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Fringe 2009 Reviews (64)
Home of the Wriggler
By Stan's Café
Underbelly
***
Everybody should see at least one performance by Stan's Café
(pronounced Caff) in their lives. A re-visit will then depend on taste.
Home of the Wriggler is carbon neutral theatre taken to the
nth degree. The four-strong (and they need to be) cast light the show
by the use of cycles, a large hamster-wheel and shaken torches. When
they need rest, proceedings are plunged into darkness.
The text takes second place but its rather elusive message is important.
The Birmingham-based company have taken as the central issue a change
that blighted their region, the closure of MG Rover.
For 75 minutes, the team tell broken stories of around 100 people whose
lives were in some way connected to the plant. At the extremes, these
include Sir Alec Issigonis, the inventor of the Mini, an oilworker in
the Gulf and a Chinese labourer.
Most, though, are the ordinary men and women who earned their livelihoods
on the production line.
The narratives are cut into such small chunks that one can get very
confused as to who is who and what linked them to the motor industry.
Even so, the clear message of how this politically-driven decision affected
thousands of lives comes across loud and clear. It also seems relevant
today, as almost every car company on the world is begging for state
subsidy to keep going through the recession.
Philip Fisher
Wilson Dixon's American Dream
The Stand
****
Gloriously laconic, this guitar strumming cowboy is the creation of
Australian comic Jesse Griffin. Yet so utterly immersed is he in this
character, you'd be convinced he really is an outlaw country singer
from Cripple Creek, Colorado.
Laced with dry one-liners, the well-written country songs are strung
loosely together with a narrative about a journey to Nashville. Wilson's
deliciously deadpan interludes are delivered as wry asides, and he is
so comfortable with his audience that this becomes almost conversational.
Indeed, his quiet, chatty style can lull the audience so much that occasionally
they miss the punch line - though he is confident enough to wait for
a laugh as some of them figure it out.
The unusual mix of a very gentle persona with some wicked lines (including
one well crafted gag about Susan Boyle which shocks a laugh out of the
room) is great, and there is a nice sense of the ridiculous, too. The
song about his horse, Andrew (whose name raises a laugh every time it
is mentioned) is a highlight, as is his opening number, "More Than
Words" about the quirks of idiomatic language.
Atmospheric and very funny, this nicely observed piece of character
comedy is a treat.
Beth O'Brien
Ward No. 6
DogOrange
C cubed
****
In an abandoned hospital ward, four inmates play a game of 'the enchanted
circle from which there's no escape' but when their imagined world is
not enough, one of the patients tries to break free in vain.
As Dr Ragin finds himself dissatisfied with his life he spends more
and more time in Ward No. 6, only to become ostracized from his society,
like the very patients he attends.
Adapted from one of Chekov's short stories this is a deceptively simply
staged production and yet achieves a profound statement about the trap
of the mind. Feverishly acted and cleverly directed, this is a fantastically
intense and thought-provoking piece, beautifully dove-tailing to its
conclusion. See this now for a perfectly timed, memorably staged and
well orchestrated production.
Sacha Voit
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