students, as well as
one unfortunate head mistress, played with great poise by Lauren
Garnham. There is a catch in it of course, contained in the fact that
the title role here is given to the audience members themselves. One
sure sign of professional naivity - often betraying a show's studenty
origins - is an overly optimistic expectation of the audience's
willingness to take part. On home turf this can be a lot of fun, but
elsewhere, it can veer towards the positively cringe-making. This show
is made up entirely of audience participation involving singing in
unison, a history quiz and a sports competition - so you'd better have
friends in Aultyme High. Duska Radosavljevic
Party Assembly
There is always something slightly awkward about a theatre production of
a script crafted to be a sitcom. For a start, the genre uses very little
of the available medium other than the live audience response. This
particular production therefore receives a very still and minimalist
theatrical incarnation, even at times feeling a bit squashed in the
chosen venue. On the other hand however, Tom Basden's script and the
ensemble performance of him and his fellow cast members, are slick and
timed to perfection. Two years after winning the If Comedy Best Newcomer
award, Basden has returned this year not just with another stand up
show, but also with a proof that he has more comic tricks up his sleeve.
Party is a character comedy served as a feast of truly brilliant
one-liners and laced with, at times, seriously lethal satire. As five
friends get down to defining 'pillaging', political correctness and
foreign policy, it quickly transpires that this is not an ordinary
after-dinner game but an altogether different kind of social gathering
that goes under the name of a 'party'. Or at least a party in the
making, and in want of leadership. Fun and fascinating from start to
finish.Duska Radosavljevic
The
Penny
Dreadfuls Present The Never Man
Pleasance
This three-man company are currently the leading practitioners of a
Fringe staple, the silly-plot, small-cast-playing-many-roles,
self-referential, mistakes-written-in farce - think of Little Britain or
The League of Gentlemen done live, with the difficulty of all the quick
costume changes part of the fun. This year's show somehow combines a mad
scientist using a theme park for his nefarious plans, a man with total
amnesia, various boffins, an ex-cop and an eight-year-old boy, all
played by the three writer-performers, David Reed, Humphrey Ker and Thom
Tuck. And so it's part mock-horror story, part boy's-own adventure, and
part pure absurdity, as when a pair of clones look about as similar as
Danny Devito and Arnold Schwartznegger in Twins. Sooner or later someone
is going to forget which role he's playing, or not going to have time
for a costume change, or just have a fit of the giggles. If the plot
works its way out by the end of the hour - and you can't assume that
coming in - it will be by the most unlikely means. And the whole thing
is just too silly to resist. If I have any reservation, it is that I've
seen this sort of thing done with more relentless speed by others, and
the PDs are a little too easy on themselves for my taste.Gerald
Berkowitz
Philberto
Pleasance
This alter-ego of London-based comic Milo McCabe assures us he is a big
star in his native Portugal, being the runner-up in a particularly
bizarre variant on Big Brother. His supposed adventures on that program,
including some extreme tasks and challenges you wouldn't be too
astonished to find Big Brother driven to, make up one of the running
themes of his current show, along with a lifetime of sibling rivalry
with a brother who always manages at the last moment to top any of his
achievements, and the adventures of a foreigner in London. That last
strand leads to a couple of semi-musical interludes, a rap on proper
tube escalator decorum and a search for cheeky Cockneys like Dick Van
Dyke. He also touches on strategies for watching porn movies while your
parents are in the house, and the strange food preferences of the
English. But even more impressive than his prepared material are his
easy engagement with the audience and his unforced but sharp-witted ad
libs, successfully coping on this occasion with a drunken audience
member who persisted in thinking she was the co-star of a double act. Gerald
Berkowitz
Plagiarismo! New Town Theatre
Plagiarism, if you haven't already guessed, is the theme of Richard
DeDomenici's latest show where he offers a quirky, bizarre yet
inevitably informative PowerPoint ride through the subject of grand
larceny in the murky world of intellectual copyright. It seems that
nothing is sacred - or new - under the sun. And everyone is at it, right
up to national corporations and international stars who should know
better. Even Rupert Murdoch and the BBC have been caught in the act,
exposed as (allegedly) serial rip-off merchants. Music emerges as a
favourite theme, one recurrent example being the legal ramifications of
exactly how many notes in a row you can get away with lifting before
someone cries 'foul'. Meanwhile, in-depth analysis reveals the uncertain
provenance of hits from Pussycat Dolls, Girls Aloud and even Michael
Jackson's 'Thriller'. With relish DeDomenici enumerates the cash
hand-outs record companies have been forced to give aggrieved
songwriters. A tad uncomfortable in the cramped, sweaty confines of the
New Town studio (suspiciously resembling a tiled sauna), DeDomenici
barely manages to keep the energy above lecture level. Nevertheless,
despite his avowed subversive performance artist status, there is more
than enough comic material here to keep you chuckling long after the
show's end. Nick Awde
The
Play About Charlotte C
Soco
A young woman playwright suffering from writer's block and a loss of
confidence is newly inspired by meeting a vital and seductive
prostitute. But the new friend's attraction threatens the writer's
relationship with her boyfriend and eventually the stability of her
mind, leading her to both seek and resist the help of a psychiatrist.
Hannah Patterson's new play takes too long, with too many plot twists
and surprise revelations (some telegraphed long in advance), to discover
that it about the pain of the blocked creative impulse, pausing along
the way to flirt with being domestic drama, sex comedy and psychological
thriller instead. Still, the digressions are eventually discarded, and
the diverse strands are brought together in inventive ways, as when an
early scene is later replayed with the roles switched around among the
characters to depict and illuminate the woman's emotional confusion. Amy
Marchant touchingly captures a woman in psychological trouble quite
believably resisting aid that might be even more painful, while Helen
Kennedy communicates the attraction of a woman different enough to be
almost an alter ego, and Edmund Digby-Jones and Pierre Tailleux anchor
the play as the only two characters certain at all times that they are
functioning in the real world. Gerald
Berkowitz
Play
On Words Pleasance
(Reviewed
at a previous Festival)
Tom Crawshaw is a real playwright. Play On Words may not be wholly
successful as a play, but its failings are not those of talent, but of
control over the talent, as Crawshaw's imagination takes the play into
too many stylistic and thematic directions at once, the centre
ultimately not holding. On one level, and intermittently during its
length, it is the linguistic jape the title suggests, with puns and
wordplay running through the dialogue. On another, it is metatheatre, a
play about a play, with a lighting technician who announces each
lighting cue with the enthusiasm of a radio DJ, and an opening scene in
which an actor tries frantically to keep up with the barked orders of
his director. But none of this really has anything to do with the plot,
which is about two men trying to recreate the past to find out what
happened to the woman one of them loved, hampered by the fact that
memory is faulty and a search can sometimes be shaped by what one hopes
to find. That ultimately quite serious psychological drama sits uneasily
with the verbal wit and theatrical games. Every aspect of the play is
inventive and potentially effective, but they just don't all belong in
the same play, and Play On Words is worth seeing mainly as a promise of
more successful things to come from this writer. Gerald Berkowitz
Precious
Little Talent Bedlam
The author of this short play, Ella Hickson, has an abundance of ideas
but not quite the discipline or skill to control them, so her play spins
off in too many directions instead of cohering. But all that means is
that Precious Little Talent is a flawed play by a real writer, and
that's a lot more interesting and exciting than a well-made play by
someone with no real promise. On one level, the play is a standard
rom-com, with a couple who meet cute and then discover a complication -
in this case, he works for her father. But the boy's job is as carer for
the man, who is in the first stages of Alzheimer's, and the father
desperately does not want his daughter to find out. And on top of that,
father and daughter are English and the boy American, and Hickson puts a
lot of weight on the ingrained pessimism of the one and instinctive
optimism of the other. So there are at least three different plays
there, and a more skilled technician than Hickson is at this point might
have been able to unify any two, though probably not all three. There
are several very well-written scenes that testify to Hickson's talent
and give her cast opportunities to shine - Simon Ginty as the boy
excitedly describing the couple's magical meeting and Emma Hiddleston's
later slightly more clear-eyed account of the same event, John McColl
explaining how unbearable it would be to have his daughter watch him
forget her, and Hiddleston seeing the inauguration of President Obama as
representing everything about the American spirit she envies.
Gerald Berkowitz
Matt
Price GRV
The full title of Matt Price's show is My Girlfriend Was Attacked By A
Small-Time Wannabe Gangster And This Is What I Did About It. His
girlfriend was indeed very badly beaten up by a neighbourhood tough, and
Matt's reaction was to go to a couple of hardmen he knew and ask for
their help, either in dealing with the bastard for him or giving him the
tools to do it himself. They talked him out of it, mainly by convincing
him that he didn't want to become the person vengeance would make him,
but now he is still haunted by feelings of guilt and inadequacy. He
admits that the purpose of his current show is primarily to work out a
kind of self-therapy, which raises some questions about the morality of
his inviting paying audiences expecting an hour of comedy. Price does
allow some humour to slip in to his monologue, mainly in his account of
doing a show to the criminally insane inhabitants of Broadmoor Prison,
but it is clear that he is looking more for hugs than laughs from his
audience, and the sincerity of his story does move at least some
listeners to forget their expectations and respond to his emotional
appeal. Gerald Berkowitz
The
Prime
of Miss Jean Brodie
Assembly Hall
Muriel Spark's schoolteacher is one of those characters who has entered
our cultural DNA, and you know her and her story even if you have never
read the novel or seen the play or film. Among other things, Jay Presson
Allan's stage version is a marvellous vehicle for a strong and
charismatic actress, and the major reason for seeing this new production
is Anna Francolini's brave and innovative performance. I call it brave
because Francolini resists the temptation to make this teacher who
dominates and shapes her students with her charm seem charming to us. If
the schoolgirls see the ideal woman they would follow anywhere,
Francolini shows us the egotistical martinet and charlatan revelling in
their adoration. The plot centres on her attempts not only to inspire
her coterie of acolytes, but to shape them in the images she has chosen
for them, and of one in particular who rebels against this determinism.
