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Fringe 2006 Reviews (13)
Paul Merton's Impro Chums
Pleasance Courtyard
*****
Anyone who has ever see Whose Line Is It Anyway? on television
or the Comedy Store Players on stage will know the format of this kind
of show. Suggestions are taken from the audience, both on slips of paper
handed in before the start and from things shouted out during the show.
The performers then create short scenes, speeches or jokes from these
suggestions on the spot without any preparation and try to make the
audience laugh.
The line-up for this show is similar to two years ago: Jim Sweeney,
Richard Vranch (who also improvises the music on keyboard), Lee Simpson
and Suki Webster, plus, of course, Paul Merton. There are also some
special guest improvisers lined up, and on the first show the guest
was Comedy Store Players regular and TV star Josie Lawrence. The show
consists of a set sequence of scenes which use information supplied
by the audience and are then created and performed by the cast. When
it works, it is very impressive and very funny - when it doesn't it
can still be funny if the performers deal with it well.
These are all very experienced improvisers who deal with pretty much
anything that is thrown at them, by the audience or - which is often
worse - by the other improvisers. They deliberately block, drop one
another into difficult situations and make each other laugh during scenes,
but it is all part of the style of the show and is all good-natured
and funny. And this show is very funny indeed, at times getting a large,
sold-out audience all rocking with laughter in unison.
There are a growing number of shows in Edinburgh that claim to use
improvisation, but if you want to see some of the top performers in
Britain in this style of comedy, you should definitely try to get a
ticket for this show.
David Chadderton
Cooped
By Cal McCrystal and Spymonkey
Assembly Rooms
****
Cooped is really good fun. It is a highly professional piece
of physical theatre and clowning, as one would expect from a show that
has been touring for five years. It also uses the best of corny special
effects to create stormy nights and animal-infested country houses.
The plot is simply silly. We are welcomed into a luxurious mansion
set, designed by Lucy Bradridge, creaking and collapsing to fit in with
the drama. There, in a deliciously over-acted spoof, a murder mystery
is played out by the charming Spymonkey.
Sweet orphan Laura Dulay (Petra Massey) is welcomed to his home by
suave, handsome Forbes Murdstone (Toby Park) and his uppity butler Klaus
(Stephan Kreiss). This unorthodox household then receives an assortment
of visitors including solicitor Roger Parchment (Aitor Basari) who inexplicably
has a Spanish accent.
Tongues never leave cheeks as the innocent ingenue suffers a
series of strange dreams and finds that real life, with its rich mix
of incest, murder and identical twins, is very little easier to make
sense of.
Using both verbal and physical comedy, this spoof makes few wrong moves
as it consistently amuses and allows the team to show off their extraordinary
skills. In particular, Miss Massey has the useful ability to imitate
a mannequin to perfection and Mr Kreiss the longest of tongues.
There will be few more professionally produced shows on the Fringe
this year. Go and see it.
Philip Fisher
Levelland
By Rich Hall
Assembly Rooms
***
It was very strange reviewing Levelland immediately after Sam
Shepard's True West. Comedian Rich Hall's first play is, at its
best, something that could easily have been peopled by San S's characteristic
mid-American misfits.
Hall plays radio Shock Jock, Wayman Tisdale, a Texan who literally
lives in his studio. The world has gone bad as an oil crisis means that
the USA is in turmoil. This is reflected by panicked calls to the show,
mainly from loopy listeners.
Worse is to come for Tisdale, energetically played by the writer. He
gets three visitors who turn his cosy, little world upside down.
The first arrival is neurotic young Scrope (Rory Keenan). He wants
airtime to explain that he is one of God's chosen. He is hardly unique
as there are 144,000 of them out there somewhere.
Scrope also believes that he is being chased by killers and this proves
to be the case. His talent for sniffing out oil may not be genuine but
is a potential money-maker either way.
David Calvitto, rushing across from Midnight Cowboy to play
Demitri, represents the nice side of petty crime, while Mike Wilmot's
Guffy is better with violence.
Levelland is a satire on contemporary America that makes some
very sharp observations about the way that we live today and suggests
that Rich Hall could have a successful second career as a playwright.
Guy Masterson directs well but might have suggested that Hall cut some
of the longer speeches to a size at which they do not hamper the flow.
Philip Fisher
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