Category Archives: Theatre

Reviews of theatre work.

‘Casting the Runes’ (Venue 33, until AUG 27th)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2023, Pleasance, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“We quickly left the outside daylight behind for a haunting and foreboding vibe whose icy fingers crept into every corner of the auditorium from the outset..”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Fans of the classic ghost stories of M R James will be familiar with the TV adaptations that grace our screens each Christmas. Now, here in Edinburgh, on a deceptively sunny lunchtime, the chilling horror of one of his best tales is vividly brought to life in close-up.

The Box Tale Soup theatre company faithfully reflect the master storyteller’s art in lifting his chilling tale off the page and onto the stage. We quickly left the outside daylight behind for a haunting and foreboding vibe whose icy fingers crept into every corner of the auditorium from the outset. The story itself is classic James: the safe, scholarly world of academe gradually subverted by the creeping menace of some much older, darker force that belongs between the pages of dusty medieval tomes rather than modern textbooks.

A cast of two are aided by some skilful use of puppetry for minor characters, including the decidedly creepy Mr Karswell. Noel Byrne, who looks suitably like Peter Cushing’s worrisome young brother, plays Professor Dunning, an academic with an interest in the occult. With the help of a new acquaintance, he explores a number of mysterious messages and a weird picture that seems to have a life of its own. Antonia Christophers, who plays the acquaintance, does a nice line in quivering fear and wide-eyed terror, as well as operating and voicing the often unsettling mannequins. A simple set is put to effective use, evoking a suitably Edwardian gothic vibe, with door handles that seem to turn themselves, creaking hinges, and a swirling mist worthy of any Hammer horror. No spoilers here, but there was a sudden lighting reveal that made the two ladies behind me audibly squeak as they jumped in their seats. A coup de theatre, that – you seldom get those sitting in your armchair at home.

The sense of fear so skilfully manipulated by James and the cast of this play echoes similar feelings evoked by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, some telling lines from which are quoted at one point:

“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And, having once turned round walks on
And never turns his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread…”

I know I was not the only one in today’s audience who felt the tingling anticipation of a disembodied tap on the shoulder at certain points during the show.

Situated in a venue that’s part of the popular and lively Pleasance Courtyard complex, the haunting quality of this show is emphasised all the more as you emerge at the end into the contrasting, unfamiliar daylight. Though, this being Edinburgh, the leaden skies were throwing down a moribund shower of rain in ironic tribute. So get your coats on and go see this! Come to see a tale by a master storyteller. Stay for the creepy puppets and creaky hinges. Leave safe in the knowledge that no ghosts will follow you home in the daylight as you head off for lunch.

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‘My Father’s Nose’ (Front Room at Assembly Rooms, Venue 20 until AUG 27th)

Posted in Theatre by

“…one of those shows which encapsulates what Fringe theatre is all about: a two-hander with a minimal set, which is the springboard for an engaging and eminently watchable hour of lively, tragicomic drama.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad )

This, I feel, is one of those shows which encapsulates what Fringe theatre is all about: a two-hander with a minimal set, which is the springboard for an engaging and eminently watchable hour of lively, tragicomic drama. Douglas Walker plays a recently bereaved man on a park bench, visibly struggling to cope with the loss of his father. With the help of a sympathetic passer-by, the joy and pain of his relationship with the lost parent is re-enacted in a whirlwind of wacky humour, song, and dance. The passer-by is played with much panache by Caitlin Campbell. Both actors are alumni of Bristol Improv Theatre and are appearing in other shows on the Fringe this year.   

In flashbacks, we see a lifetime of the joy and agony of father-and-child relationships, from fun-filled early years to teenage angst. The habits and foibles of loved ones that are the essence of memory form the basis of many set pieces in the show. An early audience favourite was a song from a childish perspective of Dad being a “Cupboardy Man”. Perhaps the most unlikely is a lively song and dance routine about Dad’s seeming obsession with his tax returns. This is the only show in Edinburgh in which you’re likely to hear a joyous two-part harmony ironically singing the praises of HMRC – who are “surprisingly helpful on the phone”, it seems. Performed with gusto as Walker and Campbell trip the light fantastic like Fred and Ginger, it brings an entirely new dimension to Higher-Rate Tax Relief and Allowable Expenses.

