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Fringe 2006 Reviews (9)
The Receipt
By Will Adamsdale and Chris Branch
Assembly Rooms
**
This play features Perrier Award-Winner Will Adamsdale's move from
comedy to straight theatre, or so we are led to believe. To many, this
will seem far more like an hour-long comedy double act with a bit of
narrative thread running through it.
The Receipt is an ordinary tale of everyday folk and, in particular,
the hapless Whiley. He starts off as a dogsbody in a company that does
something, though even he does not know what. After insulting the company's
star client, he spends the last forty minutes as an amateur detective
attempting to trace the history of a till receipt that he picks up in
the street.
While Adamsdale narrates, his mate Mr Branch provides a dramatic soundscape
and plays a lot of lugubrious characters.
The comedy is based on the recognition of oddities in society today
and therefore is most likely to appeal to fans of The Office,
but will not necessarily delight others.
Philip Fisher
Midnight Cowboy
By Leo James Herlihy, adapted by Tim Fountain
Assembly Rooms
****
One of the biggest shows in this year's Fringe programme is Tim Fountain's
new version of Midnight Cowboy, directed by John Clancy. It is
inevitable that there will be comparisons with John Schlesinger's fondly-remembered,
Oscar-winning movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight.
Clancy does a great job of taking us back to the late 1960s with radio
extracts about events such as the war in Vietnam; and a soundtrack featuring
music of the period with Bob Dylan to the fore.
The two stars acquit themselves very well. Charles Aitken, who was
so good in Hair at the Gate, makes a charmingly gauche Joe Buck.
He is a cowboy-type from Texas who decides to head for the big city
of New York in order to make his fame and fortune as a gigolo.
He may be physically up to it but his business skills are such that
after his first trick, on a bed wheeled into Richard Foxton's simple
but effective set, he actually ends up paying his customer.
What might otherwise have been an unexceptionable story is lit up by
the appearance of the crippled consumptive Ratso Rizzo. Con O'Neill
is excellent, almost perfectly covering his Irish accent as this runt
of the litter.
The pair become reluctant friends and disastrous business coleagues
as it becomes apparent that the only way that they can make the money
to escape from their condemned apartment is for Joe to have sex with
men, much against his instincts.
Their real ambition though, is to resettle in sunny Miami. The failure
of the American Dream is nicely realised as, within sight of their goal,
Ratso finally fades away.
The two leads "like a little boy and his grandma" receive
strong support from Emma Kennedy and Clancy regulars, David Calvitto
and Nancy Walsh.
In recent years, Edinburgh has become the location for reworkings of
classic American movies such as Twelve Angry Men and One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Midnight Cowboy may not have as many
big names but should prove almost as popular.
Philip Fisher
Two Men Talking
By Paul Browde and Murray Nossel
Assembly Rooms
***
The title says it all. For 70 minutes two shaven-headed South Africans
dressed in black, gently rib each other over their intersecting memoirs.
What makes this show unusual is the fact that one is a psychiatrist
and the other a clinical psychologist and increasingly as they bare
their souls and talk of friends (and enemies), a distinctive, analytical
approach emerges.
The style is laid back with the actors periodically slipping out of
their stories to comment on their performance and direct themselves
and each other. Whether this is scripted is unclear, as is the veracity
of their stories. This could all be invented but if so, their (faux)
sincerity is impressive.
The pair met as twelve year olds at a Jewish school in Johannesburg
in which effeminate Murray was regularly bullied. Thereafter their lives
intersect until they eventually become a theatrical team.
Their experiences are defined by careers that each combine medicine
with play acting but also by their homosexuality and the constant threat
of AIDS. With remarkable frankness, Paul explains that he was diagnosed
HIV positive twenty years ago, while Murray is an advert for the practice
of safe sex.
Through anecdotes and a strict chronology, the pair provide an entertainment
that is well-crafted and includes songs in three languages, seemingly
thrown in because these natural performers enjoy singing as much as
talking.
At the early performance under review, both seemed nervous but by the
end, their stories had struck a chord with an enthusiastic audience.
This Off-Broadway hit might just become a gay cult over here too. If
nothing else, it is a very cheap way of spending an hour or so with
a couple of shrinks!
Philip Fisher
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