|
Fringe 2007 Reviews (12)
You've Got to Love Dancing
to Stick to It
You've Got to Love Dancing to Stick to it
Written and performed by Julian Fox
Pleasance Courtyard
****
Julian Fox's stage persona is slightly embarrassed about most things
but still keen to talk about the intimate details of his life, as though
he is glad an audience has turned up so he has someone to talk to. It
is all very low-key and slow, but quite charming and often very funny
in a gentle sort of way.
The show has nothing at all to do with dancing, although he does dance
to some of his electro pop character songs. In fact, it consists of
his recollections of of the summer of 2005 which he spent mostly at
the Brockwell Lido, told as readings from his journal, home videos,
character pieces where he plays some of the people at the Lido, and
songs, with the aid of lots and lots of props. Interspersed are pieces
about some trips he took abroad, a camping trip, books he has ordered
over the Internet and his liking for the breadth of coverage of Internet
porn.
Fox draws you into his rambling personal tales, and just as you think
he is about to deliver a punchline, he pauses for a moment, smiles at
the audience and then moves onto something else. While there are a few
big laughs, mostly the show elicits from the audience a series of smiles
and chuckles, and something that could easily be quite dull has its
audience leave with a smile and a warm feeling.
David Chadderton
The Terrible Infants
Based on a series of short stories by Oliver Lansley and Sam Wyer
Les Enfants Terribles
Pleasance Courtyard
****
As the audience enters Pleasance 2, the stage contains some large objects
covered with dust sheets; when the storyteller emerges from a suitcase,
he removes the sheets to reveal a large handcart and the two-piece band.
The show is a collection of original cautionary tales created by the
man from the suitcase, Oliver Lansley, and the illustrator and designer
Sam Wyer, featuring characters such as Tumb who listens to his tum and
not his mum and grows enormously fat, the heartbreaking tale of Thingummyboy
who tries to hide in the background so much that he becomes invisible,
Linena the rag doll who wants to be made of expensive, fashionable fabrics,
and the smelly Mingus with fungus growing on him. Between all of these
we hear the ongoing story of Tilly who tells so many tall tales that
she grows a tail. All of the characters disappear in some way by the
end.
There is an obvious comparison with Shockheaded Peter in the
way that cautionary tales are put together with a single story that
links between them. There is certainly an element of Kneehigh Theatre
Company's childish playfulness in the way the performers behave and
bicker together onstage, and the design of the characters and projections
could have come directly from the sketch books of Tim Burton.
Having said that, the show does stand up on its own, with some very
imaginatively constructed puppets of very different kinds and some nice
little stories performed very well by Lansley with Matt Ian Kelly and
Nicole Lewis, with some additional parts played by musicians Tom Gisby
and Neil Townsend. Wyer's design looks wonderful on stage and integrates
perfectly with the actions of the performers and puppets. Adults and
children will all find themselves spellbound by this great looking show.
David Chadderton
Vacant Possession
By Ray Brown
Normal Productions
C Cubed
*****
There are many plays which find humour in the odd characters and there
is almost always a large element of cruelty in them, holding the characters
up to ridicule or presenting them as a kind of freak show.
Joe Sweeting and Gary Roebuck, the characters in Vacant Possession,
would seem to be perfect targets: Sweeting is (at least in his own mind
- is it just fantasy?) is an ex-military man and Roebuck fills the loneliness
of his life with a dedication to far left politics. They meet when Roebuck
comes to buy Sweeting's house (surely property is theft? But his mother
wants him out of the house because he and her new partner don't get
on), and why is Sweeting selling? Because he's going to kill himself.
Vacant Possession gets much humour from this very contrasting
pair and their developing relationship, but it is humour without cruelty.
Instead we find ourselvescoming to care about these sad souls, thanks
to the subtle characterisation and the playing of the two actors, Geoffrey
Wilkinson (Sweeting) and Jamie Smelt (Gary).
A sympathetic, clever piece of writing, beautifully performed.
Peter Lathan
Next
page - - - Index
|
