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Fringe 2009 Reviews (4)
A Fistful Of Snow
Castles in the Sky in Association with Hartshorn-Hook Productions
C soco
**
Not far from the North Pole a lonely author keeps vigil on a vault
full of frozen seeds whilst trying to take advantage of the solitude
to break the 'one-hit-wonder' record of his debut novel. However, he
takes the time to talk to the stuffed (well, blown up) Moose head on
the wall, an imaginary bear outside and a budgie who helpfully reads
over his latest ideas for the next book and invariably dismisses them.
"No one would pay good money to see that," he tells the desperate
author. Meanwhile the barriers of this distressed man's mind dissolve
as he mixes reality and fantasy, adding a few nice songs into the mix.
Sadly the desperately needed budgie's honesty obviously wasn't on hand
when the idea for this performance arrived, and when transparent premise
of the piece comes to a conclusion, you might wish the Moose (or reindeer)
had been heading up the writing team instead.
Cecily Boys
Puppet Grinder Cabaret
Puppet Grinder/Little Angel Theatre
Assembly @ George Street
***
While the initial bear act was, like the creature's proverbial action
in the wood, shit, the rest of the show was good and at times stunning.
The MC appeared to have been cryogenically frozen since the seventies,
his jokes were also rather old and cheesy, but this was all part of
his act and with triple espresso energy he quickly warmed up the audience.
One of the funniest and most surreal points in the cabaret was the
MC's live link-up, to what was clearly himself several months earlier.
While the bear act was slow, dull and way past its sell by date, some
of the other acts were quite the reverse. The puppetry of the freaky
poledancer and the shadow puppet film were of such a dodgy darkness,
that they were both raunchy and very wrong.
The films are very strong, after the shadow puppetry of Thumbsucker
there was the Barbarellaesque high camp of Clementine the Living Fashion
Doll, a Barbie doll with a real women's head. A really clever special
effects spectacular.
The final act, Suitcase Circus, was a slight let down after all the
raunchiness of the previous puppets. It also dragged on rather long.
Bear with the show and you will get to meet some of the Fringe's filthiest
puppets.
Seth Ewin
Francis, The Holy Jester
By Dario Fo
Pleasance Over The Road
*****
Mario Pirovano performs his own translation of controversial Italian
political comedy writer Dario Fo's ten-year-old piece about St Francis
of Assisi, the first performance of the full English text, directed
by the author in a very small but nicely-adapted new Pleasance space
taken over from Rocket Venues.
The play is part lecture, part storytelling, part stand-up comedy with
Pirovano as an amiable, enthusiastic and energetic performer of this
suite of entertaining and funny stories about St Francis, the 'holy
jester' of the title. He begins with an introduction to place the thirteenth-century
saint in a cultural and historical context before telling four stories
about him: his tirade against the people of Bologna for their continuing
war with the neighbouring city of Imola; Francis's visit to Pope Innocent
III to ask permission to tell stories from the Gospels in common language
instead of in Latin; the imminent death of the future saint and the
fight between various people over where he should die; Francis meeting
and talking to the wolf to try to modify his behaviour.
Pirovano's engaging personality allows him to appear to chat casually
to the audience and slip smoothly into his very physical and funny storytelling,
including some hilarious retellings of Jesus turning water into wine
and the Feeding of the Five Thousand. He apologised for looking at his
watch, explaining that he was not used to having to conform to a finish
time and had already cut the piece down from one hour and fifty minutes
to seventy-five minutes.
With a pedigree such as this play has, it may be thought that it should
be in the International Festival programme rather than in a tiny Fringe
venue, but perhaps the work of the still-radical 83-year-old Fo belongs
more on the fringes of theatre outside the mainstream. This production
is the most entertaining and funny history lesson you could hope to
see, given a captivating performance by the charismatic Pirovano.
David Chadderton
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