And Laurie Sansom's production has much in it to please the eye and ear,
not least his use of a larger chorus of schoolgirls to create a sense of
a world around the central characters and, incidentally, to provide
beautifully choreographed set changes. But the dominant attraction is
the cool and sharp-edged characterisation by Anna Francolini, which
enables us to see exactly why the girls fall under the spell of Jean
Brodie without becoming overly enchanted ourselves. Gerald
Berkowitz
Private Peaceful Udderbelly's Pasture (Reviewed
at a previous Festival)
You'll be seeing quite a few plays about World War I as the
centenary of its years of carnage creeps up on us, but Private Peaceful
has to be among the best of the crop. Based on a story by best-selling
children's author Michael Morpurgo and adapted by Simon Reade, this is
the tragic yet gripping tale of a young soldier at the Western Front. As
Tommo Peaceful waits for dawn and the firing squad, the condemned
private tells us of his short life and the events that have led to his
being sentenced to death for cowardice. He introduces us to his home in
rural Devon, his family and neighbours and the news of approaching war
and joining up to fight. Barely has he arrived at the front than he is
sent on a trench raid, whose successful outcome proves that he is made
of the right stuff. And yet old rivalries raise their head when he falls
foul of an NCO from back home and when the day comes to go over the top
for the big one it explodes in murderous no-man's land. Everyone
involved in this production has done their homework on what is still a
controversial part of our history, and every detail convinces from the
recreation of the raid to the way Tommo puts on his puttees. Only the
ending perhaps takes one step too far from reality since, paradoxically,
death would be a just sentence but one that would also be commuted under
the complex circumstances of Tommo's story. Nick Awde
Pullman
Car
Hiawatha
Augustine's
This show should be bad. The actors forget their lines, the costumes and
set are shoddy and the direction is blunt and awkward. However, the
result is a rather rough but charming piece of theatre that somehow
leaves one feeling curiously uplifted. Pullman Car Hiawatha by Thornton
Wilder takes place in the lower berth of a sleeper car, circa 1930. What
starts as a routine study of each of the characters takes a turn for the
metaphysical, with ghosts and planets entering the story. A helpful
narrator guides the audience through the plot with many witty asides.
The script is gentle but with the occasional twist and turn, as well as
some pleasing theatrical inventiveness. Most of the enjoyment comes
through the exuberance of the cast. There is evidently a great dynamic
among them and the vibrancy of performance is entirely infectious.This
warmth is carried through from beginning to end, lending itself to
several touching moments. It isn't the most polished show in the Fringe,
but it is perhaps one of the most endearing. Christopher Harrisson
Pythonesque Underbelly
After dissecting Spike Milligan in Ying Tong and the Beyond the Fringe
crew in Good Evening, Roy Smiles returns with Monty Python as his latest
subject. This new comedy reunites him with Ying Tong director Michael
Kingsbury, and it looks like a winning combination once more. Admittedly
the history of the Pythons has been told and retold right across the
media but Smiles' ingenious solution is to narrate via vignettes of
different genres fused together by a self-referential and entertainingly
metatheatrical framework. Most obvious are the scenes where he uses
iconic Python sketches to expound biographical events: Eric Idle
auditions John Cleese for the Cambridge Footlights with Idle in
full-blown 'nudge-nudge wink-wink' mode while the Four Yorkshiremen
lament the passing of the golden age of TV rather then life down the
pit. It's an ambitious script from Smiles that Kingsbury deftly picks up
and runs with, and with a little more tweaking the production deserves
to tour and tour - and ideally with this cast. As a deadpan, stiff
upper-lipped John Cleese, Mark Burrell threatens to steal the show,
while Chris Polick oozes prickly charm as Graham Chapman. Doubling up
are Matt Addis, alternating cuddliness and thoughtful absurdity as
Michael Palin and Terry Jones, and James Lance, who manfully goes over
the theatrical top to portray the equally manic Eric Idle and Terry
Gilliam. Although the actors (no moonlighting stand-ups here) are not
deadringers, it is thrilling to see such eclectic talent assembled on
one stage in a way we have rarely seen since, well, the Python Golden
Age. Nick Awde
Randy's Postcards From Purgatory Underbelly
Randy is a self-confessed 'cynical booze-hound with an attitude
problem', and with a day-time job in children's entertainment. He is no
stranger to drunken one night stands, failed career prospects and all
manner of generally self-destructive behaviour - summed up through a
choice selection of anecdotes from his twenties and thirties, featuring
stints in a rock band, a religious cult and in TV industry. In other
words, Randy is a regular bloke going through a mid-life crisis - with
the exception that he is made out of foam and purple felt. The
Australian entertainer Heath McIvor imbues his creation with such an
irresistable personality, wit and charm that his comedy show suffers
from no lack of audience participation. Gardening fans need no coaxing
to chip in on cue in this show, while otherwise bashful ladies hasten to
share recipes involving majoram. In addition to one of the finest
characterisations on the Fringe, numerous costume changes and a slick
script make this show a real joy to watch. And to top it all, the notion
of off the cuff wit will acquire a whole new meaning as you watch Randy
hypnotise objects into their place or deal with unexpected accidents.
Eat your heart out, Jim Henson, Randy's here to stay well past
retirement age! Duska Radosavljevic
Re___
Gilded Balloon
Freddy Syborn's self-directed play is an odd concoction of biography and
the imaginative recreation of the life of Rev Harold Davidson, a First
World War chaplain. With its self-consciously experimental script and
some leaden performances, the play loses focus, the central character
remaining hard to grasp by the end. Its opening conceit sees two
characters in a cage on either side of the stage. They are callers to a
radio phone-in show, trying to guess a word or phrase beginning with RE,
hence the show's title. Recto-vaginal? Red Dress? Red Mist? Regret? The
actors embody several different characters as this scene recurs
throughout. Susie Chrystal as Amy, David Isaacs as Frank and Adam
Lawrence as Dominic perform their parts with intensity. At times, the
script has a fragmented, poetic quality, especially a letter reading
scene in which two speakers' words start accidentally coinciding and
interweaving. But often swathes of unfocused dialogue and a lack of
conviction in the delivery dominate. The writing can feel portentous,
and the slow-moving pace is a challenge for the audience. Syborn's
direction is fairly uninspired, the actors looking uncomfortable in the
small stage space, often delivering their dialogue outwards rather than
engaging with each other. William McEvoy
RealiTV
Spaces on the Mile
As the debate hots up over in America over NHS 'death panels' that
decide who should live and who should die, here in Edinburgh the subject
has been uncannily pre-empted in this zippy satire about healthcare and
reality TV. That 'reality' is Big Brother meets Your Life in Their Hands
where the public gets to vote on contestants who are seriously or
terminally ill, banged up in the BB House for months with the victor
winning free medical care for the rest of their life. We are already
down to three contestants who have to complete their present tasks or
risk forfeiting their medication. Sensitive Nathan (Luke Emsley) is in
to win a complex drug regime to control his Aids complications, a kidney
transplant means that prickly Jess (Theresa Brunskill) will beat her
otherwise fatal congenital kidney disease, and dippy but desperate Emma
(Tamara Lucas) may commit suicide if she cannot get the IVF she needs to
conceive. Meanwhile scheming behind the scenes to boost the ratings are
slimy presenter (Morna McDonald) and marginally less so psychiatrist
(Shaun Nerthcott), who concoct increasingly cynical ploys to mess with
the lives of these human lab rats. The combination of Suzanne Enoch's
snappy script and direction with this hardworking cast create unexpected
depths in this little gem of a show. At first a little unfocused
production-wise, it all comes together neatly as you start laughing at
the characters' predicament while simultaneously feeling immense
sympathy for their plight - and the awkward question is very
deliberately planted in the audience of who would you save? Nick Awde
Regret
Me
Not Pleasance
Unnervingly spot-on, unsettling funny, Andrea Donovan unveils a gallery
of characters that are each assertive in their own way yet each with a
regret. And although at first sight they mostly appear to be responsible
members of society, they are uniformly loonies after you've peeled away
the external layers of respectability. Hailing from the North East is
the lady whose life classes are punctuated by her trusty flipchart,
strewn with aphorisms, truisms and gloriously meaningless slogans. Her
malapropisms, largely sexual, hint of disappointments at odds with this
otherwise straitlaced middle-aged guru of personal confidence. Next up
is the posh twentysomething whose clipped tones and breathy delivery are
straight out of the pages of Hello! magazine, while her reminiscences of
teenage exploits and derring-do are plucked from Enid Blyton's Famous
Five, just darker. An Antipodean swimming instructress then bounds on.
Ponytailed, track-besuited and surgically attached to her clipboard, she
harangues a group of lazy sixthformers over a recent unfortunate
accident until she's shouting madly out of the back of the venue at
misbehaving youngsters in the distance. The Scottish single mother with
older kids lets us into the minutiae of her 'restricted lifestyle' and
sadly recalls her gameful attempts to keep up with her more outgoing
mates. The mood darkens with the Midlands librarian whose low level OCD
is painfully at odds with her cheery efforts to pass an interview to
adopt a child. Oh, let's not forget the American of a certain age who
successfully blends a refuge for prairie dogs with balletic yoga while
yearning for a dancing career that never was. Subtly observed, at times
scary and always deliciously loopy, Donovan's portraits reveal not only
a consummate comic actor but also an enviable writing talent. Nick
Awde
Rich
Hall's Campfire Stories Assembly
Part shaggy dog story, part commentary on our strange modern life, Rich
Hall's latest play lovingly plunders every metaphor to be found in hymns
to the outdoor life, in this case flyfishing in the Montana wilderness.
