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Fringe 2009 Reviews (47)
The Contest
By Jennifer Rowlands
Ines Wurth Presents
Gilded Balloon Teviot
*
One hopes that Jennifer Rowlands has ambitions to write the kind of
American dramas popular on daytime TV. While the idea behind The
Contest sounds promising, the LA-based writer fails to capitalise.
Amanda and Karl (Jules Willcox and Christian Barillas) are lovers at
art school and go head to head in a contest that must inevitably lead
to fame and fortune. Their pairing is invaded by pushy Faith (Heleya
de Barros) and then the Professor (Daniel Kozlowski) who will judge
the contest.
It is won by nefarious means and then we move on fifteen years to see
who will be a couple. The loser reappears from nowhere as the winner
is about to have a retrospective at the Whitney and dirty linen gets
a good airing.
The Contest is for fans of undemanding love stories with a veneer
of sophistication. Everyone else might do better elsewhere.
Philip Fisher
Clever Peter
Pleasance Dome
***
After sending up Enid Blyton last year, Raymond Briggs gets the Clever
Peter treatment this time, although this is only one of many targets.
Vikings, gulls on the beach and a magician - sounds like a children's
show, but God forbid that this would ever be allowed in the pale green
first section of the fringe programme.
At first the sketches seem to lack cohesion, but they start to fit
together later. There is the odd weaker sketch, but mostly the group
live up to their name and are especially successful with their recurring
characters.
Hideous flashbacks and roleplaying that goes way too far are now Clever
Peter staple;, they are without doubt masters of the these scenarios,
but it can appear a little repetitive.
The primary coloured jumper attired trio are strong performers, demonstrating
the numerous possibilities of the human body for facial expression,
sound effects and sweat.
Seth Ewin
A British Subject
By Nichola McAuliffe
Pleasance Courtyard
****
Nichola McAuliffe makes the most of her own experience in a political
thriller that involves her husband, Daily Mirror journalist Don Mackay.
Miss McAuliffe plays herself amongst others, which makes the fly on
the wall feeling as she and Tom Cotcher's Don bicker feel embarrassingly
intimate.
In many ways they are not the key characters. The central figure is
Mirza Tahir Hussain, an 18-year-old second generation Pakistani from
Leeds imprisoned 18 years before the play is set in Rawalpindi for the
murder of a taxi driver.
The older, wiser man has frequently been sentenced to death. Following
the pleadings of the condemned prisoner's brother Amjad, played by Shiv
Grewal, Mackay, his career on the ropes, is sent by the Mirror of all
papers to smuggle his way into Pakistan and get an interview. He proves
successful and has a moving meeting with Hussain, sensitively played
by Kulvinder Ghir.
The editor inevitably spikes the story, before relenting and publishing
it on page 39 behind the soap and sex dramas that are his staple.
Then, actress and journalist move into overdrive, contacting everyone
that they know and eventually enlisting The Prince of Wales no less
who steps in to save the day.
The ending as the freed innocent meets his saviours is suitably moving
and allows us all to celebrate the tenacity of a couple who deserve
a successful run of a well-constructed drama that sheds a light on the
weaknesses of the Pakistani judicial system and its eye for an eye Sharia
source.
Philip Fisher
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