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Fringe 2007 Reviews (82)
Armageddon and Fishcakes
Touchwood Theatre
Diverse Attractions
**
The end is nigh. For certain in fact, when it comes to this play. Taking
the concept that the four horsemen of the apocalypse have lost their
way, War is a chiropodist's receptionist, Pestilence a fitness freak
and Death a child's party clown and Famine a connoisseur of strange
clashing foods. They meet together to bring the world to Armageddon
on a park bench one summer's day. Meanwhile an aggravated news mogul
is going off his head as a nuclear missile has been launched towards
an unknown destination.
The main issue I had with this production was not with the concept.
It's an interesting one which has the potential to go somewhere, but
unfortunately it doesn't, mainly because the script never backs up the
premise with any reasons for the set-up. The only explanations for why
the four horsemen have fallen is given in a strange rant from Famine,
where bizarrely she states that they aren't required any more, yet still
cites starving people, diseases and wars in the same monologue.
The humour also falls flat for the majority of the piece and the few
jokes that do work were slapstick elements.
That said, the cast were, for the most part, doing their best with
the script, and there were some good moments between them, but not enough
to save this from itself.
Graeme Strachan
Footballer's Boyfriend
Brian Wharton
Theatre Workshop
**
Darren is a normal everyday gay man, who fell in love and had a long
affair with a premier league footballer. This is a good example of a
play which has a nice idea behind it and then doesn't go into enough
depth to keep it going. At less than an hour long, the tale seems superficial
and never goes into the depth that it could have. While it tells a poignant
story of a man coming to terms with both his sexuality and then the
rejection of a man who has to hide his own, it flies through the meat
of the set-up without really painting the picture properly.
Had it ran for another 30 minutess or so, it could have been a very
moving and interesting play, but as it stands it's simply a short and
largely typical piece which offers little new and instead serves up
a wash of stereotypes and overused ideas.
Graeme Strachan
Land on My Tongue
Theatre Vaults
Smirnoff Baby Belly
***(*)
Billed as an absurdist comedy, this new play is not at all what it
seems. To start with, it's as far from being a comedy as it could be,
tending towards more of a Lynchian psychological horror. The three nameless
leads act in an absurd pantomime of madness as the piece descends into
outright insanity.
The oddness of the premise does little to alleviate the uncomfortable
feelings given by the semi-kidnapped child-woman and the odd and secretive
couple whose house she has entered.
The entire piece is played with a sincerity which makes the stories
of the woman's childhood surgical femi-castrato procedures, and the
abuse dealt out by the mother to her soldier son, all the more creepy.
A very curious piece of abstract madness, which would do better to
promote itself on these strengths.
Graeme Strachan
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