Recently widowed Rich is soaking up the solitude up a river in the
hills. It's midge season but the biggest bug is Mike, aimlessly avoiding
the campsite where he is holed up with his internet date Olive for the
weekend. Olive, it transpires, might prove an even bigger bug. Desperate
for company, Mike gamely fails to learn how to flyfish or appreciate the
zen-like philosophising that goes with the sport. Despite losing Rich's
top trout fly, Mike still manages to get the prickly fisherman to join
him for an evening over a bottle of bourbon by his campfire. As the
unlikely buddies, Hall and Mike Wilmot do a passable Lemmon and Matthau,
and Tim Williams' craggy features make him perfectly suited as the
chorus-like fly maker. Ironic allusions to eulogising outdoor activities
and Mother Nature abound, while the trappings of modern life are
simultaneously mocked. As a laughter-filled hour of ad-libs and
infectious corpsing this is value for your money, but the moments that
stick are those that actually follow the script. Writing is something
that Hall takes seriously and so, with tighter direction and script,
Campfire Stories could become the great slice of work it promises to be.
Nick Awde
Roald
Dahl's Revolting Rhymes Augustine's
The beauty of this wonderful show lies in its simplicity: two brilliant
performers, two of Roald Dahl's classic books and one hour of pure
entertainment. Rather than attempting to adapt the original stories,
Clewis Productions' Clem Silverman and Lewis Baker simply take turns to
read while the other mimes along, unsqueamishly roaring, burping and
dribbling, much to the simultaneous delight and horror of the audience.
It is the comic physical flourishes that give the show its extra
sparkle, managing to capture the unique macabre humour of Roald Dahl's
tales. The sections extracted from 'Revolting Rhymes' and the lesser
known 'Gory Beasts' are wonderful, whether well-known and much loved or
completely fresh. Included are Dahl's grisly retellings of classic fairy
stories Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs.
Children are invited up from the audience to play their parts roaring as
wolves and squealing as pigs. This keeps them almost as delighted and
entertained as does a bearded Red Riding Hood, and the use of the male
performer's own shoe as Cinderella's slipper. Animated, engaging,
energetic and highly amusing, this is storytelling at its best and
perfect children's entertainment. Lana Harper
Rogue
Males
Pleasance
Last year Adam Riches' solo show Alpha Males was a revelation and a
deserved hit, a string of character sketches each more original and
comic than the last, presented with an irony and mock-macho charm that
thoroughly disarmed and engaged an audience. That audience connection is
still there in this year's show, and is almost enough to carry the hour,
but too much of the script feels like out-takes and B material left over
from the previous show. If memory serves, the Australian sex expert, big
game hunter and video piracy guy are reprised characters, and the effect
is a bit like seeing the umpteenth variant of a TV sketch show character
- we're glad to see him again, but the joke is wearing thin. The longest
sketch, about the cowardly hunter, is inventive and funny in itself, as
is the shorter skit about Daniel Day Lewis as Zorro. So perhaps it is
only those who remember last year's show who will be slightly
disappointed. Gerald Berkowitz
Scaramouche
Jones Assembly
(Reviewed
at a previous Festival)
Justin Butcher wrote this monologue a decade ago to be performed
successfully by others, but now he himself plays the 100-year-old clown
on the eve of the Millennium, whose dark and comic memoirs are
unforcedly a survey of Twentieth Century history. Imagining him born in
the West Indies to a Gypsy mother and unknown English father alludes to
the remnants of 19th-century colonialism, taking him to Africa and then
the Middle East lets his path obliquely touch figures from T. E.
Lawrence to Haile Selassie. As a Gypsy passing through Poland in the
1930s he ends up in a concentration camp, where his attempts to distract
frightened children fulfil his calling as a clown. None of this is
forced or heavy, and the character is so fully drawn, both in the lush
and expressive writing and in Butcher's vital and rounded performance,
that the imagined biography is engrossing even without the historical
context. Employing many nice small touches, such as the way the veteran
performer unconsciously transfers bits of comic business into his
offstage behaviour or the way his natural movements have become fluid,
almost balletic, Butcher captures both the man's inexhaustible energy
and his pathos. Gerald Berkowitz
The
School for Scandal Pleasance
Sheridan's classic of back-biting and chicanery among the upper classes
is performed by the moonlighting stand-up comics of the Comedians
Theatre Company, many of whom use their roles as the springboards for
their own signature shtick - and, to the horror of purists and the
delight of everyone else, the play proves resilient enough to take it,
with Sheridan's humour sitting quite comfortably alongside the modern
gags and send-ups. While some in the cast, like Amy Saunders as Lady
Sneerwell and Huw Thomas as Sir Oliver, try within the limits allowed
them by the others to play their roles relatively straight, others, like
Lionel Blair as Sir Peter and Stephen K. Amos as Benjamin Backbite,
essentially play themselves, smoothly ad libbing around their lines. And
still others go hog-wild in the mugging and broad playing, with Phil
Nichol's Joseph Surface and especially Paul Foot's Crabtree happily
thumbing their noses at anything remotely resembling restraint. In less
skilled hands - and one must assume that director Cal McCrystal retained
some minimal control over the cast - this could have been a shambles.
But it is great fun, and wholly true to the spirit, if only occasionally
to the letter, of the original. Gerald Berkowitz
Screwloose
Quaker Meeting House
Hot from the Village Idiots, this mask comedy centring around flat-pack
furniture is a rollercoaster of visual jokes - with not a single word
spoken. The action is split between the home of a bored couple (she's
outgoing, he's not) and a furniture company's returns department (where
the bored staff break the tedium in increasingly bizarre ways). A chance
bike accident in the street outside plus a flat-pack delivery with
missing part bring the two worlds together, and mayhem ensues as the
suburban husband embarks on his quest for that elusive part. And could
that be love beckoning from behind a clipboard in a warehouse office?
Accompanied by a thumping music soundtrack, the cast make playing in
masks look easy, and they even find time to react (wordlessly) with the
audience when given the chance. It is riveting to see how all the props
and plot fall together until not a single part of the versatile set is
without a use. There are echoes of Trestle's own mask work (and it is no
surprise to find that director Amanda Wilsher has worked with the
company) but the selling point here is a strong plot laced with oodles
of contemporary references and laughs. Nick Awde
Sea
Wall Traverse
Simon Stephens' thirty-minute solo play is a monologue by a man who
doesn't want to speak about the things he needs to speak about, or to
feel the emotions he needs to face and express. It is about a man who
teases a friend about his faith while desperately searching for his own.
And it is about a sea wall, that point where the underwater floor
suddenly falls away, plunging into unmeasured darkness. Andrew Scott
plays the man who not only has the worst possible thing in the world
happen, but who witnesses it from a vantage that adds to the horror by
making it seem almost beautiful. The actor skilfully captures the
seemingly diffident manner of one who seems at first to be rambling
about nothing in particular, but whose verbal tics and unfinished
sentences are the self-protective devices of a damaged soul circling
around the unspeakable. Insightful writing and sensitive performance,
both subtle and understated, make for a quietly seductive and ultimately
harrowing half-hour. Gerald Berkowitz
Selective
Hearing The Space at The Radisson
Bristol University's Clifton Hill House Edinburgh Project's devised
piece is attacked with imagination and enthusiasm, albeit a little
misjudged. There are many enjoyable aspects to the show - not least the
cleverly constructed scenes with multiple conversations occurring
between the large cast, who occupy the stage throughout. The effectively
executed and rousing live musical accompaniment and songs also impress.
The piece is funny from the start and provides the audience with a
string of one-liners and bad chat-up lines as well as the scenes of
squirmingly awkward hilarity typical of teenage life. However, the piece
continually suffers from its not wholly successful attempts to make
serious statements about the potential for adolescent social fascism or
when it addresses issues of teenage pregnancy and violence. Furthermore,
the core subject matter of the narrative is stretched too thinly, with
irrelevant and undeveloped sidelines, such as a love triangle between
two female members of staff and an ex-Staples worker. While highly
entertaining, these feel more like distractions. This piece would have
benefited from fully embracing its more successful farcical elements and
revelling in the highly amusing moments of self-referential irony. Oliver
Kassman
Serate Bastarde C
Shocking, funny, in yer face and very, very political, Italian satirical
comedy may or may not be your cup of cappuccino even when it's
translated into English (albeit told in deliciously OTT Italian
accents). So here's a raucous taster to help you cross those comic
boundaries. The show's title translates as 'Bastard Nights' and it's
served up by Milan's Dionisi - aka Renata Ciaravino, Silvia Gallerano
and Carmen Pellegrinelli. The de rigueur Berlusconi material might well
go over the heads of most Brits but there's a wealth of other material
on offer: the (literally) mutilated beauty queen, the live funeral
broadcast, the rant about keeping up the right-on lifestyle of a
left-wing comedian, and the biting pastiche of 'Fez in the City' where
Carrie and mates are transposed to burka-clad Kabul. Burnt flesh and
tits pop out when you least expect as does a sperm-filled swimming pool.
