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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2009 Reviews (79)Much Ado About Nothing Much Ado About Nothing examines the delights and follies of love. Don Pedro and his merry men stop over at the home of Leonato living with his daughter, Hero, and niece, Beatrice. Claudio instantly fall for the lovely Hero while Benedick and Beatrice continue the verbal sparing started during an earlier visit. It isn't until Hero is falsely accused of a late night dalliance that Beatrice and Benedick band together (in love) and help solve and resolve the mystery. I don't think that I'm giving anything away by saying that they all live happily ever after. This is Shakespeare, after all. Lancaster University Theatre Group has proved to be one of the better companies this year. Under the able direction (in this very tiny playing area) of Ryan Sullivan, the lovers Oliver Trumble (Benedick), Sammi Searle (Beatrice), Robert Cattell (Claudio) and Charlie Hanson (Hero) deliver a very polished (if a little tame) and professional production. Jon Coleman (Leonato with cane to prove his seniority), Peter Holmes (the villainous Don John), and Leo Patel (an irresistible Don Pedro) hold their own. No weak links; even Rory Poole, who plays Dogberry and his entourage, holds his own as the sole comic relief playing ably with the audience. Rounding things out nicely is the inclusion of music by Phil and Oliver Trumble. If it's good and hearty Shakespeare you're up for, you cannot go wrong with this production. Catherine Lamm A Life in Three Acts (Act
3) The final part of the BB story is the best, perhaps because the actor felt most comfortable with experiences in more recent years. It starts with his time touring the world as a member of the outrageous drag cabaret Blue Lips. They made the most of the removal of censorship around the world, almost every show name sounding like that of a tasteless pornographic movie. This was also a period when the AIDS epidemic began to hit the gay community and Bette was visibly moved while describing the loss of 150 friends and colleagues to the disease. Moving on from the Blue Lips, we heard of a very successful artistic collaboration with Neil Bartlett and enduring friendship with Quentin Crisp, as well as veiled reports of the inevitable queer-bashing problems faced by Queens wandering the streets of West London's tough Portobello area. In all of this personal drama, it would be easy to forget that BB continued to pursue a stage career that included a memorable performance as Pauny for Michael Grandage in Noël Coward's The Vortex with Chiwetel Ejiofor and Francesca Annis and also an androgynous Nurse in Romeo and Juliet at the Globe. This celebration of the life of Bette Bourne, stretched over three days with performances at different times is not ideal for prospective viewers unless they have a lot of free time. However, this extended interview is more than the sum of its parts, as arguably, its real value lies in relating the gay queen experience over an unprecedented period of change since the Second World War. Philip Fisher anomie You can rely on Precarious to deliver a technical spectacle. Prerecorded and rotoscoped footage of the six performers is as crucial to the action as the performers themselves, and the two often seamlessly combine, with the performers partially hidden behind flatscreen TVs that display their obscured limbs or heads like a technicolour X-ray. Synchronising between live and prerecorded movement requires the cast to be masters of timing, and so unison dance sequences are flawless, performed as if by afterimages of the same body. But unlike Precarious' masterpiece The Factory, anomie - which follows six social misfits living in the same apartment building - lacks strong thematic justification for its technical wizardry, so while the integration of screen and performer is an undeniable triumph of pinpoint timing and rehearsal, it can also feel like a gimmick, style divorced from content. The company's other speciality, dance and physical theatre, is anomie's strong point, remaining fresh and engaging throughout while also building clear (if not always subtle) characterisation, and making inventive use of mattresses as crashmats, scenery and allegory; though there are too few of the haunting tableaux that made The Factory so memorable. Matt Boothman |
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