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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2003 Reviews (18)Ladies and Gents Make no mistake, this Fringe First winner is a 5 Star show. It all starts so unpromisingly. The audience is left hanging around in the cold for half an hour until the previous performance finishes. They are mugged for their bags. They get a five minute lecture on their conduct through the performance and then are led into a low-ceilinged darkened public lavatory and ordered, on pain of goodness knows what, to stand still. In his case, it was actually Gents and Ladies as there are two parts of even length and the audience is split, half starting in one convenience, half in the other. The Gents is a problem as it is almost pitch black and it's all too easy to slide into the urinal. The plot itself is a relatively pedestrian tale of blackmail and revenge initiated by a true story of a politician who committed suicide in Dublin in 1957. There was a kind of Profumo scandal in the press, half a dozen years before that gent brought down the Macmillan government. While the plotting may not be that inventive, this is one of the most atmospheric productions for years. The tension builds incredibly, assisted by Sinead McKenna's minimal lighting, Karl Shiels' very tight direction and great acting. As the sinister Mr X, Ned Dennehy is perfect. Looking as if he has escaped from Elm Street, he terrifies David Heap's convincing John Watson. The latter is a Gentleman pimping for his down to earth wife, Emily, played by Fiona O'Toole. She in turn had played cat and mouse with Emmet Kirwan's innocent Billy, a man who eventually gets the last laugh. The two halves fit well together and there seems little doubt that whichever way around they are seen, the tension will prove almost unbearable. One lady had her hands in front of her face towards the conclusion, hardly able to face the action. By the end, the autocratic introduction also seems worthwhile. Standing on an actor's toe is one thing but seeing a sharp-looking meat cleaver inches from one's nose is a quite chastening theatrical experience. Kaye's the Word A one-man show devoted to the songs of Danny Kaye may not be to everyone's taste and, to be honest, it was only the fact that I had a one-hour hole in my schedule at the right time that made me decide to see it. It's directed by Adele Anderson of Fascinating Aïda fame, so that was a plus. Then the Pleasance Cabaret Bar is a pleasant venue: plus two. And I'd met the performer, Paul Hull, in the Pleasance press office that morning and he seemed a nice guy, so third plus. It is, in fact, a very enjoyable way of spending an hour. Paul Hull makes no attempt to be a Danny Kaye lookalike (he couldn't: he looks nothing like him!), nor to be a DK soundalike: he simply takes Kaye's songs and performs them because he loves them. That showed through very clearly. And he does it well. He has an engaging manner with the audience and uses a few simple props, minor changes of costume and a girl dancer who is the butt of his humour on occasions, but none of this takes the focus away from the songs, which is how it should be. Most of the audience were wrinklies like myself, but there was one couple in their twenties and they loved it as much as the rest of us. Not theatre, not earth-shattering, not even demanding, just good entertainment. Paul Hull does what he sets out to do. Exposure Eadweard Muybridge is a real historical oddity. He is in many ways the great-grandfather of the camcorder, as he was the man who created moving pictures. Kudos, a company from Kingston University in Muybridge's home town, have produced a biographical play exploring many aspects of the man's often bizarre life. Using an ensemble of ten, plus Lawrence Speck as Muybridge, they employ an impressionistic approach combining straight drama with movement, music and projections of the photographer's work. His really was an extraordinary life. He emigrated to America at 21 and became a photographer. His ethereal muse and model, Alexa Jane Waugh's Blanche Eppler, floats through the play admiring him. The woman that he married though was a divorcee, Flora (Abigail Deeley), who then had an affair with a handsome adventurer Harry Larkins (co-director, Ben Barnes). This drove Muybridge, possibly badly affected by an almost fatal accident that left him in a ten-day coma, to murder and the trial around which the play is based. The real reason for Muybridge's fame today, is his commission from Stanford (of University fame) to create moving images of his champion horse. This was the start of the movies. This play doesn't quite come off in some ways but does tell its audience a lot about an interesting man. It contains solid performances from the ensemble with Roger Kennedy impressive as the defence lawyer. |
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