To be honest, you don't know whether to laugh, cringe or cry - and
that's just where Ciaravino and co want you. Dionisi's English version
of their brand of satire provides a fascinating comparison for UK
audiences. Our own satire has evolved into the sophisticated soapbox of
Mark Thomas or the TV reality of Armando Iannucci's In the Thick of It
but we lost the authentic hard-nosed stuff after Ben Elton took the piss
out of it in the eighties. Now is your chance to rediscover satire as it
should be, courtesy of this provocative, incisive trio. Nick Awde
The
Shade Ain't Right C Soco
The blurb for this world premier set in a 1920s Harlem club promises a
powerful exploration of black-on-black racism and its influence on
performers, both during the jazz era and today. The Lincoln Company's
show opens very promisingly, with the rich, soulful tones of a young
actress, lit strikingly from above. However, unfortunately from here on,
the play lets its cast down by failing to offer any compelling
characters, or indeed, anything very interesting to work with. The plot
follows three performers, one black, one white and one of mixed race,
and takes place backstage in the characters' shared dressing room.
Facing the audience, they converse through fictional reflections, which
would have worked very well had they had anything of any consequence, or
even any eloquence, to say. The sole purpose of the play seems to be to
highlight the rather obvious fact that sometimes black people are racist
too, which really isn't substantial or controversial enough to make for
interesting watching, without any new twist on it. The climax of the
whole play is a cat-fight between two of the girls, while the other (a
white character who seems to have managed to travel to Harlem from the
South and remain completely unaware of any racist tension,) watches
innocent and horrified. The main offence of this show, however, is that
it was completely unmemorable - a particularly unforgivable sin at the
Fringe. The cast make a valiant effort with a clumsy premise and bland
dialogue Powerful it is not, and just how it ever proposed to answer its
tag-line question 'how black is too black?', I am still not sure. Lita
Wallis
Shakespeare For Breakfast C
It must be close to twenty years ago that a student group found
themselves with an empty morning slot and threw together a Shakespeare
pastiche, luring audiences in with free food, and the show - different
each year - has become a Fringe staple and a delightful way to start a
day. The most common format over the years has been finding some excuse
to throw characters from several plays together, to bounce off each
other comically. This year they've chosen a kind of Panto version of A
Midsummer Night's Dream, that sends the original up inventively while
remaining remarkably true to its spirit. So we get a female Puck
reciting doggerel rhymes not much worse than Shakespeare's while
flirting outrageously with audience members, a panto dame Titania, a
posh twit Lysander and Hermia as dim as each other and almost as
brain-dead as Helena, a performance of Pyramid and Frisbee and, for
reasons that seem to make sense at the time, the dance from Thriller. It
is all very clever, all very silly, and all a lot of fun. And you get
free coffee and croissants. Gerald
Berkowitz
Show
Down C
New York-based Bang Group is a dance company dedicated above all things
to the sheer joy of dancing. Headed by choreographer David Parker and
principal dancer Jeffrey Kazin, the young company have fun up there, and
the fun is infectious - I still grin at the memory of a past show in
which Parker danced on a sheet of bubble wrap. This year's show is set
to the once-lost Judy Garland soundtrack to Annie Get Your Gun (Set for
the role that eventually went to Betty Hutton, Garland got as far as
recording the songs before being fired, and the tapes sat on a studio
shelf for decades). Parker's choreography touches occasionally on cowboy
themes, but is primarily - as is much of his work - about gender. Any
time there are three couples onstage, one is likely to be same-sex, and
girls are as likely to lift boys as the opposite. Indeed, a kind of
running gag has Jeffrey Kazin, who is tall and masculine, repeatedly
being lifted or carried, so that he spends almost as much time in the
air as on his feet. Fans will recognise some signature Parker movements
- the barefoot tapdancing, horizontal carries and intertwined bodies -
along with brief and witty allusions to everything from Swan Lake to A
Chorus Line. But above all, everyone up there is revelling in the sheer
fun of movement, and that joy is irresistible. Gerald
Berkowitz
Shed
Simove: Ideas Man Belushi's
Shed Simove has an insatiable entrepreneurial curiosity. He invented own
currency, dubbed the 'ego', which trades on eBay - his Heads and Tales
coin even has his arse in bronze on the back. As a publicity gimmick he
legally changed his name to God before turning his skills to devising
and marketing novelties such as birthday candles that spell '21 Again',
boxes of Credit Crunch cereal, bags of Clitoris Allsorts and a Pubic's
Cube game. I'm sure he has a lot more products but it's the saucy ones
that get the spotlight. Simove is candid about failure. 'If you dream it
you can do it' may be his motto but he happily rolls out meticulous
documentation of his more bizarre rejections. A novelty candle range
doesn't pan out because of bad packaging ('Three seconds is all you've
got to make up your mind') while butt plugs (bums stuck on electrical
plugs) founder in development hell, and then he loses £200,000 after a
TV documentary falls through. Why? He was the adult who a while ago
pretended to be a 16-year-old at a school. Simove is the only one
surprised at this particular defeat. Clearly accustomed more to
self-publicising than performing, Simove is twitchy in his delivery and
needs to direct that febrile imagination towards developing a stage
persona. It's ironic that I left uninterested in purchasing a Simove
idea but intrigued as to what his next show will be like. Nick Awde
6.0: How Heap and Pebble Took on the
World and Won
Pleasance
The most exciting and innovative aspect of Valentina Ceschi and Thomas
Eccleshare's show is the way in which they cast and guide individual
audience members into the role of privileged journalists having an
opportunity to interview the star ice-skating duo Heap and Pebble.
Genuinely thrilling to watch and yet entirely non-threatening, their
gimmick works every time, and progressively so - as there is very little
real action that happens in between these rare moments of audience
interaction. Ceschi and Eccleshare might rightfully argue that the most
important aspect of their show is contained within these pregnant
silences filled with the sound of glaciers melting, and sporting careers
being reduced to struggling cabaret acts. As a concept this 'climate
change parable' gets a 6.0 score, however its artistic realisation,
boiling down to a cyclical repetition of that same theme for the whole
60 minutes of the show, is hardly quantifiable at all. It is a pity, for
the two have all the charm and prowess of their unnamed muses Torvill
and Dean. But at least they also have plenty of time between now and the
Olympics to develop their routine to its full topical potential. Duska
Radosavljevic
Slave
Trader Spaces at
Venue 45
You might imagine, when hearing the title Slave Trader, that the play
you are about to see is going to deal with the relations between a slave
trader and 'his' slaves. Or that it will explore the importance of the
slave trade in the accumulation of great wealth in the West. So did I.
How wrong I was. This company thought it expedient to focus on the
family problems of an alcoholic and abusive slave trader. The audience
is forced to watch an almost exclusively white cast declaim how bad
everyone feels about being associated with slavery and how hard it is to
live with a drunk. Historically accurate and absolutely fascinating, I'm
sure everyone will agree. The only non-white performer in the cast plays
the slave. Not only is this painfully unintelligent directing but his
oppression is also staged absolutely uncritically. The audience cringes
at every use of the n-word (thrown in randomly when most of the time the
term 'black people' is used) and dies a little when the slave starts a
prayer by 'I have a dream, I have a dream that one day . . .' Finally,
this production would have been acceptable if its only flaws were bad
acting, poor direction and no attention to the times in which the action
is set. But no, this production also staged a portrayal of slavery that
seems to come straight out of the 1930s and is highly objectionable. Simon
Englert
The Sociable Plover Assembly
The bird called the sociable plover is paradoxically a loner, a
singleton characteristically blown away from its flock by a storm and
forced to hang out with other breeds until it finds its way home. And in
Tim Whitnall's play it is not clear at first which of the two characters
most resembles the titular bird. Birdwatcher Roy, played by Guy
Masterson, is certainly a loner, camped out in his blind in hopes of
spotting a plover, the last remaining unticked box in his log. But it is
Ronnie Toms' Dave, taking refuge from the weather in Roy's hut, who
seems most out of his element. Neither of them naturally inclined to be
sociable, they do gradually engage in grudging conversation, during
which we learn that Roy is so dull his wife left him for an insurance
man, while Dave is a hardman, perhaps the fugitive mentioned in police
broadcasts. The play will eventually have some surprise twists and an
ironic ending, but its real strengths lie in the first half, as the
actors, directed by the playwright, introduce and establish the
characters with efficiency and subtlety. The first five minutes or so
are silent, as Masterson enters, fussily tidies up and methodically lays
out his gear, and between laughs of recognition the audience learns all
it needs to know (it thinks) about the character. And Toms, through a
string of taciturn comments and responses, keeps us guessing about his
character, repeatedly surprising us with a new facet we hadn't
anticipated. The story ultimately becomes more than a bit gimmicky, but
it is in the characterisations and performances that the pleasures of
the hour lie. Gerald Berkowitz
The
Sound of My Voice Assembly
Ron Butlin's novel and Jeremy Raison's stage adaptation centre on an
alcoholic of a particular sort, one who is jolly, witty, personable and
actually quite functional when drunk, but only in danger of losing
control as he begins to sober up and has to fight frantically to
re-establish the buzz. Raison makes it a near-monologue for actor Billy
Mack, who slowly and subtly exposes the depths of his dependence while
the dubious reliability of his reportage slips out as we get external
evidence of more time spent drinking than he let on, or of more liquor
disappearing. It is then that we also begin to see that his wife is
choosing to ignore rather than not noticing, that his daughter is
walking on eggshells, and that his secretary is doing a lot of covering
for him. It is late in the script before the central character
acknowledges his problem and faces the frightening prospect of trying to
make it sober one day at a time. With the playwright directing, Billy
Mack gives a bravura performance that also gradually and sensitively
peels away the layers of denial and self-delusion to expose a character
who just may have a greater core of strength than he himself realises,
while Michelle Gallagher quietly draws us into the secrets of the three
women in his life. Gerald Berkowitz
Stalag
Happy Underbelly
The odd bout of Nazi violence aside, this slice of life in a POW camp
during World War II celebrates the vibrant camaraderie that existed
amongst Allied servicemen despite the trauma of their incarceration.
