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Fringe 2010 Reviews (31)
Hot Mess
By Ella Hickson
Hawke and Hunter Bar.
****
Having promised so much, Ella Hickson proves with this celebration of youth today that she is really hot with no sign of any mess. The closest we got to that state was when a deafening fire alarm went off in the nightclub where the play is showing, just as the metaphorical curtain had risen.
Hot Mess starts with a scene that could have come straight from Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs, as within minutes of each other, Michael Whitham as Polo and then Twitch, Gwendolen Chatfield, are born, narrating their own nativity.
The bond between the unworldly twins holds good through the opening 25 years of their lives, culminating in a joint birthday party to remember.
The tale is set on the tiny Hayling Island in the Solent and shows how closely twins can be bound. More particularly, the play explores the way in which their reserved, trusting outlook contrasts with that of Kerri Hall’s Jax , a slapper of the first order who even seduces audience members and Billy, played by Solomon Mousley, a handsome but callous American not yet ready to settle down.
Ella Hickson may only be the same age as her characters but already she writes with great assurance using charmingly poetic language. Even better, the characters and situations that she creates seem drawn directly from life.
To add to the writing, Miss Hickson proves to be an inspired director, utilising a hip clubbers’ soundscape, live songs from Gwendolen Chatfield, who plays her own guitar accompaniment and a shrewd lightshow to create a great atmosphere, which is capitalised upon by a strong cast.
Do not miss out on this touching but extremely funny play. Ella Hickson will be a top playwright very soon and it’s always fun to say that you saw a star back in the pre-fame days.
Philip Fisher
Impossible Things Before Breakfast T5
By Simon Stephens
Traverse 2.
****
This year, the Traverse has become even more ambitious with their breakfast programme of short new plays.
Not only are the five plays performed on consecutive mornings in two separate weeks. In addition, the whole lot are playing together on the intervening Sunday when they will be broadcast to cinemas up and down the country live. Finally, the whole programme is to be turned into a film later in the year.
Simon Stephens has opened the series with an edgy little drama directed by Dominic Hill and delivered by Meg Fraser from a chair suspended about 6 feet above the ground.
The reason for this becomes apparent towards the end of the half hour. The anonymous Woman is as ordinary as they come. The mother of a toddler, living in London, as millions of others do.
However, she gets pushed over the edge into what would probably be described as a nervous breakdown, although in reality it is little more than a brief escape that she requires.
The incidents that push her too far are both major and minor. She witnesses a horrific assault on a local youth and discovers that her husband has a lover.
In spare, accurate language, Simon Stephens takes us through a day that starts normally but then diverges from the norm into a world of familiar unreality.
Philip Fisher
A Pint For The Ghost
By Helen Mort
PBH's Free Fringe
The Banshee Labyrinth.
***
Helen Mort's cycle of ghost poems, inspired by the many ghosts of her native Yorkshire, is served well by the surroundings. In a candlelit nook deep in the gloomy warren of the Banshee Labyrinth pub, it's easy to imagine the restless spirits of unfortunate caver Neil Moss, or Mort's dad or her friend Justin, drifting through the walls to see who's talking about them.
Mort's no-frills delivery, on the other hand, contributes nothing to the atmosphere. This is definitely a recital, not a performance; and while the poems themselves are short and well-written and Mort is clearly attuned to the rhythm of the words, an extra touch of theatrical flair could make A Pint For The Ghost genuinely eerie.
Matt Boothman
Threshold
By Fred Gordon, Lowri Jenkins and Thomas McMullan
19;29
Zoo Roxy.
*****
Everything about Threshold is a secret. The location is a secret. Most of what happens there is a secret. Whatever happens that isn't a secret happens for secret reasons. Everything we learn is a secret revealed: scraps of overheard conversation; scenes glimpsed through the undergrowth; comments that slip out in unguarded moments: all information we know we shouldn't know, and for that we treasure it all the more.
Three hours in the late afternoon is a big commitment at the Fringe. Be reassured that Threshold is a three-hour show, not a one-hour show plus two hours' travel time, even though two of the three hours are spent travelling. The outward journey is for tipping us subtly, uncomfortably sideways and out of the real world. The return journey is for sharing the secrets we've learned. The moment you think it's over is the moment Threshold puts on its triumphant final spurt. It is worth three hours of your time.
The middle hour is one of excitement, adventure, voyeurism, uncertainty, guilt and heartbreak. With a few deft touches our hosts gain our trust: from the start they trust us enough to share secrets, enough to rely implicitly on our support in a confrontation, and so we trust them back. When our guide breaks into a run and we follow suit without a thought it's not just because we know we'll get lost or miss the action if we don't keep up; it's because we understand why they're running, so we run for the same reasons.
A secret isn't a secret unless someone's left in the dark. Roughly one fifth of the people that witness each major event in Threshold will be party to all the information required to fully understand it. Each occurrence we do understand strengthens our conviction that first, there must also be explanations for the events we find incomprehensible, and second, there will be people on the return journey who have discovered those explanations.
Whether anyone can be persuaded to reveal what they've learned is another matter. Threshold relinquishes but one piece of advice willingly: that some secrets are best kept locked away
Matt Boothman
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