Discover 21, Edinburgh
Three stars
If the revolution
starts at closing time, few took advantage of the licensing laws more
than Karl Marx himself. Or at least that's how the inventor of
orthodox radical thought as we know it is presented in Ben Blow's
scurrilous little play, first seen on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
earlier this year. Blow's play is now one of the first shows to play
in the much needed thirty-five seat Discover 21 space, situated in
the equally necessary Arts Complex initiative that exists inside St
Margaret's House, a 1960s office block.
Here, Marx is a randy
old goat living it up in nineteenth century Manchester, with a much
put-upon Engels footing the bill for all his excesses while being
bullied into doing most of the graft on The Communist Manifesto. With
much of the necessary first-hand knowledge of the lumpen proletariat
provided by Marx's favourite prostitute, Molly, the absurd double act
of Charlie (Marx) and Freddy (Engels) embark on a barricade-hopping
road trip, as Marx claims immortality for himself.
With Blow himself
playing a blustering, northern English accented Marx opposite Matthew
Jebbs' Engels, the pair's travails fall somewhere between Don Quixote
and Sancho Panza and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in that double act's
Road movies, albeit with political one-line gags aplenty. Even a
musical hating Victor Hugo makes an appearance in the Unknown
Quantity/Dubious Quality company's production. With able comic
support from Rowan Winter and Johnny Dillon, this is a refreshingly
cynical knockabout alternative if knowingly dubious history that
hints at what might have been, if only those pesky contradictions
inherent in the system hadn't got in the way.
The Herald, November 28th 2013
ends
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