|
Fringe 2008 Reviews (91)
The Sushi Tap Show
Tokyo Tap Do!
Greenside
****(*)
Three accomplished tap dancers and jugglers invite us with glittering
smiles to enjoy 60 minutes of good, old vaudeville skills in a brand
new package. This is a very enjoyable show, light-hearted and warm.
The audience are drawn into the fun through the antics of Poke and his
passably good English.
It's been a long time since I've seen any tap dancing and this eccentric
threesome are really excellent. They even do a piece of Riverdance
for us. Their juggling skills are faultless too and the final stunt
with rings quite amazing. Word has obviously gotten around as the auditorium
was full and the crowd were enjoying every minute.
The Sushi Tap Show is a very good, hearty beverage for a cold
and wet Edinburgh afternoon.
Jackie Fletcher
Paul Merton's Impro Chums
Pleasance Courtyard
*****
With the repeats of Whose Line Is It Anyway? on digital TV channel
Dave and the rather more lively and less cerebral US version on Five
US — not to mention some fuzzy clips of classic moments on YouTube
— the joys of improvised comedy games as a performance medium are
open to a new generation outside the world of actor training. In the
UK, the leading live performers of this type of comedy are the Comedy
Store Players and the spin-off group Paul Merton's Impro Chums.
The performers take part in a series of set exercises where certain
elements have to be taken from suggestions from the audience, either
by calling out ideas when asked or scribbled on pieces of paper completed
on the way in. They then have to perform scenes and sketches made up
on the spot based on these suggestions which they hope will be funny,
although failure can often be as funny as impressive displays of wit
and improvisational skill.
Merton, who used to be a regular on the British Whose Line,
still shows his speed of comic response and his bizarre flights of fancy
on successive series of TV's Have I Got News For You, and he
is no less impressive live. He is helped here by regular Chums Lee Simpson,
Suki Webster and the regular Whose Line improvising musician
Richard Vranch, who shows he is as good at improvising scenes as he
is behind the keyboard. The guest for this run is a former regular on
the UK and the US versions of Whose Line Mike McShane.
Of course the nature of this kind of show makes the final performance
a little unpredictable, and the reviewed performance seemed a little
low in energy in parts compared with previous years, plus it was a shame
that the considerable improvisational musical talents of Vranch as a
musician and McShane as a singer weren't utilised a lot more.
However this is nitpicking in a show containing some of the cream of
UK improvised comedy practitioners doing what they've been doing for
years but still managing to make it funny, different and unpredictable.
We also, in the reviewed show, got to see the exposed underwear and
legs of three members of the team (all male, in case you were wondering)
but whether this is a selling point for the show could be questionable.
David Chadderton
Going Down
Lincoln School of Performing Arts
Rocket @ Demarco Roxy Art House
**(*)
Six people are in a lift heading down to an unknown place. While they
converse between themselves, it becomes apparent through a series of
aside monologues that each carries secrets that they would rather not
mention. These speeches are more of confessions to their crimes, which
range from the mundane to the horrific, before returning to the banal
lift conversations. As is swiftly apparent this lift represents some
form of journey to purgatory or Hell as each passenger is eventually
let off on a floor, only to walk off into an eerie blackness.
The problem with this production is that despite the bizarre and unsettling
concept behind it, the cast seem less than concerned by it and whilst
it makes sense that the rapists and murderers among them are sent to
some form of hell, it''s unclear what the career-minded manager's crime
was, other than some unprofessional conduct and being quite snarky and
unlikeable. With such inconsistent internal logic and an failure to
make the most of an intriguing premise, the whole comes off as an unfulfilling
experience.
Graeme Strachan
Next
page - - - Index
|