Along the way, Walker and Campbell explore the sometimes odd ways that we try to cling to memories of the departed. As the show’s title suggests, Douglas is obsessed with the image of his father’s nose. The dangers of such infatuations are wittily illustrated by the story of an Elizabethan widow who carried the severed head of her executed husband around with her for 30 years. Caitlin, who has “a certificate in psychiatric First Aid” tries to help things along with small episodes of street therapy: is love all we need? A personal favourite was her hilariously pedantic critique of John Lennon’s lyrics to the Beatles hit “All You Need is Love”. I’ll never hear that song again without realising it’s a sequence of tautological platitudes loosely based around Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. (Was it ever anything else?) Another memorable digression concerns the sales statistics for rhubarb crumble in Schleswig-Holstein, which may raise a reminiscent smile among those of a certain age.

This is a little gem of a show that deserves an audience for its run in the middle of George Street right up to the end of the month. So whether you’re a civil servant or a Beatles fan, get your coats on and go see it! Come for the lively song and dance humour. Stay for the quirky insights into how we remember those we love. Leave with the thought that never again will completing a tax return seem quite so daunting.   

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EdFringe Talk: TINK

Posted in Theatre by

“Life is too short to wait around for people to give you opportunities.”

WHO: Kat Kleve

WHAT: “‘Simply Brilliant… every girl and woman should see this’ (Bristol Post). ‘A tour-de-force performance’ (Bristol247.com). ‘Fabulous, funny and true to life’ (Rapscallion Magazine). Did you know fairies are born big? Tink was a big, brilliant young fairy. Until one day, in a tragic cliché, Tink began to shrink. A nostalgic, modern, musical monologue navigating the complex social struggles of tweens, teens and full-on adulting. A love letter to a young you reminding you to shine – like little you would want you to! TINK was first performed in association with Tobacco Factory Theatres.”

WHERE: Underbelly, Bristo Square – Clover (Venue 302) 

WHEN: 12:55 (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

This is my second time performing at the Fringe but the first time bringing my own show here! The last time I was working with the incredible million selling author Rohan Candappa which was the most amazing experience so he’s probably the one to blame for me throwing myself into yet another mad summer at the Fringe! I’m so glad to have experienced the madness before though so I know slightly better what to expect because it really is ALL the things – exciting, exhilarating, stressful, tiring, fulfilling, joyful, hilarious and so much more…DAILY!

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2022 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

The big things I’ve learned since 2022 are that life is too short to wait around for people to give you opportunities, if you want to do something, go out and create it for yourself!!

Tell us about your show.

So! Our show is called Tink, it’s all about how we start big and confident as young children and slowly start to dim our lights as we grow older. The book is written by the fabulous Lizzy Connolly, I wrote the music with additional lyrics by Lizzy and the whole thing was co-created by the pair of us. This is our first piece of writing together, we met performing in a show at the Bath Theatre Royal which then transferred to the West End, directed by the amazing Terry Johnson called Mrs Henderson Presents. We’ve been such good friends ever since and the creation of TINK came about really naturally and it’s kind of taken on a life of its own!

It first premiered and was produced in association with Tobacco Factory Theatres in March in Bristol (my hometown…big up Brizzle!) and were encouraged by a load of audience members to take it to the Fringe which wasn’t initially the plan…but a few months later…Here. We. Are!
We’re self-producing it, which is a lot! Anyone who’s taken or is taking a show to the fringe – WE FEEL YOU! But, we believe in this show so much and are so excited for more people to see it that it’s going to be worth every strand of stressed hair we’ve lost along the way!!

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

There are so many shows we’d love audiences to see, some of our amazingly hard working and talented fellow creatives are taking shows up there this year including Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder at Underbelly George Square, Sea Words by the incredibly talented Olly Gully at Summerhall and Declan Bennett, who I worked with in the Original West End cast of ‘Once’, he’s bringing his amazing show ‘Boy Out The City’ to Underbelly Cowgate. We’d also recommend you check out the FemiFringe Guide! An awesome guide dedicated to shows led by women and people of marginalised genders.

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EdFringe Talk: Perfect Pairing: A Wine Tasting Dancegustation

Posted in Theatre by

“Adjusting my life and creativity around my neurodivergent brain, giving myself some grace and how to weaponise hyperfocus to make cool art.”

