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Fringe 2008 Reviews (26)
Lucky You
By Carl Hiassen, adapted by Francis Matthews and Denis Calandra
Assembly Hall
**
This is one of the biggest shows at one of the largest venues. The
combination of a popular author and a really high quality cast suggested
that Lucky You would be something special.
It opens with a theme song from Loudon Wainwright III projected on
multiple TV screens and then we are introduced to some dozen characters
who live in Grange, Florida.
The plot is simple. Black JoLayne (Nicola Alexis) wins half of a $27m
lottery prize, much to her delight. The other half goes to a couple
of brainless rednecks. Rather than blessing their luck, these racists
decide to steal the ticket and scoop the whole jackpot.
For the next 1½ hours, Jolene, supported by a rogue ex-journalist
played by Trevor White, chase the robbers with the help or hindrance
of an assortment of bit-part characters, none of whom is especially
memorable.
Throughout, you feel as if a group of people are illustrating a light
novel's narrative in a kind of comic book style and, by doing so, adding
absolutely nothing to the experience of reading the book.
The highlights all come from Corey Johnson, who produces a couple of
physical acting gems, particularly when his hick dives into (dry) water
and flounders hilariously, much to the amusement of his fellow actors
as well as the audience.
Philip Fisher
Deep Cut
By Philip Ralph
Sherman Cymru
Traverse 2
*****
In Edinburgh, it is possible to go through days of mediocre theatre
wondering whether there aren't better ways of spending one's life. Then
along comes a diamond like Deep Cut and the woes are instantly
forgotten.
Everybody has heard of the Deepcut Barracks in Surrey because four
young recruits committed suicide there in a seven year period. There
was a big enquiry that confirmed this fact, effectively exonerating
the Army and the Home Office.
In a searing piece of Verbatim Theatre from the Sherman Theatre in
Cardiff, Philip Ralph and director Mick Gordon present enough evidence
to persuade every visitor to the Traverse that a massive cover-up has
been perpetrated.
Starting with squaddies and ending at ministerial level, a mixture
of unbelievable ineptitude and self-interest led to a miscarriage of
justice that has left at least one and probably more murderers at large.
We spend 90 minutes in the Llangollen living room of Des and Doreen
James, the adoptive parents of Cheryl James, an 18-year-old who died
in mysterious circumstances, probably at the hands of one of her lovers,
Private A and Private B. If not, she shot herself lying upside down
on a slope. This is marginally more likely that a couple of other youngsters
who managed to die of multiple bullet wounds in impossible formations
to support self-infliction.
This is a very spare work, looking only in one level at the opinions
of Des, played with anguished realism by Ciaran McIntyre, Rhian Morgan's
Doreen and Jonesy, a colleague of Doreen's from Deepcut played with
perky honesty by Rhian Blythe.
The official views are put by Nicholas Blake QC, Simon Molloy as a
gullible man who appears grossly inept, the commanding officer of the
barracks who is no better, and, for the Government, Robert Blythe's
understandably tetchy Bruce George.
The catalysts for this play and the TV investigations before it were
a journalist and a forensic scientist. Robert Bowman plays Brian Cathcart,
a writer who believes that he and his ilk "dropped the ball"
when the powers that be played political games with them.
However, if anyone could be said to take responsibility for the failure
to prosecute, it might be the brash forensics expert, Frank Swann (Robert
Blythe again) who refused to provide concrete statements to an investigation
that he regarded as invalid, preferring to await the public enquiry
that Blake eventually refused to allow.
What seems like a searing theatrical piece moves on to a different
level when a kind of postscript is offered by a burly man supported
by his tearful wife. Although we are not told, this brave couple must
be the real Des and Doreen James.
The only possible criticism of what is undoubtedly a great drama is
whether it is all too well presented and trite. Every piece of evidence
presented points in the same direction and it is hard to accept that
an experienced QC could have ignored everything that we hear in coming
to a conclusion that beggars belief.
The truth would be definitively established if that public enquiry
were held. Deep Cut might just contribute to the demands of people
like the James parents and Brian Cathcart, finally achieving a closure
on this sad episode for the families but also the Army, indicted once
again at the Traverse two years after Black Watch.
Political theatre doesn't get much better or more significant than
this.
Philip Fisher
The Caravan : Coping with
Floods
By Ben Freedman, Mimi Poskett and Liam O'Driscoll
Look Left Look Right
Pleasance Courtyard
****
Cast 4 - Audience 6 and the producers have a sell-out on their hands.
This could only happen in Edinburgh, more's the pity.
The Caravan is a tiny - in every sense - production played out
is a cramped caravan of the type that the people portrayed lived in
for anything up to a year.
They are victims of last summer's floods in Hull and Doncaster, Whitney
and Tewkesbury, with the North/South divide painfully obvious.
The actors, none of whom is named in the press release, are each versatile
and effective. In only half an hour, they pack in a series of tales
of woe. The impact of a bit of water is amazing and it is clear that
the authorities are to blame in many cases where properties have been
constructed on flood plains.
The stories that they relate, whether of large families crammed into
21 ft caravans or the landless landed gentry really hit home when you
are sitting in their far from temporary accommodation. The powers that
be at the Environment Agency and Hull City Council should get the chance
to sit in this caravan. Then they might feel obliged to find the funds
to re-house thousands who are still homeless a year on.
Scary enough anyway, this performance took on far greater significance
as a second day of heavy rain pounded down on the caravan throughout
the performance suggesting that the Lothian region could soon have flooding
problems of its own.
This is a uniquely intimate Edinburgh experience that brings home these
stories in a way that no dozen TV documentaries could hope to match.
Philip Fisher
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