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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2008 Reviews (63)Motherland Patterns develop quickly in Edinburgh and this is the year of the Verbatim drama, indicting Governments and their executive arms. Indeed, Motherland is the second Fringe First Winner to launch into the Government/army axis after Deep Cut. With similarities to Ariel Dorfman's Widows, the immaculately constructed 80-minute drama looks at our overseas warriors using the perspectives of their womenfolk from the North East, played by a great ensemble of Rachel Adamson, Charlotte Binns, Eleanor Clarke and Helen Embleton. The stories that they relate are heartening but far too often tragic, as the pride of being a force's mum, sister, wife or even lesbian partner gives way to explosions or gunshots, funerals and terrible pleas for parents to receive official notification of losses, rather than learning that their worst nightmares have become reality whilst riding on the bus or watching TV. Steve Gilroy builds the tension, moving us through familial optimism to deep despair in what is one of the highlights of the Fringe this year. An Edinburgh award is all very well but this is the kind of play that deserves a future and more importantly could make the army sit up and listen, thereby changing a policy that is patently unsatisfactory. Let us hope so. Philip Fisher Slick This might just be a unique show, something that seemed as unlikely amongst 2,000 others in Edinburgh as the rare Googlewhack. The Vox Motus company from Glasgow have written a surreal comedy but then chosen to stage it with bizarre puppets that get more laughs than any other show this year. Slick is a combination of Viz and South Park with Punch and Judy, James Bond and Rambo. If that doesn't sound enticing then stay away. Malcolm Biggar is a little boy of 9¾, played with just the right mix of innocence and experience by Jordan Young, with help from his friends. His parents are grasping horrors, caring only for their own comfort. When Malcolm discovers that the toilet of their flat is blocked by an oil gusher, he is sent off on a thrilling skateboard ride to make money. Despite regular spills, the meanies will not even buy the little boy a helmet, even when they are weighed down by £50 notes thanks to his discovery. The wee lad is just sent off for more, scaling the building to joust with the odious landlord Jerko Dreich (Mark Prendergast) and his untrustworthy centenarian mother, amusingly brought to the stage by Cora Bissett who delights in challenging young Malcolm with the "plumbing" problems that are inevitable in one so old. The play ends in rooftop warfare that makes one wonder whether this might be an unsubtly subtle allegory about the arms race and the threat of global nuclear war. The presentation is what makes Slick unique. Using two magic revolving chests for almost all of the staging, the obese 18" or so tall characters are created using actors' heads but others' arms. You have to see it to understand and you really do have to see this scabrously scatological but extremely funny black comedy if the opportunity arises. Philip Fisher Damned Beautiful
Last year Tamsin Shasha’s one-woman Bacchic quietly gave foil to the big budget Bacchae at the EIF, and Helix Dance may well follow the same pattern with their low-key dance adaptation of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, a somewhat more grandiose version of which is being staged elsewhere by a certain Matthew Bourne. It’s a simple piece but dancers Keir Patrick and Neb Abbott pull it off with such elegant grace that even using only a blank stage - flanked in one corner by a tantalisingly draped picture - and Kate Lane’s stylish Victorian costumes, the production is, in its own understated way, if not damned then at least very beautiful. César Alvarez’s score flirts with pizzicato mandolins and society voices. Pianos are cut through by clapping and electronic sounds permeate a wild, erotically-charged walz. Isobel Cohen’s choreography leads the men on a duet of louche falls, and lithe shapes - the final, writhing scene has a quicksilver flow to it, bathed in red light. Cohen keeps the narrative and its gruesome climax simple, allowing the lean slender shapes of the dancers to dominate the stage, while motifs of grooming recur at times. It’s one of the many Fringe productions that champion the virtues of simplicity and prove you don’t need money or glitz to tell a good tale. Lucy Ribchester |
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