Based on fact, it focuses on the lasting friendship that developed
between two of the UK's key post-war artists, Adrian Heath and Terry
Frost. Heath, an RAF rear gunner, spots commando Frost struggling to
paint and cajoles the budding artist into doubling as a look-out for the
tunnel he is digging. Although Heath's jailbreak exploits keep landing
him in solitary, whenever he is released the pair build on the affinity
that bonds them. Guided by Heath, Frost gains confidence and is soon
doing the portrait of a soldier who complains that his hair is blue -
Frost admits he has no other colours left thanks to prison austerity.
When not imagining visits to art galleries, the pair dream up daytrips
to Margate and dances in the arms of their ideal women. Dan Frost
(Frost's grandson in real life) and Edward Elks are an impressive double
act who nail the cheeky chappiness without a hint of sentimentality. A
lack of physicality means that they do not make character transitions as
successfully as they deserve, and yet the performances ooze confidence.
The pair's co-written script sparkles making this a production that will
make a successful transition to longer play, radio play or even film. Nick
Awde
The
State
We're In Assembly
Inspired by the experiences of Brian Haw, whose antiwar vigil outside
the Houses of Parliament has lasted eight years, political reporter Zia
Trench has written a mildly fictionalised version of the man and his
experience. The protester, here called Tommy, is played by Michael Byrne
as an ordinary husband and father who realised one day that he could
simply not not-protest. Trench has him quote Martin Luther - 'Here I
stand. I can do no other' - and the sense that he is driven, not by some
intellectualised political position, but by the internalised conviction
that he must do this thing because it is right, is one of the play's
strongest and most moving impressions. But neither playwright nor actor
is blind to the fact that a degree of self-righteousness will inevitably
creep into such a figure, and Tommy is not immune to either messianic
nor martyr temptations. The play is at its weakest when it occasionally
becomes just a soapbox for Tommy, at its best when it lets us see the
human story, all the more impressive as it is made to seem more
ordinary. There are strong supporting performances by Julie Higginson as
the wife essentially deserted by her husband for a mistress she cannot
fight, Amaka Okafor as a sympathetic reporter, and especially Diana
Walker as a particularly oily MP finely attuned to the slightest shifts
in the political winds. Gerald
Berkowitz
Stitches
The Space at The Radisson
Set in a world ravaged by 'fire floods', where almost everything before
the devastation has been destroyed or forgotten, this new piece of
writing has the kind of sprawling plot usually encountered in sci-fi
sagas rather than fringe theatre. Following a group of young conscripts
whose task it is to rediscover lost knowledge, it raises interesting
issues about what civilisation is and how humans, in surviving
destruction, carry prejudices and class structures with them intact. Add
to this an Orwellian state that tries to enforce equality and a complex
set of personal relationships and back stories and you have a piece of
theatre that is weighed down with lengthy explanations and frequent
exposition that at times feels contrived. With so much to say and very
little to show, it is difficult for the performers to portray convincing
characters and get us to engage emotionally with their predicament.
There is undoubtedly good writing here, but it is not clear what the
writer wanted to say about humans or society by having them re-remember
so much lost information. The complex plot contains some intriguing
ideas but ultimately results in a piece that relies too heavily on
novelistic description. Alex Brown
A Stroke of Genius Pleasance
Dome
Inspired by reported attempts to set up a sperm bank of geniuses, David
Byrne's play imagines a woman determined to bear a superior child. She
has chosen the brilliant donor, who knows nothing about her plans, so
she will have to find a way to extract what she needs from him. But
first she must find and recruit someone with enough medical knowledge to
collect the little swimmers and perform the fertilization, and that
requires first kidnapping the hapless medical student's girlfriend.
Meanwhile, some rummaging around in her own genetic history uncovers a
long-lost brother, who turns out to be.... Writer-director Byrne seems
unsure whether his play is farce, psychological horror, black comedy,
serious study in eugenics or sad little melodrama of sad little
misguided people, and so it tries to be each of these in turn, and
sometimes simultaneously, to the detriment of any of his ambitions and
to the evident confusion of his cast, who seem unsure whether they're
supposed to be comic or not. Somewhere in here are the seeds of two or
three different plays, any one of which would have to be more
successful, more consistent in tone and focus, and more coherent than
this one. Gerald Berkowitz
Success
Story
Pleasance
When love and loyalty are defined loosely enough to allow for, or even
assume betrayal, do the words retain any meaning at all? A successful
screenwriter used the dirty linen of a former lover's family as the plot
of his hit film, and used his current fiancee to get to her producer
father, while the family chose to involve him in their secrets and the
girl may well have used the lure of her father to catch this rising
star. But does that mean that none of them actually loved the others?
Brett Goldstein's play raises and debates these questions, always
bringing them from the theoretical to the level of actual human
experience, and concludes that the paradox is possible and possibly
inevitable, but that it forces us to live and love with a degree of
unresolvable ambiguity. Skilfully directed by Chris Lince, Goldstein as
the writer and Felicity Wren as the bitter ex-lover carry much of the
play's emotional weight, sensitively leading us through the complexities
of the moral debate, while Susanna Herbert adds an ironic dimension as
the fiancee more at ease with shades of grey than they. Gerald
Berkowitz
Super
Situation The Bongo Club
Extraordinary Girl is part of a crack team of government-sponsored
superheroes. An accident has given her superpowers which are not only
handy for repelling invasions of gigantic spiders but also for chores
around the house: EG can remote-control all the appliances with a twist
of her fingers and even iron her cape with her super-heated palms. When
not saving the world from evil meglomaniacs and fretting over rival
Inconceivable Girl, EG pops home and puts her feet up. Or at least
that's the idea. Every time she plops herself on the sofa or takes a
bite of food, the phones rings with an SOS call. Her well-meaning mother
also calls often, as does the pizza delivery guy who may have a crush on
her. Lois Tucker, in her guise as Lois of the Lane, is wordless
throughout - instead she reacts to an inventive stream of 40 character
voices that are fed into EG's life via the phone, ansafone, TV,
satellite comms and the street outside - most notable on voice-over
duties is Amanda Reed as EG's mum. The premise is ambitious, tightly
scripted by Tucker and is so well paced that this could effortlessly
extend to a full 90 minutes. However, more work needs to be done on the
facial expressions and movement (and unbecoming title), and there is
heaps of room for added visual gags and running jokes. Nick Awde
Sweeney
Todd - His Life, Times and Execution Gilded Balloon
The title of Finger In The Pie's show might well continue 'As Performed
By The Inmates of The Prison at Newgate Under The Direction of The Mad
Warden.' This is Sweeney Todd as mad clown show, with the rag-clad and
whiteface cast reinventing the familiar story through performance,
narration, puppetry, a touch of juggling and a music score that might be
Kurt Weill as played by the Tiger Lillies. Primary among the fresh
twists in the script developed by the company and directed by Alexander
Parsonage is having Sweeney played by the most normal-looking member of
the cast, Frank Wurzinger, as a shy and well-meaning youth who slips
accidentally into murder through his ineptness as a barber's apprentice.
Broad clowning and clever comic business spark at least the first half
of the show, but inspiration and energy seem to flag, and it is
noticeable that the whole killing spree and meat pies plot, normally
considered the essence of the tale, is squeezed into the shortest
section of the hour. If the wit and invention of the opening sequences
could be sustained, this could be a guilty-pleasure comic delight.
Gerald Berkowitz
Sweet C
A man despairs of his menial office job but has only his bumbling
alcoholic friend for company in the world outside. Meanwhile, in a
nearby sweetshop, a lonely woman creates confectionery for her sinister
customers. Touching, funny and dramatic in equal measure, Chotto Ookii's
inventive blend of mime, physical and narrative theatre offers a taste
of the light and darkness to be found in even the most mundane of lives.
These three particular lives cross paths one day when the man (a
suitably intense Jake England Johns) passes the shop and falls for the
sweetmaker, played by the bubbly Rebecca Devitt. Egged on by his wastrel
mate (an impossibly gangly Matt Rogers), it is his obsessive behaviour
rather than fate that brings them together - and raises the question of
whether the attraction is mutual and what secrets are behind that
saccharine facade. Aided and abetted by an inventive music/FX
soundtrack, occasional puppets and a multi-purpose lo-tech set, the cast
of Chotto Ookii are a finely tuned ensemble. Although not as disciplined
as their East European conferes, their rubbery faces, elastic bodies and
dramatic timing make for compelling viewing in a show that is as
disturbing as it is entertaining. Nick Awde
Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies C
Another Fringe. Another big name. Another packed house. Another poor
show. Some of the Southampton University performers try their best to
drive the desperately slow story forward, while others look like they
can't wait for their run at the festival to finish. The sluggish pace of
this show is evident from the first scene. One has nothing against
performers who decide to play fantasy with straight acting, but at least
do it with conviction. The two witches that open this show are painful
to watch, and it doesn't get much better. As actors, Shawn Ogg, the dumb
guard, and Mustrum Ridcully, the Archchancellor, both understand the
tone of the performance. The humour isn't overplayed, but there are
enough subtle touches that make them stand out from the rest of the
large cast. The funniest part of this show is the Elves' misery in
performing a dance with bucket and stick but that isn't saying much when
there is such a rich text to work from. The story lacks clarity and
energy, and there are not the performance skills to carry it. Thank the
Lord and Ladies that this lazy show is over. Benedict Shaw
This
Mortal
Coil Quaker
Meeting House
In this production from Sydney Theatre School, seven women wake to find
themselves in a smoke-filled room, staffed only by a taciturn caretaker.
