All That Is Wrong – Traverse until Aug 12th – 4 stars
Mess – Traverse until Aug 26th – 4 stars
Blink – Traverse until Aug 26th – 4 stars
Tam O' Shanter – Assembly Hall until Aug 26th – 4 stars
I, Tommy – Gilded Balloon until Aug 27th – 4 stars
A teenage girl and a young man sit on a stage with only a blackboard, a
couple of overhead projectors and some pocket-sized mobile video
cameras for comfort. A silent sideshow displays images of various forms
of protest culture which are becoming increasingly prevalent as a
younger generation become politicised. Without a word, the girl starts
chalking out words about who she is, and what's going on in her head.
As her scrawls become more urgent, it becomes clear this isn't teenage
angst. Rather, this young woman is taking on the world.
As with previous shows by Belgian iconoclasts Ontrorend Goed, All That
is Wrong does what it says on the tin. Here, however, it suggests a
coming to terms with a world beyond hardcore partying. The result in
Alexander Devriendt's production is a kind of Fluxus meditation on the
hard facts of life, not so much performed by Koba Ryckewaert and Zach
Hatch as lived in real time. They may be stating the obvious, but their
philosophy of rubbing it all out and starting again is driven home in
powerfully mesmeric fashion.
One might think an autobiographical play about one woman's struggle
with anorexia to be similarly troubling. This isn't the case with Mess,
however, in which Caroline Horton plays a fantasy version of herself in
a piece of absurdist musical cabaret that laughs its way through its
heroine's plight.
Beneath a pink-lit parasol on a tower of towels, Josephine holds court
like Samuel Beckett's Winnie in Happy Days. Josephine is doted on by
Boris, an over-eager boy in a Biggles cap, played by Hannah Boyde.
Watching over all this is a corkscrew-haired keyboardist who is both
accompanist and chorus.
Commissioned by Battersea Arts Centre and Parabola Arts Centre and
produced by the Warwick-based China Plate company, Horton's play is
relayed with a quintessentially English frothiness that channels Angela
Carter by way of The Comic Strip's Famous Five pastiche. Alex Swift's
production lends an oddball air to proceedings in what turns out to be
a wryly self-deprecating piece which, as Horton's alter-ego Josephine
acknowledges, is far from over yet.
Love is strange in Blink, Phil Porter's duologue between Jonah and
Sophie, a pair of not entirely ordinary twenty-somethings who become
intimate via a form of virtual voyeurism after the loss of their
parents forces them to leave their very sheltered nests. With the pair
living on top of each other, Porter's pair of inter-twining and
lovingly penned monologues are transformed by director Joe Murphy's
bright staging into a sad, funny and bitter-sweet delight.
As Jonah and Sophie go through a crash course in romance – he tries too
hard, she's overwhelmed - Harry McEntire and Rosie Wyatt heighten the
lovers quirks without ever laughing at them. Make no mistake, though.
Porter hasn't written a rom-com, and there are no real happy endings in
this beautifully realised collaboration between Soho Theatre and the
ever inventive nabokov company. What there is is a delightful insight into
how people function outside the norm, and how two people can find, then
lose each each other in the most peculiar ways.
There's something about Communicado Theatre's rambunctious reinvention
of Robert Burns' Tam O'Shanter that works much better in an Edinburgh
environment than it did when it premiered in Perth three years ago.
Director Gerry Mulgrew's all-singing all-dancing production
subsequently proves as intoxicating as the liqeur that fuels the
hapless Tam before he and his mare Meg stagger into the winter night
where witches dwell.
In this recast version, Sandy Nelson leads an eleven-strong ensemble
through a ribald series of choreographed tableaux that burst into life
via Malcolm Shields' furious choreography and Jon Beales' strident live
folk score. With barely a word spoken in the first twenty minutes,
these physical and musical elements combine for a vivid evocation of
Burns which is as libidinous as it was no doubt intended.
There are some witty contemporary touches in Mulgrew's script, and if
things flag slightly in the extended bar-room scene, once Tam gets in
the saddle it becomes one of the most energetic shows in town. Nelson
is wonderfully deadpan, while Pauline Knowles makes a fine Meg as the
pair gallop off into the night in costume designer Kenny Miller's all
purpose tartan coat. The witches too are a relentless presence,
especially as led by newcomer Courtnay Collins, who works her
other-worldly apparel for all its worth.
From one randy Scottish rake to another in I, Tommy, Ian Pattison's
decidedly partisan comic version of the rise and fall of former
Socialist firebrand Tommy Sheridan, whose life and work turned into a
real life laughing stock after flying too close to the Sun.
Pattison has taken Sheridan's former comrade Alan McCombe's account of
an affair which ripped the left in Scotland asunder as his starting
point. As played by Colin McCredie, McCombe narrates us through
Sheridan's downfall, as writ large by some devastating one-liners
delivered via Des McLean's pitch-perfect impression of the perma-tanned
ex MSP, . The many women in Sheridan's life appear too, including a
cutting portrayal of Gail Sheridan as a grotesque diva.
While Sacha Kyle's production is still a tad rough around the edges,
it's already en route to becoming as outrageous in its slaying of
sacred cows as anything by Dario Fo. Watching I, Tommy with several
people who testified against him sitting behind me gave things an extra
edge to a real-life mix of tragedy and farce that one suspects has yet
to reach its full conclusion. The logical next step, of course, is to
follow the example of Elaine C Smith's recent homage to Susan Boyle,
and have Sheridan himself come onstage. Given the stance I, Tommy
takes, however, this may be some time coming.
The Herald, August 6th 2012
ends
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