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Fringe 2010 Reviews (20)
It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later
By Daniel Kitson
Traverse 1.
*****
Daniel Kitson is unique. His beard could do with a trim and he decks the stage in no more than a chair and ladder but the man with the North Country accent is a master of gentle situational comedy.
For 90 minutes, he tracks through the lives of William Rivington and Caroline Carpenter, neither famous but both worth noting for their ordinariness, like so many of us.
Using hanging light bulbs as landmarks, the stories start 76 years apart, just after the death of William and before the birth of Caroline.
Kitson then weaves his way in broadly opposite directions through their lives until a moment of meeting.
William is something of a loner, an old codger throughout most of his life but nevertheless a source of rich comedy.
Caroline leads a more conventional life, marrying and having a son and grandson at just about the right intervals.
The attractions of this work lie in a love of language, sly wit and brutal honesty. Above all though, Daniel Kitson has a rare ability to make you laugh and that talent cannot be too highly prized or praised.
Philip Fisher
6766
Et Al Theatre / Roxy Art House
Zoo Roxy.
**
Involuntary euthanasia isn't really something you want to have to deal with on any occasion. The alternate universe portrayed in 6766, where Legislation Methuselah was passed in 1979, is one of strange values and unclear legal systems. The old man and slightly less old man sit in the shabby reception of a clinic where their lots have been drawn and they await death. The men bicker about the validity of the Logan's Run like system of putting down people over the age of 65 and shortly afterwards a young man in a wheelchair trundles in to join them.
It's all something of a one note piece and the discussion between the players tends to consist of an awful lot of whining at the general unfairness of it all. The final twist, if it could be called such is all but placarded from the first few moments, meaning that the entire play lacks catharsis. Furthermore, the actual intricacies of the system are only sketched out in the loosest terms.
6766 is a definite case of a good idea, largely underwritten and mishandled in the direction. Nothing about the characters is endearing and I quite quickly found myself hoping they'd be called in and someone else might happen by to make the show more interesting. Increasingly throughout the production I ended up wondering what was going on in the mind of the bored nurse sitting at the rear of the stage and pondering whether she wouldn't have had a far more poignant and interesting view on it all.
Graeme Strachan
The Doctor and the Devils
St Magnus Festival Players
Venue 45.
***
No Edinburgh festival would be complete without at least one or two renditions of the classic tale of Burke and Hare; the city's famous body snatching duo. Working from an adapted version of Dylan Thomas' play and featuring musical accompaniment throughout, the play is certainly not shabbily put together. The cast are costumed in period finery and the use of props and staging are worthy of any theatre.
The story of the two resurrectionists and their grizzly trade in corpses follows the events from their first opportunistic fray into the possession and leads the audience on their journey to their appointment with the magistrates and Burke's subsequent execution. The plenteous cast sing, dance and cavort through taverns or beg for pennies from the audience, while the disapproving eyes of Dr Knox and his surgeons look on.
It's a bit of a slow burner, typical of Thomas, and at times the events seem to be needlessly repetitious with no real need. Additionally the ending feels extremely rushed as the trial and subsequent sentencing of the men is hammered through in moments. However the overall effect is still an interesting glimpse into a dark and murky part of the capital's past.
Graeme Strachan
Lockerbie: Unfinished Business
By David Benson
Seabright Productions
Gilded Balloon Teviot.
*****
Considering the recent publicity and the controversial nature of matters pertaining to Ali Al Megrahi and his release from incarceration, it's perhaps not surprising that the subject of the Lockerbie disaster would feature at the Fringe.
Benson is astounding, once again proving why he is the one of the bedrock foundations of the Edinburgh Fringe. His portrayal of Jim Swire is never less that wholly convincing, wearing a thin veneer of calm held together by surface tension, a swelling anger and grief threaten to burst from his pores at every mention of the horrific death of his daughter.
The performance is structured brilliantly, in the form of a lecture, building from the initial atrocity onwards through the discoveries of evidence and onwards through to the arrests and the farcical events of the Megrahi trial and appeals. Throughout the audience is kept rapt and often shocked but always utterly in the hands of masters of the craft. It’s difficult to express how utterly essential this truly moving and affecting piece of contemporary theatre is and how it truly cannot be recommended enough.
Graeme Strachan
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