Skip to main content

The Metamorphosis: After Kafka and Nabokov

Summerhall, Edinburgh
Three stars

What to do if your leading lady passes away shortly before a performance? As is always the case with theatrical etiquette, the show must go on and you bring on the understudy, even if it’s a different species. That’s the back-story to this one-off Edinburgh International Science Festival date for a work-in-progress from biologist and some-time stand-up, Simon Watt, which aims to dissect one of modern literature’s seemingly darkest creations.

Over fifty-five minutes, Watt and a ukulele-playing accomplice first act out a lo-fi version of Franz Kafka’s story about down-trodden office worker Gregor Samsa’s transformation into what is usually translated as a dung beetle. This is something that novelist, entomologist and Kafka scholar Vladimir Nabokov took serious issue with. With this in mind, it’s perhaps fortunate that this pocket-sized contemporisation featuring a Zero Hours contracted Greg includes a real live cockroach rather than the unfortunately deceased stag beetle who preceded it. The audience sees this in projected close-ups filmed live by Watt from outside a dolls house type construction.

Once Greg comes to a sticky end with a whole lot more metaphorical fun than is usually found in Kafka’s work, the second half of the show throws Nabokov’s linguistic pedantry into an entertaining and at times off-the-cuff mix of pop science cabaret. This results in various six-legged creatures being passed around the audience for inspection. All of which makes for quite a show-and-tell, as assorted creepy-crawlies are accorded due respect while giving some educational insight into the secret life of the ‘vile and verminous insect’ of Kafka’s opening paragraph. There’s still some way to go yet, and Nabokov is crying out to have more of a say, but this might just be a monster show in the making.

The Herald, April 3rd 2018



ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...

Edinburgh Rocks – The Capital's Music Scene in the 1950s and Early 1960s

Edinburgh has always been a vintage city. Yet, for youngsters growing up in the shadow of World War Two as well as a pervading air of tight-lipped Calvinism, they were dreich times indeed. The founding of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947 and the subsequent Fringe it spawned may have livened up the city for a couple of weeks in August as long as you were fans of theatre, opera and classical music, but the pubs still shut early, and on Sundays weren't open at all. But Edinburgh too has always had a flipside beyond such official channels, and, in a twitch-hipped expression of the sort of cultural duality Robert Louis Stevenson recognised in his novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a vibrant dance-hall scene grew up across the city. Audiences flocked to emporiums such as the Cavendish in Tollcross, the Eldorado in Leith, The Plaza in Morningside and, most glamorous of all due to its revolving stage, the Palais in Fountainbridge. Here the likes of Joe Loss and Ted Heath broug...

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) ...