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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2004 Reviews (30)Getting On Can we believe that an M.P. lives in this small, cluttered flat? With adultery right under his nose? And the lover having an affair with his best friend? This production of Alan Bennett's play, although well performed, is poorly directed and produced and stretches credulity. Catherine Lamm Play Dead The People Show continue their long tradition of providing quirky, avant garde work with Playing Dead, People Show Number 115. Following Film Noir last year, now they have turned their attentions to cowboys and girls. They sometimes have difficulty in taking their subject seriously, which can mean that comparisons with Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles are inevitable. From the moment that the bad taste costumes and wigs of four actors riding binbag horses appear, you know that fun is in store. The action takes the form of the actors' dreams of the Wild West and they regularly slip in and out of character, drawn by regular alarm bells. The story is based on the love-hate relationship between Gareth Brierley's tubercular Black Jack and cowgal Hootin' Annie played by Bernadette Russell, who is desperate for her righteous revenge. This is observed by virginal schoolmarm Miss Deborah (Nicola Blackwell) and Richard Hansell as Cowboy Jed. The action is fast and constantly satirises the genre. It features romance, cowboy songs, baked beans, lots of gore and even a cow George W. Bush! The People Show create a weirdly seductive, highly inventive dream world that will not be to every taste. They go to some trouble to offend gratuitously, especially in the finale that looks more like a blue movie than a cowboy one. Play Dead is very funny so many devotees will forgive, or even relish the excesses. Philip Fisher Diary of a Madman Thickly-accented Kosovan actor Shaban Arifi plays Gogol's madman in this one-man stage version. This is a man who starts out as a relatively normal clerk, who falls in unreciprocated love with the boss's daughter. It becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong when he starts to interrogate her dog. It may not have helped that even the dog can see that she prefers a dashing officer. From there, things go downhill fast. The madness keeps increasing in scale until soon he believes himself King Ferdinand VIII of Spain, hounded by his mortal French enemies. From international and global delusions, he moves on to universal ones. Until the dying moments, when the lights darken and there is a rare, desperate moment of moving lucidity, this adaptation does not really take off. Philip Fisher |
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