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Fringe 2006 Reviews (27)
Dance All Sorts: Show 4
Rosie Kay Dance Company presents The Wild Party
Based on the poem by Joseph Moncure March
Dance Base
*****
The fourth All Sorts programme at Dance Base in some ways exemplifies
all the tendencies noticed in programmes 1 and 3 (unfortunately I couldn't
fit in Show 2 - all my fault and I'm regretting it), mainly the merging
of genres. Here we have dance, text-based theatre, physical theatre,
and live music with interaction between the performers and musicians.
There is comedy and deep sadness, moments of high excitement, sexual
tension and despair. And underlying it all is comment on the human condition,
its lifestyle choices and the search for love and comfort. What more
can one ask of a piece of theatre?
It is performed with huge energy by four dancers and three musicians
and leaves the audience overwhelmed. Superb!
Peter Lathan
C90
By Daniel Kitson
Traverse Theatre
*****
Mildly-spoken Daniel Kitson is slightly odd-looking, like someone from
a 1970s Open University programme, the sort of person you could walk
past in the street and hardly notice. However when he starts to tell
his stories, everyone stops to listen.
Last year at the Traverse, Kitson told us his Tales of the Wobbly
Hearted. This year, C90 is set in a rather strange office that stores
compilation cassettes that people have made for someone else but which
never got to them or were discarded. Henry is in charge of keeping them
all filed away neatly and deals with any requests for tapes, although
he has never received any, but the department is to be closed and it
is Henry's last day. For the first time ever, Henry has been given a
compilation tape of his own. Cut to Milly, who is on her last day as
a lollipop lady, but who likes to cook human food to put out for the
birds, which produces a very unlikely but absolutely hilarious running
gag throughout the show. Then we meet several other characters also
celebrating their last days in their respective jobs, all of whom receive
a compilation tape.
Once again, Kitson has created an hour of pure magic, creating compelling
tales featuring apparently dull, ordinary characters whose stories make
you want to both laugh and cry at the same time. Kitson is an amazing
storyteller who can keep a mixed audience hanging on his every word
for an hour and still leave them wanting more. It is a shame that there
is no script available for this show as it would be nice to revisit
these stories again and again, albeit with only the memory of Kitson's
soft, hypnotic voice and very precise enunciation of his carefully crafted
if slightly quirky phrasing and vocabulary.
David Chadderton
An Audience with Albert Einstein
By Gary Barber
Gilded Balloon Teviot
***
Without wishing to detract from an endearing hour of entertainment,
the most striking thing about An Audience with Albert Einstein
is its audience. Forget the typical Edinburgh crew of student actors
and families. This one attracts the geeks who actually know something
about physics, many to professorial level.
Gary Barber looks the part and mixes erudition with wit at levels that
can appeal to those for whom even basic level science was torture.
He has a hard job with relativity, especially as the show next door
does a great job of getting its juvenile audience to squeal.
Part biography, part science lesson and part comedy, people will know
in advance whether this is the show for them and visitors will undoubtedly
enjoy one of the few science-led shows on the Fringe.
Philip Fisher
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