WHO: Xavier McGettigan

WHAT: “Enjoy four wines paired perfectly with four dance pieces in this original Australian wine-tasting-meets-dance-theatre production. Perfect Pairing invites the theatre-goer’s favourite interval treat into the spotlight and challenges the connoisseur to développé the sensory strength of their wine-tasting talent. In an age where pairing wine with food is reaching its very limits, why not pair the mambo with a merlot, a pop & lock with a prosecco, even chassé with a chardonnay? Don’t think about it too hard, drink some well-crafted wine alongside a showing of some delicious dancing! Assisted by Geelong Arts Centre.”

WHERE: Greenside @ Infirmary Street – Olive Studio (Venue 236) 

WHEN: VARIES (50 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

This is my first time in Scotland, in fact it’s my first time in the United Kingdom altogether! I’ve always heard how amazing Ed Fringe is, especially being a fan of quite a few UK comedians (even more now thanks to Taskmaster being my favourite TV show), so it’s pretty incredible to be a part of such a prestigious festival among over 3,000 other shows. Perfect Pairing is not only my international debut, but also the first international performance by Attitude Dance Company, we can’t wait!

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2022 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

2022 was an exciting year, I got married to my Perfect Pairing Co-Producer husband Jayson Fry in April, and immediately went into rehearsals for our award-winning production of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (oh yes, another UK connection, I grew up on the original Hitchhiker’s radio play on cassette during family trips) and got my ADHD diagnosis later in the year. Adjusting my life and creativity around my neurodivergent brain, giving myself some grace and how to weaponise hyperfocus to make cool art.

Tell us about your show.

Perfect Pairing actually came to life when my husband and I were celebrating an anniversary at our favourite local restaurant, The Hot Chicken Project. After hearing Laura Viva, the THCP Wine Manager talk passionately with other patrons about wine, we asked her to take us through a bottle of her favourite wine. Not knowing much about wine ourselves, we were taken not only by her knowledge, but her passion and “no bullshit” approach to talking about wine. She often says, that it doesn’t matter what you know, if you drink a wine and you like it, it’s good wine. At ADC like to think about contemporary dance in the same way, avoiding elitism and taking the pressure off audiences from having to “get it” to enjoy it.

Attitude has been around for 14 years, starting as a dance school, then in 2014 focusing purely on creating original dance theatre, becoming Attitude Dance Company. A few of the Perfect Pairing cast have been around since the dance school days! We performed a preview performance in our home town of Geelong, but the Edinburgh Fringe season of Perfect Pairing is its world premiere! We hope to tour Australia over the next two years, and maybe beyond, who knows?

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

We’re traveling over to Edinburgh and are performing at Greenside alongside two other Geelong/Surf Coast companies, Project Connect who are presenting “a/lone”, an original physical theatre piece about loneliness and “Shadows of Angels” by Anglesea Performing Arts, a play about a true story of crime in 1920s Australia. Both shows feature live, orginal music by Kirstin Honey (she’s amazing), and I also happen to be one of the two performers in “a/lone”.

In the first week of Fringe you can watch “a/lone” and Perfect Pairing back to back in the Olive Studio and “Shadows of Angels” leads into Perfect Pairing in the second week of the Festival. Either way, we have an awesome double-bill of Aussie theatre with a wine tasting during the second show!

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EdFringe Talk: A Mirrored Monet

Posted in Theatre by

“I thought my show would be too big and too expensive to produce at the Fringe. But it’s coming together and it will give me a chance to see the audience reaction to it.”

WHO: Carmel Owen

WHAT: “In the dramatic musical A Mirrored Monet, it’s 1916 and the painter Claude Monet struggles to complete his government commission for the Water Lilies. Esteemed his greatest work, to him it meant regular deliveries of food, fuel, wine, and cigarettes – hard to find during the war. He is suffering a creative block as WWI advances and worrying that unless he can paint as before, the lifeline of deliveries will cease. He searches for answers, taking us back to his young-artist days in late 19th century Paris with Renoir, Manet and Camille, his first wife and model.”