As the women gradually establish that they are all from different time
periods and parts of the world, the caretaker pursues a copy of
'Manifest your Destiny'. This book, in somewhat heavy - handed fashion,
signals the themes of the play: women, destiny and power. In a space
between life and death, the women realise that they have one thing in
common: a pre-determined sense of inevitable destiny has shaped their
lives. While clearly holding well meant feminist ideals, this play
relies heavily on one-dimensional, stereotyped representations of
femininity which lack depth and complexity. Sophie O'Brien puts in a
good performance as the future president of an imagined post-Obama
international government. However, this does little to compensate for
the reductive sentiment of her character as the guardian of female
empowerment. Ironically the play unfolds with the same kind of
inevitability that it is attempting to critique. As each character
eventually throws off the symbols of her oppression, the mother's apron,
the hooker's stilettos etc, and 'steps into the light', the overriding
impression is not of liberation but, unfortunately, of tedious
repetition of simplistic ideas. Eleanor Williams
Three
Women By Sylvia Plath Assembly
Three women is Sylvia Plath's only play. In fact, with its themes and
structure, it is pure Plath and could easily be mistaken for a poetry
cycle. It lasts only 40 minutes but in that time plumbs the depths of
the heart, as the titular ladies undergo the pleasures and pains of
childbirth. Sadly, although the Wife and her baby (Louisa Clein) emerge
from hospital happy and healthy, neither of her compatriots, the
Secretary (Neve Mcintosh) and the Student (Lara Lemon) are so fortunate.
This tearful pair express the ordeal of carrying a child whom you never
see and, as bad, having to see the mothers and newborn babes that did
make it. Robert Shaw directs three fine actresses in a short performance
that is engrossing, moving and well worth getting out of bed early to
see, as the show plays at the un-Edinburgh time of 11am. Philip
Fisher
Tim
- Against All Odds Underbelly
Jonathan Donahoe and Daniel Benoliel, neither of them, as you might
notice, actually named Tim, play respectively a guy who feels that his
life has been blighted by his thoroughly unheroic name, and his best
buddy Maxwell, who has been doing quite well with his. After one failed
attempt to do something heroic, Tim decides to go on an Arthurian-style
quest to find and conquer some beast somewhere and return a hero, and
drags Maxwell along. Their comic adventures, which somehow always find
Maxwell coming out somewhat better than Tim, involve encounters with a
sea captain who would much rather be a train engineer, a ghost who won't
share his raisins, and other odd characters, all played by one or the
other of the pair, except when they pause to locate an actual Tim in the
audience and recruit him to fill in a supporting role. (I suppose that
the occasional Tim-less audience requires the selection of an honorary
Tim) It's a nice twist on the standard two-comic format of unrelated
sketches, and if it rarely rises to real hilarity, it is an amiable hour
of low-key comedy. Gerald Berkowitz
Time
Out
of Joint C Soco
Playwright Frank Bramwell imagines Shakespeare in 1592, working a bit
anachronistically on an early version of Hamlet, only to be interrupted
by his seductive Dark Lady and what first seems to be the ghost of his
first true love, the model for Ophelia. With the play-in-progress
occupying his mind, he keeps finding ordinary conversations sliding into
Hamlet dialogue, even when he's not showing off, as he tries to sort out
the conflicting pulls of love and lust. That really isn't much to hang a
play on, and Bramwell doesn't seem able to work up much of a plot. So
the play staggers on long after it has made its small point and the fun
of the quotations has faded, and not even a pillow fight between the two
women can disguise the fact that not a lot actually happens once all
three characters have appeared. Peter Ormond develops some comic fun out
of the hungover, overworked and oversexed Shakespeare, though neither
Clare Wallis or Maresa Schick can make either of the women seem real,
and director Arnaud Mugglestone cannot sustain what is perhaps a
half-hour's worth of material over three times that length. Gerald
Berkowitz
Timeshare
Sweet ECA
Terry Rogers' play combines a contemporary story of two couples in a
timeshare apartment in Spain and William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. His
conceit is to have the contemporary characters' problems and aspirations
mirror those of Shakespeare's while also inexplicably, and at first
mysteriously, situating the Macbeths in the Spanish apartment too. There
is no attempt anywhere in the play to make this circumstance plausible.
Instead, the author just settles for exploiting the idea for its comedic
value. Some knowing members of the audience will be amused by the
interlacing of the Bard's verse with the contemporary vernacular and
'Spanish for beginners'. Those struggling to remember the finer details
of the plot will be duly reminded, just in time before the climax point.
Beyond stating the obvious - that Shakespeare's themes and the concerns
of his characters are often to be found in our paltry everyday lives - I
am not entirely sure what the point of this play is. That said, the
production is fairly decent and might go down well with those who are on
the look out for this sort of entertainment. Duska Radosavljevic
The
Ultimately
Doomed Life of Charlie Cumcup
Sweet ECA
This very funny, undeniably original and completely twisted piece of
theatre holds its audience in simultaneously disgusted and delighted
rapture. Donald introduces himself and his wife Morag, who died of a
brain tumour 10 years ago. He apologises to the audience, explaining
that she is frozen in the vicious and vituperative state before her
death. He then professes himself to be the archetypal Old Man, which he
always has been and always will be, and reveals with slight trepidation
the eponymous character - a son whose origins, Donald explains, lie in
guilt from when he was young (which he never was). As such, the play
gently probes the metatheatrical, but disguises it with a large scoop of
comedy - an audience member is reminded to 'watch out for the 4th wall'.
Nonetheless, these deeper issues provide a foundation upon which this
piece unbelievably manages to build poignancy. Unfortunately, one
horribly extended section breaks the enjoyment. An audience member is
left to the intrusive questioning of Charlie. Funny at first, it becomes
painfully embarrassing for everyone, far beyond humour or interest.
Aside from this moment, the piece is wonderfully characterised and acted
all round. The vocalisation of age and youth is particularly well done,
as well as being deliberately exaggerated to comic effect. Lana
Harper
Unit
46 C
Australian playwright Mick Barnes borrows a device from Alan Ayckbourn
in putting two neighbours, one in the flat above the other, on the same
set, so that they may sit side by side while complaining of the noise
from above or below. Oddly, neither he nor director Andrew Doyle does
much with the gimmick, with very little in the way of near-misses or
choreographed crossings to exploit the comic or ironic potential. Nor is
the play primarily about each character's antagonism toward the unseen
other. Rather, we get what are essentially independent portraits of
urban isolation and loneliness, in the prematurely retired man resenting
his enforced idleness and the woman at emotional loose ends while
between husbands or lovers. There is a counterpoint and balance between
the two, as they take turns getting caught up in their pet obsessions.
But the play might have been just as effective, or perhaps even more so,
with the two performers perched on stools on a bare stage. Leof
Kingsford-Smith makes the man mousy and anonymous without being
uninteresting or unsympathetic, while Lucy Miller generates some
individuality out of her character's collection of predictable
complaints and quirks. Gerald
Berkowitz
Up The Vaults
It's clear from the outset of this one-man play that Robert understands
and accepts why he is a long-term guest of the NHS, kept under lock and
key in a psychiatric hospital. And yet that sense of certainty fails to
bolster his faltering mental stability, besieged as it is by factors
beyond his control: insomnia, cigarette addiction, a seemingly catatonic
room-mate and the anything but catatonic nutter brandishing a fork in
the corridor outside. Chunks of the gripping, darkly humorous story of
how Robert ended up in the ward fall abruptly into place, just as his
narration helps him work out the jigsaw of his traumatic past and
confused present. It's hard to give away more but what transpires
swiftly becomes a showcase of, as it says on the flier, one man's
'gallows bedside manner'. Return to Work scores the hat-trick of great
performance, script and direction. Thanks to James Ley's loaded script
and director Rosalind Sydney's precise touch, Laurie Brown builds an
impressively naturalistic portrayal of the complex Robert. He ensures
that the humour and horror are utterly believable whether he is
analysing his demons or unclogging vomit from the sink, and reveals how
madness can seep into the most normal corners of our lives. Nick
Awde
Ava
Vidal: Remember Remember The 4th Of November The Stand
Musing on the election of Barack Obama, Ava Vidal wants to how whether
it has made a difference over here. More pertinently, what lessons can
she apply to her own life? Cue an inspired stream of biographical scenes
that veer from dippy to shocking just when you least expect it. Raising
her kids is important to Vidal, a theme that that makes her ruminate on
the rapid growing up she has done herself. Cue scenes of dealing with
the dubious chivalry of felons in HM Prison Pentonville, being slammed
up in a cell herself for drug possession while fending off requests from
the cops to tell them gags, and Obama's own observations on his teenage
drug taking get a deserved airing. An exploration of black vs white
sexuality somehow segues into an insightful overview of the 'ironically
racist' (and sexist) material of white comedians which leads to a
savagely funny barrage of culled punchlines. Her account of how to deal
with racist hate mail is a mini-classic in itself. If this sounds like
it's all ultimately right-on, chest-beating, radical-liberal bleating,
think again. Like any stand-up worthy of the title, Vidal speaks from
her own experience which, as she makes clear, is pretty obvious since
she's a black British mother of two who can't help lobbing distinctly
non-PC bombs into the mix (and her own life) to jaw-dropping effect. The
Stand IV is not the most conducive of spaces and Vidal's style is
undoubtedly cramped for the lack of a decent-sized hall. Still, her
delivery needs more focus while her material could benefit from being
ordered into distinct 'chapters' - in this particular show Obama gets
lost amongst the other themes. Don't get me wrong - Vidal possibly has
more to say than the rest of Edinburgh's comics put together, it's just
that it needs to be said more clearly. Nick Awde
The Virginia Monologues
Gilded Balloon
It is worth clarifying that, for most part, this looks like an event
that might have strayed into the Fringe theatre section from the Book
Festival. In it, journalist Virginia Ironside speaks on 'why it's great
to be sixty' - and it excludes cruising, book clubs and researching your
family tree. Instead this is 'a talk' about the delights of seniority,
glamorous gowns, and free drugs. Hard as it may be to imagine it - as
she stands there bespectacled, in a librarian-style green dress and
comfortable shoes - Ironside was once a veritable 1960s rock chick. And
as she gives her thoughts on gardening and geriatric sex, she slips in
comments on interviewing the Rolling Stones and the bed-fellows she has
had. Memory is a subject of her show too, and not least because of those
endearingly named 'craft moments' - of struggling to remember her lines.
