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Fringe 2005 Reviews (43)
Close Encounters
Three plays, including Gentlemen's Bairns by C.S. Lincoln, The
Rise and Fall of Deacon Brodie, by Catherine A McLachlan, and The
Riddle of Riddle's Court by John McGovern.
Citadel Arts Group
Diverse Attractions, Riddle's Court
***
Close Encounters is actually a series of three short plays,
performed by an almost uniformly excellent cast and highlighting historical
events that took place in and around Riddle's Court - the location of
Diverse Attractions' theatres.
All three plays are done in Scots, which would be more of a problem
for foreigners if the cast didn't go to such pains to make sure their
gestures and mannerisms illuminated the meanings of the words. Gentlemen's
Bairns tells the story of unruly students who take over the high
school in protest over losing their eight days' vacations. It is the
longest of the three plays, and utilizes the full cast.
The Rise and Fall of Deacon Brodie is the next play. Quite talky,
it is the tale of how Edinburgh's infamous Deacon's had a brush with
life-after-supposed-death, only to take a plunge and wind up dead after
all.
The Riddle of Riddle's Court, the shortest of the three, is
a rhyme about a haunted sporran found by modern-day construction workers.
The tale itself is sandwiched between quick glimpses of the modern-day
workers.
Playing to a packed house, it certainly seems that the Citadel Arts
Group has cracked the secret of getting audiences at the fringe with
Close Encounters.
Rachel Lynn Brody
The Threepenny Opera
By Bertolt Brecht, with music by Kurt Weill
Cambridge University Broadway Savoyards
C Too
***
Brecht and Weill's take on Gay's The Beggar's Opera needs no
introduction and indeedone of its songs, Mac the Knife, has become
a jazz classic. This Cambridge group gives a creditable account of the
piece which is at its best in the set-piece musical numbers.
They sing well and the musical numbers are well staged. The costumes,
too, are good - with influences including The Rocky Horror Show
and Chicago - and the lighting suitably atmospheric, but in thsoe
scenes where dialogue is supreme, the company is less successful. The
tension lapses from time to time and occasionally the diction leaves
something to be desired.
On the whole, though, this is production which is worth seeing, which
may even win some converts to Brecht and Weill.
Peter Lathan
Babooshka
By Kiki Kendrick and Julie Balloo
Pleasance Courtyard
**
This is a women's show written and performed by them for them. That
means that having a male reviewer is less than ideal.
Babooshka is a clothing store, which apparently gives its customers
a kind of licence to talk about the problems of life as a woman in the
image-driven early 21st Century. The shop is presumably Sloaney designer
but budgets being limited, it has so many different brands and labels
that the only true progenitor is Oxfam.
The concept is clever. Take five women of different ages, put them
in the changing rooms of a store, call them all Anna and then get them
to talk about a series of issues while cracking as many jokes as possible.
Catherine Steadman plays the teenage sales assistant whose only interest
in life is how the stars of Heat and Hello live. Charlotte
Pyke is the mid-20s Anna with boyfriend problems, Claire McKenna takes
her to 32 with a body and mind that haven't yet recovered from motherhood
and Maggie Saunders is the more dignified 50 who injects the pathos
talking about a daughter who died of anorexia.
The play has been written by Jenny Eclair's writing partner Julie Balloo
and Kiki Kendrick who was a creative in advertising for 20 years. Miss
Kendrick plays the 40-year-old, a woman whose main interest is getting
the most out of her newly-acquired breasts. There is a suspicion that
this version of Anna is closely autobiographical.
Director Catriona McLoughlin keeps the pace up throughout and the laughs
flow.
Babooshka has lots of girly in-jokes and looks in great detail
at female vanity. It tries to make some serious points but ultimately
these are buried beneath the light situation comedy.
Philip Fisher
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