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Fringe 2005 Reviews (37)
Immaculate
By Oliver Lansley
Les Enfants Terribles
Glided Balloon Teviot
****
Mia hasn't had sex since she split up with her boyfriend about nine
months ago. Or has she? She might just have had a one night stand
with arch-nerd Gary Goodman, but she can't believe she'd sink that low!
Anyway, she's pregnant. An immaculate conception. But is the baby the
second coming or the spawn of the devil? Gabriel says it's the first:
Lucifer says it's the second.
Immaculate is hilarious. From the opening with a masked chorus,
through the arrival of a bumbling old Archangel Gabriel and the intervention
of a petulant Lucifer, to the obnxious and totally self-centred ex and
the incredibly boring Gary, the play is a bundle of laughs.
Melanie Gray gives a great performance as the feisty Mia, leading an
excellent cast who never let the pace of Oliver Lansley's play (which,
incidentally, he also directed) slacken. Well, how would a modern woman
react to being told she's been inpregnated by God without her knowing
it, without even a by-your-leave? Fireworks are inevitable!
In a Fringe which is filled with comedies, this has to be one of the
funniest.
Peter Lathan
In Limbo
From the story The Baby by David Almond, adapted by Claire MacDonald
Classworks Theatre
Pleasance Dome
****
This is a gentle, semi-autobiograhical play about a young boy, David,
growing up in Felling (Tyneside) and his relationships with his friends
and an old lady, Miss Golightly, who is the object of suspicion among
the local kids but who, in fact, is a kindly, rather sad individual
whose life more or less stopped when her fiancé was killed in
the First World War. It also traces David's development as a writer.
It is cleverly constructed, using multiple fashbacks, as, for example,
when David remembers Miss Golightly remembering her youth.
The performances of the cast of five are uniformly good - even to the
extent of getting the accents right! - and Jenny Culank's direction
ensures that the pace si suficiently varied without ever sagging.
It's the sort of play which provides an enjoyable and meaningful rest
from the more frenetic offerings of the Fringe. It has a gentle humour
and feeling of nostalgia which comes from a combination of writing,
direction and acting which just embraces the audience.
Peter Lathan
Mortal Ladies Possessed
By Tennessee Williams, adapted by Matthew Hurt
Assembly Rooms
****
Linda Marlowe has made a new career for herself with one-woman shows
that showcase her acting talents. This latest performance is based on
five short stories by Tennessee Williams and has already been seen in
New York.
Miss Marlowe knows her strengths and is assisted by a very entertaining
script. The linking thread is the Widow Holly, an ageing landlady in
"the quarter" of New Orleans who is pestered to distraction
by a pair of amusingly warring lodgers.
Soon, though, the widow is narrating a series of stories about characters
that immediately recall some of those in Williams' plays.
We hear about Augusta, who mixes with the Hollywood wannabes and eventually
marries handsome blond Jimmy. She is such an innocent that, when an
unspeakable sin begins to intrude and Jimmy's nature becomes unmistakable,
she doesn't even notice.
Then there is Flora, a cold socialite in Amalfi past her heyday. She
likes to take in poets but too often gets impostors and is less generous
than she seems if she cannot have her way.
Lastly, we have Isabel the artist, who can only make ends meet by taking
on a lucrative sideline. She eventually finds her art undervalued, even
if her body is not.
Linda Marlowe creates a number of insecure but very believable women
in this enjoyable production. It should send Williams' fans scurrying
back to the plays and searching out the short stories.
Philip Fisher
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