WHERE: Greenside @ Nicolson Square – Emerald Theatre (Venue 209) 

WHEN: VARIES (60 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

I was in Edinburgh as a visitor to the Fringe and Scotland last summer (2022) and fell in love with both Scotland and the Fringe. I liked the open and free feel of it, the crowds in the streets, the games and performances in the streets as well as in the make-shift theaters –it was a bit like a medieval fair with performers, street people and food of all sorts available as well as people of all ages, but particularly young people having a great time. Although I could see the challenges of putting up a musical in the environment of solo and smaller shows, I did see things that made me think it was possible and that there might be audiences for that too.

Although I’ve been involved in other festivals, nothing as big or engaging as the Fringe so have no comparison, there is nothing to compare it to that I know of.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2022 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

Attending a Fringe session in London in January 2023, I learned a great deal more about what it would take to put up a show. I was encouraged by the wonderful people presenting there and connected with a venue where there were experienced and connected people who helped me see that I could do it, put my musical on at the Fringe. I didn’t really believe that would be possible in 2022 summer. I thought my show would be too big and too expensive to produce at the Fringe. But it’s coming together and it will give me a chance to see the audience reaction to it.

Tell us about your show.

I am the author (music, lyrics and book) but many creative individuals have contributed to it over time. It started out as a story just about young Monet and his struggles –then with a previous book writer but I realized it had to be more and that Monet at 76 was far more interesting. I had to rewrite the book.

I have organized a few investors who support my work to join me in producing it this summer at the Fringe. My Director Fraser Grant and Music Director Neil Metcalfe are both Scots in Edinburgh who put together auditions in Edinburgh which I was able to participate in by zoom from my home in NYC. We hired all the actors except one (the young Monet) at those auditions in May this year—all Scots who live in either Edinburgh or Glasgow or nearby. The one actor from the US played the role of Young Monet for me in an initial reading and was truly irreplaceable so he is with us now too.

The musical will premiere at the Fringe on August 17th, having had its initial reading/developmental workshop in April 2022 at the Dramatists Guild Fund’s Music Hall in NYC.

We are hoping that this Fringe production is the beginning of a long life for A MIRRORED MONET and look forward to it touring and playing at major venues globally. It is an international musical and Claude Monet is a character known to people all over the world who love his work and will enjoy spending an evening or afternoon with him learning more about him as a person…his struggles as well as his successes.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

I would encourage audiences to go see more musicals and to support them! Some new musicals I’ve spotted in the programme that I’m looking forward to seeing are Alan Turing – Guilty of Love, Café L’Arté, No Love Songs, and Woven.

It’s all out there to be experienced and the Fringe is just the place to see a lot of new and exciting work. Go for it!

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‘Al Murray: Gig For Victory’ (Assembly Square Gardens – Palais du Variete, until AUG 29)

Posted in 5*, Assembly Hall, Comedy, EdFestivals, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Stand-Up, Theatre by

“It is a joy to watch and is even better in the flesh. Go if you have the chance”

Editorial Rating:  5 Stars (Outstanding)

Earlier in the week I’d attended a Fringe show. There were three of us in the audience. Two on stage. I felt for them. I’d guess they felt for me. Audience participation with three audience members his hard yakka for all concerned.

It did seem odd then that my next show was Al Murray, arguably the biggest name at this year’s Fringe. I got there half an hour early and the already the queue for the landlord snaked out of Assembly Gardens and down the roads towards Underbelly. That is the Fringe for you – in all its ridiculous sublimity. If you come to Edinburgh genuinely do try to see as much as you can – from the big names to the small, from the old to the new.

But to our tale… how do you review Al Murray? In a way it is pointless. You don’t analyse our national treasures. You bask. You understand that he is a very British sort of genius – he couldn’t have come into existence anywhere else – and you enjoy.

The crowd was large and boisterous. The circus tent in the gardens crackling in anticipation. And then it began. He ambles in from the back of the venue, gently caressing the bald heads he passes by and bounds on stage. Beer covers the first few rows. Some are surprised. Really?

And there he is before us resplendent in that burgundy blazer, swinging a pint pot, gleaming, celebrating us those that bested Covid, happily throwing crisps at an overweight man that he admits he is surprised made it through the pandemic. The yeoman of all he surveys. A man sure of his opinions but confused with how the world is going: the character is eternal.

