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Fringe 2009 Reviews (42)
The Tale of Lady Stardust
Bloody Lovely Productions
Underbelly
***
Graeme and Gary have a problem. They reside in a dingy messy flat filled
with cardboard boxes adorned with inane scribblings, snippets of lyrics
and tally-marks. As Graeme - or 'Ziggy' as he calls himself - is the
creator of a religion based on a mixture of Christianity and the prophetic
wisdom hidden within the songs of David Bowie, Gary is the hapless disciple,
following the teachings blindly. However their quiet existence is interrupted
one morning by a drunken girl who turns up on the doorstep waiting for
'Dave'. Could she be their Lady Stardust, an angel sent to herald the
End of Days?
It's a situation comedy that starts off slowly and builds continually
throughout towards a climatic and disturbing finale. The actors do very
well with their interplay and the writing is smartly clever and comedy
well timed. The ever increasingly bizarre situation that the girl finds
herself in keeps the momentum of the play going. However there are too
many moments of frankly odd decision making and unrealistic actions
on the part of the drunken girl; whose brain addled condition doesn't
account for the lack of common sense shown once the more unsettling
events begin to unfold. As a result the whole feels incomplete, and
at times drawn out.
Graeme Strachan
Richard Herring
Avalon Promotions
Underbelly
****
He's a brave man that Richard Herring, that special sort of bravery
that borders on the edge of complete insanity. After last year's triumphant
autobiographical show The Headmaster's Son, he returns having
set himself the challenge of reclaiming the 'Hitler' or 'Toothbrush'
moustache from the ignominious associations it has to Nazism. In doing
so he has grown the offending piece of facial hair and observed the
effect it has brought from the average person's reactions to him.
This is a very different show from The Headmaster's Son and
people expecting a retread of the same style will be disappointed; instead
Herring has opted to use the excuse of the moustache to examine the
very meaning of prejudice, bigotry and racism as well as to let him
try out some of the most controversial material he's done in years.
The overall effect is raucously funny and drags laughs unbidden from
the shocked lips of the audence. However there is a hint of pontification
that wasn't evident before and, whilst Herring's observations on politics,
specifically the BNP and fascism in general, are often funny, they drag
on a little too long at the expense of the wittier comedy moments. That
said, he steps nicely into George Carlin's angry man shoes and it's
a side that he would do well to explore. Herring continues to grow as
a comic and is fast carving himself a niche in British stand-up that
has already become a Fringe highlight and will likely see him soon as
a household name.
Graeme Strachan
After Circles
Miscellany Theatre Productions
Underbelly
*
It is a future that sees humanity possibly gripped in a bleak dystopia,
along and drawn out war is probably raging indefinitely outside and
two women have may have been forced to become washer-women for a brutal
regime outside. That's as a good a guess as to what this play was about
as any. The opening scene showing a strange and intriguing conversation
between the two women was enough to spark an interest in the play and
build up high hopes for the production. Sadly the remainder of the story
failed to adequately explain all but the most perfunctory and superficial
aspects of what had transpired.
Worse still, the supporting players, who had far worse dialogue to
work with, failed abysmally to create the same level of interest and
when the non-chronological storyline finally looped back upon itself
it was a surprise to the audience that the play had ended. A pity as
there was some talent on display, let down utterly by an underwritten
or over-edited storyline.
Graeme Strachan
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