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Fringe 2008 Reviews (31)
Blue Remembered Hills
By Dennis Potter
Edinburgh Theatre Arts
St Ninian's Hall
***(*)
A committed performance of Dennis Potter's classic, portraying seven
children playing in the Forest of Dean during the war. The two girls
fight over the pram, the boys chase a squirrel and scrap, and 'Donald
Duck', an abused loner, plays with matches in the barn. This is a dark
tale depicting children without a hint of rose tinted glasses.
On a black set with a black tree the story ends in tragedy as childish
games get out of hand and someone always gets hurt. Whilst the adult
performers embody their young characters well, their accents range country
wide. If you're not an accent purist this is a great production of a
disturbing and affecting piece.
Cecily Boys
No Exit
Bath University Student Theatre
The Space @ Jury's Inn
***
Satre's classic existential drama in which 'Hell is other people' brings
three people together in a room in the afterlife where they have been
specifically gathered together to torture each other. At first pretending
that they are all faultless individuals, their stories of adultery,
murder and cruelty finally come out. As they find themselves being forgotten
on earth they begin to come to terms with the fact that they must spend
eternity together.
One has to admire BUST's sense of irony for choosing to do their play
in a featureless hotel - as hell's valet shows the deceased into the
room she says there is nothing but more corridors and rooms beyond and,
in this production, she's not lying. A good production of a sobering
play that asks the audience to question their conscience - and perhaps
their company.
Cecily Boys
Surviving Spike
By Richard Harris
Assembly @ George Street, Edinburgh
***
Bill Kenwright produces one of the higher-priced shows on the Fringe
starring comedian Michael Barrymore as Spike Milligan and TV star Jill
Halfpenny as his former manager Norma Farnes.
This is part of a current fashion for dramas showing how difficult
some great comedy performers could be to live with; there have been
recent Fringe shows on Peter Cook and Graham Chapman and recent TV plays
about Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd, Sid James and others. Milligan was
a manic depressive with a phenomenal work rate during his more active
periods but without any practical ability to survive in the real world,
which was why Farnes was so important to him.
The play begins when Milligan employs Farnes as a secretary and shows
her being promoted to become his manager and agent when Milligan sacks
his former manager and agent. She gradually takes over the running of
his professional and personal life, often at the expense of her own.
We see Milligan's thoughtlessness and cruelty towards her as well as
his tremendous generosity and support for her.
Barrymore is perfectly fine as Milligan, although there is just a slight
underplaying, both physically and vocally, which probably reflects his
lack of experience as a stage actor. He does a short stand-up routine
as Milligan in the middle of the show, during which he shows he can
still work an audience even when doing it as someone else. However Halfpenny
has by far the most demanding role as the narrator as well as the foil
to the great man of the title, which she executes very well. All the
other male parts are played by Hywel Morgan and the female parts by
Elizabeth Price.
The play itself is extremely heavy in narration, which makes it seem
like the many one-person show biographies that are always on the Fringe
with some scenes added. The problem with this is that when there is
only one performer, it is expected that it will consist mostly of direct
communication with the audience. Once scenes are added, communication
between characters is expected, but in this play the scenes are so short
and the chronological jumps so frequent and large that no scene ever
gets a chance to develop into anything more than a vignette. It is therefore
very difficult for an audience to form any emotional attachment to the
characters or to get really immersed in the story.
This play is quite entertaining and of interest to Milligan or Goons
fans but really isn't anything special and does not really justify a
ticket price way beyond what most people would consider a Fringe price.
David Chadderton
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