The pandemic has been good for the landlord. He has waited all his life for this moment. Covid was as he says ‘’our blitz’’. The moment we stood as one and did our bit for Queen and Country. For the first time we join the ranks of British heroes. We, he tells us, are the survivors and he wants to learn who is in the lifeboat with him: who made it through? So much of Murray’s show is unique to the night itself.

There’s little point telling you what happened or highlight particular gags because there’s just so much audience work. There’s no one better at it. Many try. Many manage for five minutes or so… but for the majority of the show. That isn’t high-wire stuff. How anyone can elicit so many laughs from two questions: ‘’what’s your name? What do you do?’’ I’ll never know. Flitting back and forward, weaving their lives together, Ollie in the corner must know Evelyn the gynaecologist and the jaeger bomb Durham boys. The strokers who go for a wee within ten minutes. None of these people will be there tonight. They won’t happen tonight. Something though will.

Throughout the course of the evening we meet Rod in finance, Dim Dave who ‘works for a solicitor’, a sheep farmer, a slow brick maker, a family lawyer (‘and a cold wind whips through the hall”) and many more. At one point he speaks to Deborah who has a play on at the fringe about WWII. The landlord lets loose a stunning two minute summary of the relatively obscure war story the play is about and then back to the important things of talking to the audience.

Of course, the badinage ends up back to the themes of the pandemic, our leaders, our survival against the odds of Covid and in the end he moves from the audience to the central theme that the last the two years we have had to endure.

Al’s theory of how each generation is perfect for the challenges the world throws at it. Our grandparents fought Nazism singlehandedly without help whilst we rose to the challenge we faced, a challenge only our generation could face: staying in the house watching TV for four months.

Twice.

Whilst being paid by the government.

Tonight’s show will be similar yet entirely different. Where he goes is entirely dependent on who shows up. Only a handful of comics could pull this sort of show off and fewer still relentlessly hit such heights.

There’s little point dwelling on the technicalities. Murray is one of the cleverest, quickest-witted comics out there. You know that. Everyone knows that. It is like explaining Monty Python or David Attenborough or David Gower’s cover drive. His character allows him to explore areas of life that others shy away from or – if they do – tend to veer to shock or righteousness.

One minor point: for an act so on the button of current affairs and with such an intuitive understanding of what the British public thinks… I was a little surprised that there was no mention (in the show I attended) of that other comedian who plays a character that happens to use the actor’s real name: Jerry Sadowitz. I’d have thought that was ripe material for the landlord particularly given some of the gags early on about the various genders of grandchildren that we might boast about our Covid heroism too.

But let’s not dwell too much on this. That is a throwaway thought rather than a criticism.

His character is timeless and needs no introduction: the garrulous British blowhard who almost knows what he is talking about and has a view about everything. It is a joy to watch and is even better in the flesh. Go if you have the chance. Just make sure you know your job and don’t try to claim you are an acrobat.

Come for the crisps being flung at you. Stay for the white wine for the lady. Get your red blazers on and join him in his lifeboat.

 

‘Bee Story’ (Underbelly Bristo Square Cowbarn, until AUG 28)

Posted in 5*, Comedy, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre, Underbelly by

“Bee Story is everything you would want in a children’s show. It is charming. It is lovely. It is magical”.

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

All good things come to an end and my Edinburgh Fringe 2022 finished with Bee Story. This is an Australian non-verbal circus show… there seems to be a lot of them about this year. Have they given up on beating us at sport? Is there something different in the Vegemite? Who knows? This trend is very welcome.

So yes, I have seen a few similar shows this year. I haven’t though seen a better one. Bee Story is everything you would want in a children’s show. It is charming. It is lovely. It is magical.

I doubt there is a better opening to any Fringe show than that of Bee Story. They may return – or you may see it elsewhere – so mum is the word but the first time you see Queen Bee was a moment of stunned delight. Neither I nor my youngest could believe it nor did we guess immediately how they did it.

It doesn’t stop from there. Over the course of the next hour there are unicycles, clowning (the facial expressions are simply wonderful), juggling, juggling with knives, some astonishing floor work, ballet, physical comedy (there’s a great scene with a snake and another with a net), acrobatics, gymnastic, and buckets of fun. Neither I nor the youngster could take our eyes off it. It was as if a mini-Cirque du Soleil had landed in Bristo Square. We were far from alone: there were spontaneous rounds of applause and whooping and hollering throughout.

