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Fringe 2010 Reviews (36)
Roadkill
Traverse.
*****
Roadkill covers exactly the same ground as another well-regarded Edinburgh show, Fair Trade. However, by forcing viewers to become far more intimate (in every sense) with its leading figures, it has an even more devastating impact.
Director Cora Bissett, who was one of the stars of David Greig’s Midsummer last year, has turned a tale of slave-prostitution into a site specific piece that makes you want to wash your hands long before the end, so gritty is the realism.
The journey starts at the Traverse and continues by bus to a flat in a nondescript part of town. Two of the passengers are a sweet little girl fresh off the plane from Nigeria and her auntie who has already settled in Edinburgh.
We arrive at their flat and get shown around but it does not take long to guess why Adeola (or Mary as she becomes) has been imported. Like food or electronic goods, she is on sale.
Being only 14, Mary sells at premium prices and the real impact of her predicament is seen as we enter her bedroom and witness the girl violated by a series of men, the impression consolidated by disturbing projected images.
Long before the end, audience members are horrified and will feel embarrassed to have got this close to the “action”.
While Adura Onashile as the trapped madam and John Kazek in all of the male roles are good, Mercy Ojelade playing Mary gives a stand out performance that can compare with anything on the Fringe this year.
Roadkill may deal in the odd cliché but this production will leave you stunned and deservedly so.
Philip Fisher
Impossible Things Before Breakfast: Quartet
By Marina Carr
Traverse 2.
****
Quartet seems a delightful throwback to another era. Set in the 50s and 60s, it features a Scottish Diplomat, played by Andy Gray, and the women in his life.
As if his job did not force enough travel, the ageing ambassador has a woman in every port.
His English wife is played by Anne McDougall and willingly accepts the most open of marriages. This allows him to spend considerable time in Dublin with his Irish mistress, Anne Kidd taking the part of the unfashionable novelist.
When those two are not enough, he jets off to New York and his younger Lover, Cora Bissett.
The amazing thing is that the Diplomat juggles all of his women without any real rancour from them. This is either a testimony to his diplomacy or wishful thinking on the part of Marina Carr.
Vicky Featherstone directs her company with great skill, making Quartet feel like a novel or movie of that innocent period before the permissive society and sexually transmitted diseases changed the world forever.
Philip Fisher
Uber Hate Gang
By Philip Stokes
Horizon Arts and Richard Jordan Productions
Underbelly.
***
This play comes from the writer of last year’s cult hit, Heroin(e) For Breakfast.
Uber Hate Gang is a violent tirade of words and feelings with not too much plot holding it together.
The premise is that we, the audience and four spruced-up Northern anarchists on stage are trapped in a theatre during the one-hour countdown to a terrorist outrage.
Led by Gareth Webber as control freak Andrew, the quartet impressively lay out their manifesto.
All seem in step, almost more like a TV-created pop group than a quartet intent on bringing down capitalist society.
Cracks begin to appear with the arrival of Uncle Ted, a pink-suited children’s entertainer played with suitable wit by Richard Turner.
He begins to sow seeds of doubt that then nurture themselves as the two women, Laura Taylor as Angel and Hayley Shillito playing Andrea begin to fight over Andrew, using Lee Bainbridge’s brainless Scouse Wasp as their weapon.
By the end, the play has become more about the way in which our certainties tend to have weak foundations than the state of society.
Under the writer’s direction, every cast member gives their all.
Philip Fisher
Homo Asbo
By Richard Fry
Gilded Balloon.
**
This is a rather bi show, indecisive, unsure whether it wants to be a stand-up routine or a cosy chat, performance poetry or political rant. It switches between a character piece - the only gay on the estate and Richard Fry as himself, often without clear distinction, creating confusion.
The performance poetry is good and really well delivered by Fry. However on the joke front he is less strong both in the material but more crucially in the delivery, seeming embarrassed by their cheesiness. Fry is better when serious; he had more energy and his heart was really in his attacks on gay clichés and celebrities in the closet. These diatribes flowed quite naturally so it would probably make more sense for him to stick to this more heartfelt vein.
Fry didn't embellish his council estate character enough. The show didn't stand out as much as it should from the more common middle class gay experiences as much of his material was quite general. While it shouldn't become Shameless, this is the show's title so it is a bit disappointing that there wasn't much working class grit.
This show needs to stop trying to play for more than one team, to allow this puddle-jumping preacher to really pull his weight.
Seth Ewin
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