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Fringe 2010 Reviews (40)
W;t
By Margaret Edson
First Person Productions
C Aquila.
***
A curious pondering on the nature of life and death as a professor of seventeenth-century poetry is dying of cancer has to use her speciality topic, the poetry of John Donne, to comprehend her own mortality. She looks at her past and the events which shaped her while the doctors and nurses fail around her.
Edson’s award-winning play is given a commendable stab by First Person productions who manage to capture much of the cynical humour of the play and also the touching nature of the march towards death.
A commendable performance from the main hands and capable turns all round yet the frenetic and more physical ending still sits slightly awkward and doesn’t really fit the quiet beginnings of the play. What’s more, the interactions with the medical staff feel by their nature to be fleeting, and as a result we never really get the true feeling for them as people, especially the young doctor who is ultimately in charge of our heroine’s care.
Graeme Strachan
You’re Not Like the Other Girls Chrissy
By Caroline Horton
Pleasance Dome.
****
Meeting with Christiane on the platform of the Gare Du Nord, we are faced with an instantly lovable, slightly quirky French girl. As we wait to be called, she begins to recount the story of why she is there, and the love affair she has kept with her estranged English fiance Cyril. It’s a charming and beautiful story that winds its way through the countryside and tennis courts of 1930s England as well as the busy and beautiful streets of pre-war Paris.
Of course inevitably the war brings trouble and it’s here where the play really comes into it’s own as Chrissy struggles with the problems of having a cross-channel romance during the second world war, as well as surviving the occupation and the lengthy bureaucratic problems of making it to her own wedding.
The show does start off with an awkwardness which, while in character, is also slightly difficult for the audience, although it soon fades as the amusing personality traits of Christiane win us over. To say that this is a heartfelt piece would be a massive understatement; Horton’s obvious affection for her grandmother shines through every moment of the performance and by the end of the play we all love Christiane as well.
Graeme Strachan
Lipstick
By Rachel Yoder
Roundhouse Productions
Hill Street Theatre.
**
Some very quirky characters, the quirkiest feature of this production though was an impressive giant red sofa that could be reassembled to form any number of other sets. Jane Kramer (Jane Moriarty) the only normal character has her life reassembled by a motley bunch of grotesque characters.
The best of these characters, both for Jane and the show, is Fran (Sophie Maye) a nymphomaniac who hires Jane to work in her bookshop. Maye does a great comic turn, which is really needed as the play is rather repetitive and two-dimensional to start with. Jane's husband Archibald (Dominic MacHale) and just about everybody else ignores her, the opening scenes which establish this go on too long and fail to get much humour from the situation.
The set and costumes are well crafted, but the cast doesn't always live up to their quality, with the counsellor and mother rather too caricatured and two-dimensional. Moriarty and Maye are great, Moriarty for showing a good ugly duckling to swan transformation and Maye for her unabashed embracing of her outrageously dirty character, a filthy godmother you might say.
Glossy high-quality shine doesn't cover the pout below.
Seth Ewin
Pappy's: All Business
By Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry
Pleasance Courtyard.
****
The whole show isn't a satire aimed at criticising the recent crisis. The first joke with Pappy's losing their big budget set because they forgot to pay the bills hits the target and after that the three hyper-entertainers are free to do what they do best: wild sketch comedy that whizzes along at a cracking pace to a frenzied conclusion where all ends are miraculously tied up.
This is roller-coaster comedy, with the audience holding onto their seats, laughing, but also scared that someone is going to get hurt, such is the unpredictability and energy on stage. Pappy's delight in the impish school boy humour, cheap props, cheap puns and cheap digs at each others' private lives. However it is held together by some more mature planning and a keen understanding of the audience. Nothing ever drags on too long and everyone is in on the in-jokes.
Pappy's like Penny D's and (Clever) Peter are down to three men. The dynamic is slightly better and the constant need for character swapping does create even more energy, but I do kind of miss the frog-like Brendan Dodds. Aside from the move to three, Pappy's remains quite different from their close rivals the Penny Dreadfuls, messy chaos to the Dreadfuls' disciplined simplicity, but equally strong on the comedy front.
Business as usual with Pappy's managing another highly successful comic venture.
Seth Ewin
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