The team at Arc Circus – Robbie Curtis and Lizzie McRae are seriously talented. Where else will you see a woman dressed as a Queen Bee being held in a series of bizarre positions whilst playing pop songs on a flute? You know, and I know, the answer is nowhere.

We meet Queen Bee and Worker Bee. Her Royal Highness – usually accompanied by God Save The Queen – wants more honey and poor old Worker Bee is doing his darnedest to get it but can’t quite. Then, from nowhere, the hive is hit by a bushfire.

Queen Bee has to lose her heirs and graces whilst Worker Bee enjoys a new friend as they work together to build a new hive. Of course, that is harder than it looks.

A magical hour with important messages. Teamwork and collaboration matters, friendship is key, that we need to care for our environment and that bees really do matter.

There’s probably some important British-Australian analysis on overcoming class divisions too but leave that to the grown-up reviewers.

The important part was my daughter and I loved this show and she said it was her favourite of the Fringe. She particularly loved it when Queen Bee poked her toy bee with her flute. I mean, that’s the sort of wonder you only get at the Fringe… and the sort of thing that makes children fall in love with theatre. A genuinely lovely little thing that I’d recommend to anyone.

Come for the buzz. Stay for the seizing of the means of production. Get your yellow/black coats on and go see this.

‘The Elephant in the Room’ (Assembly Rooms, Powder Room, until AUG 27)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“Shetty’s vigorous physical style, expressive face, and radioactive eyes draw the audience into the action as she regularly makes direct eye-contact with everyone in the auditorium.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

After a very successful tour of the USA including the prestigious Kennedy Centre in Washington DC, this is the Fringe debut for a lively and engaging one-woman play, written and performed by Priyanka Shetty. Here for just the one week in a smallish studio auditorium in a marquee on George Street, be prepared for the driving force of Ms Shetty’s electrifyingly physical performance.

The seemingly autobiographical story tells of what it’s like to grow up in India as a young girl and then defy your family to try and make it as an actress as “a brown girl in Trump’s America”. Shetty’s vigorous physical style, expressive face, and radioactive eyes draw the audience into the action as she regularly makes direct eye-contact with everyone in the auditorium. There is much humour at the expense of the stereotypical features of a female south Asian upbringing: aggressively aspirational parents, judgemental aunts, religion (sometimes in the shape of the elephant-god Ganesha), and Bollywood movies.

Shetty makes full use of the small stage and basic set to vividly re-enact her story in a number of physical styles, including everything from yoga to Bollywood dance and song. As the show progresses, the emotional tone gradually changes from one of youthful optimism underscored by the heartaches of family life and romance, to the stark realities of the American theatre audition circuit. Shetty’s wry depiction of the serial rejections that can be experienced will raise a rueful smile to any fellow Fringe actors seeing this show. As an Asian woman, she often refers to her “otherness”, sometimes self-deprecatingly, sometimes not. This aspect of her life doubles as a significant factor in her own life story and a revealing perspective on everyone else from the perspective of an outsider.

Single-actor shows are quite common at the Fringe, but this one stuck in the mind for me due to Shetty’s often almost conversational delivery. At no time did it seem like a stagey dramatic monologue; rather someone I’d just met showing me the story of their life. Use of props and time-consuming costume changes are sensibly kept to a minimum to maintain pace and story development.

The phrase from which the show takes its title is a common metaphor for embarrassing problems which everyone knows exist, but are scared to mention. After one or two red herrings along the way, we’re left in no doubt at the end by Shetty’s now angry tone what the identity is of this particularly problematic pachyderm – I won’t spoil things for you by giving it a name. This show is only on until the end of this week, so:

Come for the elephant. Stay for a whirlwind performance. Leave having seen a great Fringe debut. So get your coats on and go see this!

 

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‘Earwig’ (Assembly Rooms, Front Room, until AUG 27)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals, EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“The three energetic performers beetle away to pack a lot of fun into an hour’s traffic on the stage.”

Editorial Rating:  Stars (Outstanding)

Whilst perhaps not the most attractive of titles, this is one of the most unusual and interesting pieces of theatre I’ve seen at this year’s Fringe. After successfully touring throughout the UK, Manchester-based theatre company Time and Again bring us the quirky story of entomologist Marigold Webb, whose deafness excludes her from conversations not directly before her face.