But then again, this is not theatre, and despite her colourful life,
Ironside does not quite have the charisma of Street-Porter or Greer.
Honouring her reputation as an agony aunt, she dishes advice and
commands respect and simply delivers a live rendition of what might have
been a Sunday newspaper column.Duska Radosavljevic
Felicity Ward
Gilded Balloon
Another Australian act to have its Fringe debut comes from the
twenty-eight year old one time geek-turned-comedienne, sporting a pretty
dress and a slightly mad hairstyle. Felicity Ward blames her
unconventional upbringing for the way she turned out, and to prove her
point she takes us down the memory lane, sharing her photo albums, scrap
books and socially-engaged poetry written at the age of ten. And yes, it
is funny. She has a light touch, a healthy sense of self-irony and an
excellent audience rapport. There is a small chance that her act can
vary from night to night, as it appears to be delicately pitched - but
the night I saw it, the mood in the house was infectiously good. Her
parodies of her school counselor and a more recent psychologist are
particularly memorable as is her party trick involving a convincing
impression of retching. Ward is essentially a naturally gifted raconteur
- the kind you would want as a dinner-party guest. Even though she warns
you of her filthy language, this aspect of her personality - like her
professed childhood ugliness - is a kind of red herring, entirely
swamped by her irresistable quirkiness. Duska Radosavljevic
Ward
No.
6 C cubed
Anton Chekhov's long story is about a provincial doctor so depressed by
the conditions in the hospital where he works and by his own nihilistic
fatalism that he ultimately ends up a patient in the insane ward. In
translating it to the stage, adapter-director Matthew Parker has
inevitably reduced the philosophical debates that take up much of the
original to a few sample exchanges, but emphasises and intensifies the
central irony by having the doctor's story acted out by the mental
patients in a kind of small-scale Marat/Sade style. The four young
actors of the DogOrange company, all recent graduates of Drama Studio
London, thus take on the challenge of playing mental patients playing
the characters in the doctor's story, while also communicating that the
story they are telling is their skewed perception of reality. The result
is a dream-like tale in which the doctor is from the start the passive
and doomed victim of outside forces, much like the inmates themselves.
Parker's direction and design sustain the double vision as well as the
clarity of the story and some hints of the philosophical content, as
does the excellent ensemble playing of Harry Lobek, Michael Linsey, Ben
Galpin and Charlotte Blake. Gerald Berkowitz
Weepie
C Soco
Weepie, a play from Chris Goode, is a hugely challenging text, its
complexities ranging from gender performance, mysticism to the staging
of the sublime. Fine performances from Mark Brewster and Johnny
Collis-Scurll make this harrowing piece of theatre much more accessible,
stripping down its layered themes of body channelling and homosexuality
into a gripping hour. The black humour and brutality between both men is
summed up in one moment, when Petrel is holding Edsel's cold tongue.
When his tongue becomes free, Edsel mumbles, 'No need to cling on for so
long. We're not married yet.' Goode's play successfully entwines two
narratives, the true story of two men who are training to become
murderers and commit a motiveless crime, and an TV-style chat show
involving an interview with St Mary of Oignies, the 12th century French
mystic known for her visions and weepings. The two actors, dressed in
black, bulging muscles, shift between the four roles. The poetic script
dips between naturalism and magical realism, but both actors hold their
own with very controlled performances. Collis-Scurll may be a man to
watch; playing the hair-shaven, thuggish Edsel, he oozes confidence as
he switches between his roles. In Edsel, we see the brash cockiness of a
man whose muscles show strength, but whose eyes scream vulnerability.
The spacing and rhythm of Donald Pulford's production make it
particularly engaging, which is welcome when the play's themes of
obscenity, the construction of masculinity and domination can sometimes
be tough to get a grip of. You may not leave Weepie with a full
understanding of its message, but its memory will linger with you, and
The Lincoln Company should be commended for this. Benedict Shaw
We
Made A Funny Pleasance
This sketch show marks the return of the Bristol Revunions after 30
years away from Edinburgh Fringe. Imagining how video game characters -
in this case, Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach - would live in the real
world is genuinely funny, as is the Sea Captain whose Mastermind Special
Subject is finishing Song Lyrics: 'What if God was one of us?' Answer:
'He'd piss in the shower.' Some sketches and gags are repeated, and you
start anticipating the punchlines, but these characteristics aren't as
irritating as you might expect. The performance skills and comic
material are effective in a number of sketches, such as the Door-to-Door
Salesman, the monologue of a businessman called Team Player who is
buttering up Sir Alan, and in a letter to Nicholas Cage 'who was to the
Hollywood blockbuster, what Jesus was to our sins'. The less successful
moments occur when the performers feel desperate for laughs or are
trying too hard to be clever, such as in the hymn that opens the
performance, the comment on L'Oreal advertisements and a Spelling Test
in a Primary School. Still, the scene when a man gives his five biggest
regrets has a hilarious twist, and the final sketch wherein all the cast
have numbers across their chests is very witty and well written.
Generally, this show is one of the smarter revues around this year. Benedict
Shaw
Why
Do All Catherines Call Themselves Kate? Zoo Southside
Family dramas are often sparked off by a parent's funeral, bringing
people together or pulling them apart. In Mwewa Sumbwanyame's play,
three people are brought together not only by family ties but by unpaid
debts too. Inspired by true events, the story involves a loan shark Max
and his half-brother Matt, as well as the girl desired by both and
initially had by their dead father. Set on a New Year's Eve, this is a
very original take on the familiar story which gives scope for dramatic
tension and some high stakes. Liverpudlian writer Sumbwanyame handles
the challenge with a skill for suspense although at times the
characters' back-stories are too complex to be effective on the stage.
Subwanyame finds an interesting tool for exposition by making his
characters play a confessional party game but there is only so far this
can go before we have to get back to the business of extracting the
dues. The young cast do their best with the characters they've been
given, although I do wonder whether the play was not potentially written
with a different casting in mind. Duska Radosavljevic
The
Wind
in the Willows Gilded
Balloon
The Cambridge University ADC have created a very charming adaptation of
this children's classic, writing a genuinely funny tale that is better
received by the adults than the children. There is still enough
silliness to satisfy young people though, from the visual humour to
characters chasing others through the crowd. But it is when these
students shy away from your typical children's show that The Wind in the
Willows is most successful. Crucially, the characters are very
well-drawn, and it is an enjoyable hour to spend in the company of
Ratty, Toad, Moley and Badger. The hierarchy and relationship between
these characters are at times hilarious, as is the group of dumb weasels
led by their leader who suffers from a weak R: 'This is all thanks to my
bwilliant bwain.' The performance of Ratty is particularly impressive,
and whilst the hyperactivity of Toad (Best Dressed Amphibian GQ 2005)
sometimes gets irritating, this reviewer did find himself laughing very
often. The script's dry humour makes this piece so watchable, and its
pace means your children won't get fidgity. Even the scene changes are
fluid, and the limitations are humorously exploited - if you can't have
a good effect for the fishes in a river, let one of the cast bob her way
across the stage with a cardboard fish attached to her waist. The ending
is perhaps a touch disappointing after such a big build-up, but the
imagination, cohesion and performances make this show definitely worth
seeing. I recommend sitting near the front of the space to really
appreciate it, as the subtle humour is sometimes lost in the auditorium.
Benedict Shaw
Wolfboy
George Square
Adapted from Brad Fraser's 1981 play, this ambitious musical can be
interpreted in a variety of ways, from sexual thriller to buddy story or
even horror tale. On two beds in a nameless psychiatric hospital lie two
youths. Wide-boy Bernie (Gregg Lowe) has slit his wrists while David
(Paul Holowaty) thinks he's a wolf. In their own ways, both put up stiff
resistance to Nurse Cherry's kindly but firm attempts to get them to
communicate their problems - Bernie refuses to write down his thoughts,
David's response is not to speak. A concerned visitor is Bernie's
brother Christian (Lee Latchford-Evans), to whom Cherry (Katie Beard)
takes a shine, while during the dark hours David experiences wheedling
visitations from the mysterious disembodied Annie. As the sinister story
emerges of why they are there, the youths develop an unlikely friendship
that grows as violence turns to trust. It's a bit of a mixed bag. The
cast works commendably hard, although their otherwise excellent voices
are not suited for Leon Parris' songs. Meanwhile the musical struggles
not to be eclipsed by the play in Russell Labey's script. Additionally,
Wolfboy cannot make up its mind whether to be sung-through or not,
resulting in no stand-out numbers aside from the stripped-down and
disturbing brothers' song in the final third. Still, with the right
investment, all of this can be easily fixed since this is a musical with
great potential to go national. Nick Awde
Glenn
Wool Underbelly's Hullabaloo
It is almost redundant
for Canadian comic Glenn Wool to carry a microphone, since most of his
monologue is delivered at shout-across-a-river volume, not because Wool
is angry or especially excited, but because that seems to be his normal
mode. The solid control he has over his material is evidenced in the
fact that he sets out to tell one single story, constantly interrupting
or digressing from it into side issues or anecdotes, but repeatedly
returning to inch it forward a bit more and hitting the thoroughly
satisfying punchline just as his hour ends. The entertaining digressions
range from the predictable (the pains of divorce and dating, outrage at
punk rockers doing TV ads), through the idiosyncratic (tales of his
father the Mountie) to the delightfully skewed (dead smurfs in a
mousetrap, a messiah named Rick). Only near the end of the hour does his
comedy turn political and angry, with a screed against bankers and
men-in-suits in general, and by then he has won the audience over so
fully that they cheer along with his outrage, whatever politics they
came in with. Gerald Berkowitz
Words
of Honour Assembly
Thanks to a hi-tech backdrop of arty shifting images that morph to fit
the mood, we are taken on a sight and sound journey through the dodgy
history of the Mafia. Specifically the Cosa Nostra- the one that put the
Don in Corleone, the town that lies at the dark heart of Sicily.
