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Fringe 2005 Reviews (51)
Bill Hicks: Slight Return
Festival Highlights
Pleasance Courtyard
*****
Bill Hicks: Slight Return is brought back to the Edinburgh by
Festival Highlights after last year's sell out run. After failing to
see the show in 2004 I decided 2005 was my year to see the rants and
rage of a comedy master.
Slight Return is the creation of writers Chas Early & Richard
Hurst, who have decided to bring down the "mouth from the south
comic from heaven" to give his views on the modern world. Now anyone
who knows the work of Bill Hicks will also know that those views are
strong, insightful and rib-crackingly funny! So Bill, complete with
wings, must come down from up above and find a body to take over. He
chooses little known Brit actor Cha Early as his human form, which then
allows him to give us his fresh and hilarious points of view on the
new millennium world.
Chas Early does a wonderful rubber faced job at bringing to life the
crazy facial expressions of Hicks. Not to mention a very convincing
southern American Hicks accent. He is everything Hicks was; angry, poetic,
eye-opening and so funny that if you don't laugh you must be dead!
Both writers have taken current topics and worded them so well that
if Hick where alive today I'm pretty sure they would have came from
his mind. These guys are two writers to keep an eye on in the future.
Slight Return is as funny as it is poignant! You will laugh,
you will think, you will cry, but most of all you will absolutely love
Bill Hicks: Slight Return!
Wayne Miller
Lost Ones
By Matthew Lenton
Vanishing Point Theatre Company
Pleasance Grand (Pleasance Courtyard)
*****
If Shockheaded Peter got together with The Melancholy Death
of Oyster Boy, the offspring might look something like Vanishing
Point's show. After a successful initial tour, the company was all set
to bring the show back to Scotland's Theatre Gateway on Elm Row. With
the closure of that Fringe venue, both the company and the public have
lucked out, as the Pleasance has been able to house the production for
the latter half of this year's Fringe.
The play tells the story of Theodore, a.k.a. Kevin, a writer whose
inspiration begins to leak out as we learn the horrible tale of a cold,
snowy mountain top, and the peculiar children led on a fatal field trip
one day, many years ago.
I sat through this production with an open-mouthed grin of amazement;
the things writer/director Matthew Lenton and his cast have accomplished
are inventive and stunning, like nothing I've ever seen done on stage
before. Shadowplay, music, and a sort of puppetry are all utilized in
this exceptional piece of work.
Rachel Lynn Brody
Carl-Einar Hackner
By Carl-Einar Hackner
Festival Highlights
Pleasance Courtyard
**
While he might be very famous in his own neighborhood (and according
to the Swedish friend who talked me into coming to his show, this is
the case), Carl-Einar Hackner's new show doesn't really provide evidence
of why this is the case.
Opening with an Andy Kaufman-esque physical character piece, Hackner
then goes on to perform strange and funny songs and magic tricks, involving
audience members in several portions of the show.
Although he gets a laugh here and there, they seemed to come more from
a sense of sympathy and obligation than true mirth; this strange blend
of comedy, theatre, and magic is something that many people may find
difficult to become involved with. The funniest moments in the show,
and there are all too few of them, centre around a tale about a camping
trip Hackner missed because of a broken arm. But in the long run, while
his expressions and open nature are enough to maintain interest, his
material just isn't up to snuff.
Rachel Lynn Brody
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