Laura Crow’s script makes much use of insect life as metaphor, with characters being likened to wasps, hornets, golden tiger beetles, and the like. The production by directors Catherine Cowdrey and Samantha Vaughan offers an hour that is both entertaining and informative without taking itself too seriously. Robyn Greeves anchors the show as the protagonist, calmly and wryly narrating the difficulties faced in the 1920s by a woman who is not only deaf, but trying to make her way in the male-dominated scientific world. Adam Martin-Brooks first comes across as a Bertie Woosterish toff, but as the play progresses he mutates into Marigold’s domineering and abusive husband. Beth Nolan gives eye-catching performances as both Marigold’s down-to-earth mother and as Bryony Varden, the very personification of a flighty jazz-age flapper. A projection screen at the back of the set is used very much as if it were another character, with its captions often interacting with both the cast and the audience.

This is also a very visual and physical piece of theatre. One of the high points was a vividly choreographed set piece between Marigold and Bryony supposedly reading quietly in a library. Their exchanged looks, messages, and attempts to ignore each other and do some studying are expressed with increasingly terpsichorean verve and at one stage even break into a Charleston. Along with the screen captions, the pacy action often has the feel of a silent movie of the era in which the play is set. Throughout the action, we are subtly reminded of Marigold’s deafness and the problems it causes in a number of inventive and dramatically effective ways.

Performed in a smallish black-box auditorium in George Street, this is a little gem of a play, with the three energetic performers beetling away to pack a lot of fun into an hour’s traffic on the stage. Come for the entomology. Stay for the Charleston. Leave with ants in your pants and a spring in your step. Get your coats on and beetle along to see this!

 

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‘Cecil Beaton’s Diaries’ (Greenside at Nicolson Square – Lime Studio, until AUG 27)

Posted in EdFestivals 2022, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by

“As we romp through the highlights and lowlights of a lively and eventful career, there is much Wodehousian whimsy and theatrical high camp to raise many a smile.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad )

Society and celebrity photographer Sir Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) was something of a legend in his own lifetime. Also an award-winning designer in the world of fashion, theatre, and film, he was a lifelong diarist, and his journals read like a Who’s Who of the great and the good of the 20th century. His picture portraits of queens and commoners flattered his subjects, but after his death, the pen-pictures revealed in his unexpurgated diaries most certainly did not. These documents are very entertainingly adapted for the stage and performed in this one-man show by Richard Stirling (Bridgerton, The Crown, Jeeves and Wooster).

1930s Rolleiflex camera in hand, the Panama-hatted, linen-suited Stirling looks every inch the suave Beaton, his note-perfect dialogue engagingly capturing the aristocratic hauteur with which his subject viewed the world. As we romp through the highlights and lowlights of a lively and eventful career, there is much Wodehousian whimsy and theatrical high camp to raise many a smile. But in stark counterpoint, the less genial side of Beaton’s character often pokes through. His private thoughts about even royal clients could be mercilessly cruel: one laugh-out-loud moment came when Princess Margaret was referred to as looking like “a wealthy seaside landlady”. No punches are pulled here when it is also revealed that at one point in the 1930s, Beaton was suspected of holding – in common with many of his class at that time – anti-semitic views. He strenuously denied this, but for some time as a result he was blacklisted by several Hollywood studios. It is perhaps revealing that when Beaton himself became the subject of a portrait in oils by the artist Francis Bacon, he loathed the nightmarish Dorian Gray-like vision that Bacon created.

Whilst Beaton may not remain a household name these days, this mid-day show nonetheless attracted a quite sizeable and receptive audience who shared the roomy black-box auditorium with me. Stirling’s fine performance is well supported by a generous selection of Beaton’s most famous images, which are back-projected onto a large screen at the back of the sparsely-furnished set. But perhaps a little more in the way of scenery and a few smart decorative touches might visually improve this show about a man to whom style and appearances were everything? Nonetheless, the sustained applause at the end confirmed my impression of a worthwhile and entertaining piece of theatre.

So come for the photos. Stay for the pithy dialogue. Leave with a smile on your face. Get your smartest coats on and go see this.

 

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