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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2001 Reviews (14)Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens A musical about AIDS isn't exactly the first show that would grab your attention when choosing what to see from the massive number of shows in the Fringe programme, espcially when it's in a venue well away from the majority of others. Still, the title appealed so I decided to go for it. When the day arrived - a week and a half into the festival - the weather had been awful, I was tired, my next show was right across town - I almost decided to give it a miss, particularly when I took a wrong turning and had to retrace my steps up one of those awful hills that so characterise Edinburgh. I'm glad I didn't, for, in spite of its subject matter, this is a bright and very enjoyable show. Far from consisting of lamentations over the deaths of those infected with the virus, it's a celebration of their lives, sensitively performed by COMINGsoon, students at Hull Uniersity. The venue is a small, low-ceilinged basement bar. In one corner the band and sound equipment are set up, but otherwise it's a normal bar, with bench seats all around and tables filling the rest of the space. There's no stage lighting, just the normal bar lights. The actors sit among the audience and simply get up and move around the tables, cabaret-style. The show is a a mixture of songs and verse about those who have died: gays, of course, but also drug users, haemaphiliacs and others infected by contaminated blood products, medical staff infected by patients, prostitutes, babies infected in the womb, wives infected by husbands... Sometimes the verse is allowed to speak for itself; sometimes it is performed. The songs cover a range of styles: jazz, gospel, blues, ballads. The emotional range is wide: anger, lamentation, acceptance, celebration, even comedy. It's a very moving piece, partially because of the quality of the writing and the music and partially because of the performances. The songs are solos, duets - all possible combinations up to full chorus. The performers are university students, but none is studying Drama - French, Chemistry, a full range of subjects in fact, but not Drama or Theatre. Watching and listening, this is difficult to believe. They are thoroughly professional, switching from character to character effortlessly, moving from drama to singing or even joining the band for a number. I am so glad I didn't give up when I took the wrong turning! Dahling You Were Marvellous Berkoff tells us that he wanted to parody those precious dahlings and those utterly self-important creatures whose lives desperately depend on the outside world to give them form and shape, adulation and importance, having very little substance of their own.They are many and are an easy target, and Berkoff misses none: the knighted actor, the fat producer, the American film star trying to get some theatre credibility, the left wing intellectual elitist, and so on. The problem is that it's too easy, and I'm afraid that Berkoff's play tends to go over the same ground - with different characters - time after time. Essentially what he is doing is pointing to these characters and saying, "What a load of plonkers!" True enough, but repeating it for an hour does tend to get a little tedious. The problem is compounded by the fact that everything is played exaggeratedly - and loudly! Not that that is wrong in terms of what the play is doing, but it does make for difficult listening. Were it half the length we would have come away wanting more: as it is, we leave thinking, "Too much!" All Cloned Up Touted as another Rocky Horror Show, All Cloned Up is a science fiction comedy musical built around - obviously! - cloning. Professor Eugene (joke!) Graham plans to get rid of his wife Fiona, who is not the pliant creature he wants, and replace her with a clone which has been genetically engineered to have all the submissive "wifely" traits he requires, but his assistant Philip Collier has other plans. Cue for plenty of complex shennanigans and nothing turns out the way anyone planned! It is funny - and backing group, the Clonettes(!), looking remarkably like three copies of Dolly the sheep, are a real hoot. The action becomes fast and furious, with bodies piling up all over the place and the professor becoming more and more demented. But does it live up to the "next RHS" hype? Sadly, no. The characters are all basically conventional - the mad scientist, the obstreperous wife, the scheming assistant, the pushy journalist, the nerd - and the songs, although pleasant enough, are not especially memorable. In short, there is nothing ground-breaking about the show. It's well-constructed, funny, musically competent, but only distinguished from many another by the unusualness of its subject matter. The performances were uniformly good, but there seemed to be some problems with the microphones and just occasionally voices were drowned by the backing track. The applause was warm but not particularly enthusiastic. I have to say, however, that I thought the Clonettes were a wonderful creation! Next page - - - Index |
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