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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2009 Reviews (43)John Hegley: The Adventures
of Monsieur Robinet Poet and songwriter Hegley bases his latest Edinburgh show around his book The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet and the fact that his father was French, so there is a French theme throughout. He has stories and poems about and letters from his French grandmother and cartoon pictures and readings about Monsieur Robinet, for which he involves a volunteer from the audience as translator (the book is in both English and French). There is other audience participation too, including guessing the last word of each line of a poem, answering riddles and two songs that require audience involvement singing in groups. There are plenty of other songs and poems from his repertoire which he reads, sometimes with difficulty, from a thick pile of handwritten sheets and links it all with some funny tales, ad-libs and banter with the audience; nothing that goes on in the auditorium or even beyond escapes his attention or comment. Everything is delivered in Hegley's distinctive deadpan tone and with withering looks to the audience as though we don't really come up to his expectations. Hegley is a great entertainer with sharp wit and a great awareness of and relationship with the audience and is well-worth seeing. David Chadderton Sshhh, Don't Tell Anyone! Inspired by Frank Warren's Postsecret blog, Z Theatre Company advocate sharing secrets, rather than bottling them up; which surely makes Sshhh, Don't Tell Anyone! a touch counterintuitive as a title for the resulting play. Still, the show inherits Postsecret's mixture of amusing inconsequentiality and shocking or tragic revelation. A call centre provides a framework to be papered with anonymously donated secrets, both figuratively (the characters are composites built from the material received) and literally (the floor and walls of the space are strewn with postcards and bits of notepaper, each with its own scribbled or carefully handwritten confession). Individual voices rise above a murmur of comic customer service conversations; a device which is pleasing to the ear and also emphasises how good a time the world always seems to be having when we're at our lowest. A couple of short physical sequences, while well executed, add little value; and even in this short work, one or two of the characters' monologues outstay their welcome. While Z are probably right, and many secrets probably are best freed rather than bottled up, there is a point at which a confession becomes a whinge, and Sshhh passes that point more than once. Matt Boothman The Girls of Slender Means
Stellar Quines have produced something most unusual in Edinburgh at this time of year, a fully-fledged theatrical performance with a dozen strong professional cast. Their chosen text is Muriel Spark's evocative novel of wartime London. Strangely, while the Assembly's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie seems to work best for those approaching it with fresh eyes, Muriel Romanes' impressionistic interpretation of the later novel ideally requires knowledge of the original. Fans of the slim book will be entranced by seeing Teresa Churcher's overweight, unhappy Jane narrating her own unsatisfied yearnings but also the tales of a group of Girls of Slender Means thrown together at the May of Teck Club in London's Knightsbridge during the last year of World War Two. The surprise to modern eyes is that on top of intellectual and career interests, every one is obsessed by men and sex, regularly escaping through a narrow skylight on to a flat roof in their undies to dream of beaus. Desirable manhood is collectively represented by a beautiful martyred icon, novelist Nicholas Farringdon played by Jamie Lee. The girls, who share a single Schiaparelli dress, constitute a diverse cross section of their type. Selina (Candida Benson) personifies willowy, blonde perfection and Joanna (Melody Grove) sweet innocence. Judy (Romana Abercrombie) is carrying on an imaginary but stormy affair with film star Jack Buchanan, while Dorothy (Clare Lawrence-Moody) views all with a world-weary experience, all under the benign eye of Maureen Beattie in the role of the more mature Greggie. The drama builds through Jane's eyes to a poignant ending observed from the relative tranquillity of 1951, which also allows us to see what happened to some of the residents of the unruly club once the War was over. Philip Fisher |
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