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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2003 Reviews (2)Bloody Poetry Brenton's play describes the odd relationships between Byron and the Shelley household - Mary Godwin, Claire Clairemont and Shelley's estranged wife Harriet - with Polidori, Byron's unwanted biographer. It's an ambitious piece to attempt and this young company very nearly pulls it off. Very nearly, but not quite. Neither Byron's rakishness nor Shelley's otherworldliness were quite believeable. The "mad, bad and dangerous to know" Bryon was just a little too hectoring and Shelley was just a little too pallid to have attracted so many strong women. Still, it was brave try and worth seeing. Peter Lathan Fräulein
Else What a complex piece this is! Those who characterise Schnitzler as immoral (on the basis of La Ronde and Anatol) miss the point completely. Although the subjects of his plays may be immoral by certain standards, his analysis and the understanding he shows certainly is not. Freud said in a letter to him, "I have formed the impression that you know through intuition... everything that I have discovred through laborious work on other people." This is a monologue spoken by a seventeen year old girl, with all the self-centredness, sudden enthusiasms and equally sudden revuslions to which girls of that age are prone. During the course of the play, she is begged in a letter from her mother to try to persuade a gentleman who is staying in the same hotel, a friend of the family, to loan her father a considerable sum of money or he will be sent to prison. However she has conceived a huge dislike of the man - not without reason, as things turn out. But she will do what her mother asks... Amy de Lucia, a New York-based actress, has a wonderfully mobile face and captures the odd mixture of gaucheness and grace of the seventeen year-old. She makes Else and her tragedy completely believable. Peter Lathan Monique - A French Affair This isn't theatre. The show I wanted to see isn't on on Tuesdays (Why can't I read programmes properly?), so producer James Seabright said, "Why not see Monique instead?" Why not indeed? Far better to sit with a drink and enjoy some French chansons than hang around outside - with a drink - for an hour. It is a very pleasant way to pass an hour. The programme is enjoyable - songs by, among others, Brel, Trenet, Aznavour, Gainsbourg - and some others not known outside of France. What a revelation to find that the over-played and, to my mind, over-hyped My Way is not only French but also full of that bitterness which characterises so much of the French chanson, rather than the gung-ho American self-glorification of the Sinatra version. Give me Comme d'habitude any day! There was, of course, Trenet's Boum, one of the classics, and a song by Monique and her musical director Nigel Jones, He Made Paris Move for Me, which was hilarious! It was a small audience but an appreciative one! Peter Lathan Honk! Honk! was the first ever British musical to be staged at the National Theatre where the 1999 production won Best new Musical in the 2000 Laurence Olivier Awards. What a super show it is: full of good tunes, witty, and with something to say about people who are "different". The performers are full of energy and talent - I was particularly struck by Ugly (Marlon Moore) and Steven Crawford (Cat), but it has to be said that those are the best parts in the show! I have only one reservation - the reason for the four stars rather than five: deciding whether or not a mic up a cast in a musical is always a difficult one, but I do think that the right decision is the err on the side of caution. If there is any chance that a singer may be a little weak, then mic the lot! It's better for the audience to hear easily than to have to strain, and there were a number of moments when I was finding myself having to strain my ears as the occasional voice was lost against the accompaniment. Such a pity, for otherwise it was a great show. Peter Lathan |
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