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Fringe 2006 Reviews (50)
Teen Scream
By the Heather Brothers
Assembly Rooms
**
Teen Scream follows the tale of a typical group of American
teenagers in a theatre on a remote island in a thunderstorm. Only among
them is someone with murder on their minds.
The scariest thing about this show was the awful script by the Heather
Brothers (A Slice of Saturday Night) Throwing in all the corniest
lines from movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream
it goes beyond Tongue In Cheek and you ending up gagging on your tongue.
Not knowing where the comedy ends and the scares begin, the Heather
Brothers leave you lost in a script that has no sense of it own direction.
The songs to help drive along the horror are rock and roll style numbers
not adding any atmosphere or drama at any point whatsoever, yanking
the audience out of the settings pushing you further away from the OTT
plot.
The only good thing keeping you watching is a cast who are energetic
and confident. Stand out performances come from ex-Sclub7 star Jon Lee
who now on many occasions (Les Miserables, Love Shack)
has proven he is at home in theatre. With great presence and attitude
he plays bad boy Josh perfectly. Along side him in the other stand out
performance is former Home & Away actor Richard Grieve camping
it up as the high school drama teacher. A great cast to keep you alive
through this true horror!
Expect scares? It delivers for all the wrong reasons! Expect comedy?
You may laugh through the tears! Expect talent? There is a cast that
delivers!
Wayne Miller
No Obvious Trauma
Directed by Clare Dunn
Unpacked
Pleasance
****(*)
This year's festival heralds the arrival of Unpacked's second major
production. No Obvious Trauma is a brilliant and haunting period
piece set in an early 20th century mental institution, where two doctors
greet the arrival of a new patient with markedly different reactions.
This is a curious and intriguing production, which straddles the borders
of physical theatre and straight performance. The actors show a remarkable
range of near balletic movements and actions as they manipulate the
medical screens and table that serve as the walls, windows and doors
throughout the performance. Zoë Hunter deserves special mention
as the progression of the story can largely be measured by her transformation
from tortured and wretched invalid to a calm and graceful young woman.
They then show themselves to be capable puppeteers in the more abstract
moments as the characters interact with the puppet-form versions of
themselves, who seem to represent their desires and feelings as well
as the past versions of themselves.
Clare Dunn's direction is in no small way responsible for the wealth
of good work on show here as the complex nature of the production is
held together with aplomb.
In all, this is a fantastic production, which manages to be entertaining,
provocative and haunting through the course of its story.
Graeme Strachan
Tony Robinson's Cunning Night
Out
Guilded Balloon Teviot
***
As the lights go down, we are shown some stills and short film clips
from Tony Robinson's 40-year career in TV and theatre (he began as a
child actor in the original production of Oliver! in London)
and then the man himself bounces on stage with a slightly smug grin
on his face. He tells a rather drawn-out gag about wanting to use the
audience to re-enact the battle of the Somme until he was prevented
by Health and Safety, then launches into the show.
The Cunning Night Out consists of a random selection of stories,
which are partly autobiographical, partly about Robinson's father and
partly stories from history that he has picked out from researching
his historical TV shows. He writes off some of England's past (and future)
kings as useless, talks about some of the worst jobs in history from
his TV series of this name and tells us about the origins of some surnames.
All of this is mixed in with stories about him being pushed in the sewage-filled
Thames by John Wayne, smoking weed in Itchycoo Park with fellow Oliver!
child actor and future Small Faces lead singer Steve Marriott and hanging
over a cliff by a rope during the filming of Worst Jobs In History.
Robinson is certainly entertaining and funny and performs energetically
for the fifty minutes or so that his show lasts. However there seems
something self-congratulatory about the whole thing, as he stands on
stage an proudly tells us about his past achievements and obscure historical
facts that he has discovered. If the show itself seems a little random
and mixed up, his encore comes completely out of the blue, as he leads
the audience in a singalong of "Any Old Iron".
David Chadderton
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