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Fringe 2008 Reviews (10)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest
Practical Magic Theatre Company
Sweet ECA, Edinburgh College of Art
**
Jack Nicholson's shoes are hard to fill and although Adam Tomkins (playing
Randle P McMurphy) gives a strong performance, somehow a cramped experience
on a weak set does not support this show. Actors shuffling and queuing
to get off the stage in the dark and misplaced monologues out of light
keep knocking the edges off an enthusiastic performance. The show is
slow to get going and does warm up by the second half but with so little
space to move in, it's more a game of sardines rather than space for
great and gainful personalities like Randle's to range along in. Interesting
to watch if you don't know One Few Over the Cuckoo's Nest but
unmemorable if you do.
Cecily Boys
Coming Up For Air
By George Orwell, adapted by Dominic Cavendish
Assembly Rooms.
****
This is a high quality solo show with wide appeal that, facing little
competition at 11 in the morning, should sell well.
Theatre critic Dominic Cavendish from TheatreVOICE and the Daily Telegraph
has teamed up with actor/comedian Hal Cruttenden to present an hour-long
stage version of one of George Orwell's lesser known novels.
Under the direction of Gene David Kirk, who perfectly creates the period
by kitting Cruttenden out in a double breasted pinstripe suit and those
BBC announcer tones, the actor plays George Bowling, a Pooterish middle-aged
Everyman.
In 1938, he is locked into a dull marriage with the obligatory two
children and a travelling job selling insurance. Life would be unsatisfactory
anyway but to make things worse, war is in the offing.
In a Proustian moment, the name of King Zog (of Albania) takes him
back to the joys of fishing as a 7-year-old; and then through to 16
when real life took over.
For a few days, with bombers flying over prefiguring the end of such
tranquil pastimes, George travels back in time and place to the locations
of boyhood, now subsumed by the encroachments of city living.
The very expressive Cruttenden fully inhabits a likeable if irascible
man, showing great energy and good comic timing, as one would expect
from a stand-up. In under an hour, he tells an engrossing story, written
with the kind of devotion that is generally only plunged into autobiographies
of lost childhood.
The highest praise for a solo show of this type is to say that it makes
one desperate to read the book - I'm on my way to Waterstones.
Philip Fisher
The Mozart Question
By Michael Morpurgo, adapted by Simon Reade
Assembly and SCAMP
Assembly Rooms.
****
Former children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo has already done well on
stage with Simon Reade's long-running adaptation of Private Peaceful.
The pair has teamed up once more for a moving story about the power
of music to soothe, enrich and even save lives.
Andrew Bridgmont plays Paolo Levi, a 50-year-old looking back to the
1960s when he was a 9-year-old Venetian boy entranced by violin music.
A moving tale opens when his mother shows the lad a hidden violin,
which he is forbidden to mention to his father, let alone try out.
Inevitably, after meeting Signor Horovitz, a concert-quality busker,
Paolo defies the prohibitions and starts to take lessons that lead to
a career.
It would be unfair to reveal the secret at the book/play's heart but
you will probably guess it after about 30 minutes when three violinists
are united. Then, the performance takes off through Vivaldi played like
a talented child to a cathartic Mozartian finale delivered with something
far closer to professional aplomb.
The Mozart Question will appeal to older children and also adults
thanks to a nice, understated performance directed by Julia McShane
and touchingly sentimental script.
Philip Fisher
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