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Fringe 2008 Reviews (81)
The Withering
City of London Freemen's School
Quaker Meeting House
****
In a superb adaptation of Thomas Hardy's short and ghostly tale The
Withered Arm, this young cast expertly venture into the author's
rural world of inequality and cruel chance.
The local farmer Lodges has taken a new wife, Gertrude, to the dismay
of milking maid Rhoda Brooks. With an illegitimate son by Lodges, Rhoda
hates the young bride with all her heart. When Rhoda dreams one night
that she has cursed Gertrude, she is taken aback when the farmer's wife
arrives to consult her on an ailing arm. As the years go by Gertrude's
arm withers and she resists her husband for fear he will see her deformity
and turn her away. Finally she resorts to the Conjurer Trendle who tells
her that there is only one cure for an affliction such as hers: to wrap
her arm around the neck of a newly hanged man.
With an impressive ensemble of young talent, this show incorporates
excellent music and singing with a haunting performance by Maddie Dempsey
as Rhoda Brooks, supported by a host of notable actors. Whilst this
well directed, studied performance stands alone as a first rate youth
theatre show, it will be exciting to see the future of such stage potential.
Cecily Boys
The Last Yak
Pangolin's Teatime
Pleasance Dome
****
This jungle tale involving puppetry of various kinds is simply lovely.
Imaginatively conceived, the story is set on a mountainside, in a community
that takes in three planes of living: the low jungle, the middle village
and the high mountain peak. The audience are surrounded on all sides
by white gauze through which the animals appear like phantoms, while
noises of the jungle echo around. Two tales are woven together - one
of Dharla, a feral girl found by two villagers in the wake of their
father’s death, and the other of the jungle animals and their belief
in God the Yak. The latter is cleverly conceived and wittily set-up
as a prologue with shadow puppets, but also thought-provoking in its
treatment of the origins of religion the animals who believe in
God the Mountain Yak are three or four times removed by their jungle
location from those who have beheld her (for this God is female), and
all is second-hand hearsay.
Sometimes the script wanders off or struggles to tie up its loose ends,
but puppetry is the star of this show. Jeremy Bidgood, a graduate of
Edinburgh College of Art, has designed some enchanting puppets, taking
in a range of visual styles and mechanical operations. The huge tiger,
which hangs on two legs off puppeteer Felix Trench, is magnificent,
as is the shamanic Dzo and beautiful long-haired Yak. Decidedly middle-class
bears Horatio and Clarence provide much of the comedy in their attempts
to deceive the jungle into worshipping a Yak-lookalike, and Ishbel McFarlane’s
presentation of Dharla is so captivating you could forget she was there
at all.
With puppetry on the rise in adult theatre as well as children’s,
it’s certain that this young company have a bright future ahead
of them.
Lucy Ribchester
It Ain't All Bollywood
Rifco Arts
clubWest @ Quincentenary Hall
****
In the safety of her home Kiran loses herself in Bollywood films and
cleans obsessively. When her overbearing mother comes to call she locks
the door and refuses to speak to her. While struggling to even let the
delivery man inside her house to sign for packages, Kiran discovers
it is her childhood friend Tony, with whom she dreamed of being Superheroes
and jumped off his conservatory to see if she could fly.
With a brilliant balance of comedy, poignancy and realism writer Pravesh
Kumar creates characters both rooted in their culture and yet accessible
to all. Rina Fatania's beautiful portrayal of both Kiran and her mother
are superb, with laugh-out-loud humour as the mother and bittersweet
honesty as her daughter.
This is a hidden gem of a show and if, as Kiran says of her Bollywood
fantasies, you "Allow yourself to go into that world, before you
know it you'll be smiling inside."
Cecily Boys
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