Adopting various Mafia personas and pumping Italian culture like a
one-man tourism board, Marco Gambino tells how local brigands took over
the towns and eventually pervaded every level of society in Sicily and
beyond in the dubious name of honour. The result is a glorious evocation
of a complex culture and larger than life personalities, and yet it is
inevitably a grim tale, offering little of the romanticism that pervades
Mario Puzo's The Godfather or anything starring Pacino/DeNiro. Extortion
is the industry that powers the Mafia, although murder is never far
behind as it enforces cooperation and eliminates pesky investigating
magistrates. The shop by shop analysis of who pays what in today's
central Palermo is a soberingly surreal moment. There is a huge audience
out there for this, but this particular show cannot make up its mind
whether to be a museum installation or dramatic piece. Additionally the
elegant Patrizia Bollini is woefully underused. If Word of Honour is to
be dramatic, then the characters must be defined more clearly and the
story should be told through the eyes of a member of the Mafia family or
one of their victims. Nick Awde
The World's Wife Assembly
Unless written to be performed, poetry is notoriously difficult to stage
in any way that doesn't involve just standing in front of a microphone.
But there is a first for everything. Not only is Carole Ann Duffy the
first woman to be appointed as the official 'royal bard', but she must
also be the first Poet Laureate to be getting a successful theatre
adaptation of her poetry on the Fringe. This speaks volumes about the
popular appeal of Duffy's work but also about the genius of the show's
performer and adaptor Linda Marlowe. Nineteen poems are given life here
through a combination of inspired delivery, slick computer-generated
scene changes and a skillful use of minimal props and costumes. Marlowe
reigns supreme on the virtually bare stage, like a mythical
shape-shifter, she flits from one swift portrayal to another easily
stretching her range from the sweet teens Little Red Cap, Salome and
Delilah to Mrs Quasimodo, Frau Freud, Queen Kong and the Kray Sisters,
while not forgetting the Greek gorgons of course. At just over 70
minutes the show feels a touch too long by Fringe standards, however,
its structure is carefully considered and the show makes sure you've had
a royal serving of your verse. Duska Radosavljevic
Tom
Wrigglesworth's Open Return Letter To Richard Branson
Pleasance
Tom Wrigglesworth's inspiring account of how he got arrested on a Virgin
train bound for London from Manchester is as much a modern morality tale
as it is a comic rant. Gobsmacked, he watched a fascist of a train
manager brandish a priapic ticket machine and extort a £105 ticket from
an innocent old granny simply because she was on the wrong (offpeak)
train. The comic helped her out with the help of the other passengers
and promptly got arrested for his pains, courtesy of the offended
manager. Copious details and asides add fresh layers to what is already
a rich story in itself. The manager's spunk-stained trousers and
corpulent sashaying down the aisle are prominent motifs as is the
narrator's own petulant (but forgiveable) behaviour at the train buffet
where further petty Hilterdom reigns in the name of health and safety.
This is the sort of stuff other comics would kill for, and Wrigglesworth
does not disappoint. Minus minor embellishments, it's all true and
couched in his remarkable balance of comedy and inadvertent activism. As
a result of his campaigning letters to Richard Branson (blackmailing him
with his own slogans), Virgin Trains have now changed their regulations.
Only 25 other train operators to go. Nick Awde
The
Yellow Wallpaper C Soco
This adaptation by Tana Sirois and Connie Brice of Charlotte Perkins
Gilman's story of a descent into madness provides an adequate summary of
the plot and evocation of some of the horror, while not capturing the
multi-textured quality of the original or finding a stage vocabulary
beyond mere presentation of events. In particular, there is little hint
of the story's strong suggestion that the central character may be
inaccurately reporting or misinterpreting where she is and what the
motivations and indeed identities of the other characters are,
ambiguities that have contributed to the story's status as a feminist
classic but that the play merely accepts as unquestioned facts. A brief
and unsuccessful expressionistic sequence at the start is quickly
abandoned, and the use of backlighting to suggest the imagined world
behind the wallpaper just doesn't work. Faced with the story of a woman
who may be suffering from nothing worse than mild post-partum depression
at the start, but whose cure drives her into true madness, director Tana
Sirois and actress Helen Foster do not seem to have been able to decide
just what path her journey should take, jumping between mania,
depression and simple confusion, though her sliding in and out, and
finally permanently out of reality is appropriately chilling. Gerald
Berkowitz
Your
Number's Up Assembly
A man lies comatose on a pavement in a north London street as nine
onlookers gather. Help has been called for and as they wait, it becomes
clear that the nine all know each other and the victim directly or
indirectly. Illegal immigrant, thug, wideboy, doctor, druggie - they
form one of the many typical slices of North London life, and it's no
surprise to discover that there are a few unsavoury secrets that connect
them. First impressions are that Your Number's Up is a racy albeit
worthy reworking of all the gritty street drama devices so beloved of
youth theatre projects. But ten minutes in, the action veers leftfield,
the play structure shifts shape and it abruptly becomes more human - and
surprisingly entertaining. To say more would be giving things away,
suffice to say that self-reference and metatheatre abound as each
protagonist's story is unravelled and you realise that all are destined
to be there. Together with this energetic cast gathered by Roundhouse
Theatre, Philip Osment has created a cracking script that belongs as
much onscreen as it does onstage, while director Jim Pope allows each
character to shine without sentimentality. Nick Awde
Zeitgeist
C
Zen Zen Zo Physical Theatre is an Australian company dedicated to fusing
Asian dance traditions with Western performance art styles 'to explore
how we as human beings are interacting with ourselves, each other and
the earth.' In practice this means that the current program, a
collection of seven pieces from previous shows, includes one dance with
a vaguely Japanese flavour, one suggesting Bollywood choreography, and
so on. But the hints of ethnicity are purely on the surface, as with the
Japanese dance's kimono costumes which, given the company's preference
to perform in nothing more than G-strings, are quickly removed. In
almost every number, the choreography by director Lynne Bradley and
others consists of having four to eight dancers repeat the same basic
movement several times in unison and than move in unison to another
repeated movement, with no individual variations or deviations from the
pattern. Even the strongest piece, Bradley's Terror, in which the
dancers take turns miming supplication and violent death, merely repeats
the process of dying, rising and dying again long after it has made its
point and used up its limited movement vocabulary. Gerald Berkowitz
Zemblanity
Bedlam
Wearing a pair of tights and a bowler hat, Zemblanity's frontman clown
Hans is for most of the time at pains to point out to us that there is
nothing funny in the show. His earnest manner, easy audience rapport and
the choice of a pedal automobile over a unicycle make Hans likable,
quirky and certainly quite amusing. He is accompanied by a chorus of
impressively acrobatic clowns who cartwheel, slip on imaginary banana
skins, play miniature instruments and recite verse with a kind of gusto
rarely witnessed in a conventional big top. Le Navet Bete, a young
Devon-based troupe seem to have a loyal following. On the night I was
booked to see it, there were patches of audience members having a
conspicuously good time. Such unbridled audience reception is more
reminiscent of a students union gig than a professional theatre show and
it certainly came across to this reviewer in a way which compromised the
impression of the company's professionalism. It potentially also
impaired the rest of the audience's enjoyment. All I could hear were
Hans's desperate pleas to the audience to stop laughing. Duska
Radosavljevic
Zoo Lodge
Pleasance Dome
Rebecca Boey's thoroughly sincere drama plays like a half-season of
Crossroads set in South Africa, with no hint that author, director Chloe
Whipple or the cast are aware of the self-parody it keeps falling into.
A couple of backpackers who have been robbed are stranded at a
downmarket Johannesburg hotel, where they discover that the owner is
sleeping with the manageress while his wife shops or watches TV, the
handyman is a political refugee from Zimbabwe in constant danger of
being discovered and sent back to certain death, and his assistant is a
drunk unable to keep a secret longer than it takes him to finish his
first beer of the day. Strangers confide in each other for the sole
authorial purpose of getting the information to us or kicking the plot
along, and things that have no particular reason for happening at the
same time do, just to generate a climax. Throw in some near-caricature
acting, wavering accents and conversations that consist of one character
delivering reams of exposition or backstory to another, and it really is
difficult to take the whole thing as seriously as it is evidently
intended. Akubar Osman as the refugee retains some dignity as an actor.
Gerald
Berkowitz
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Reviews - Edinburgh Festival - 2009