Month: August 2018

The Basement Tapes

09/08/18

Summerhall, Edinburgh

Zanetti Productions’ The Basement Tapes is a startling piece of theatre, compelling and surprising, throbbing with energy. The site-specific environment of the creepily named ‘Former Women’s Locker Room’, deep in the bowels of the Summerhall building, all clanking radiator pipes and low ceilings, enhances the rising tension, and we find ourselves utterly enthralled.

Stella Reid plays a girl who, after her grandmother’s death, is tasked with clearing out her home. We’re with her in the cluttered basement, resonant with memories, boxes everywhere. The girl is part way through her onerous assignment: some of the boxes are open, their contents strewn around the room. She’s clearly bored, dancing as she works, pausing to order pizza, trying on her grandma’s coat. She grapples with unfamiliar technology: calling her mum via a landline, because there’s no mobile signal here; intrigued by an old tape recorder and a bag full of cassettes.

From hereon in, the story revolves around those cassettes, those titular basement tapes. The eerie, disembodied voice of her dead grandmother weaves its way into the tale, taking us (and the girl) on a strange journey, with macabre revelations that really make the spine tingle.

The atmosphere is fraught, crackling like the electricity that intermittently cuts out, leaving us in darkness as black as the secrets that have been set free. Stella Reid’s performance is powerful and riveting; I realise, as I leave, that I have been holding my breath.

An exciting, innovative production from this award-winning New Zealand company, the show is deservedly sold out for much of its run. If you can, get hold of a ticket now while there are still a few available.

4.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Stupid Cupid

09/08/18

Underbelly, Med Quad

Stupid Cupid marks Canadian Liz McMullan’s first show on the Fringe, a one woman monologue written by Kerianne Cameron and Miguel Eichelberger. McMullan plays the titular wannabe cupid, who has come along to the venue to take her ‘cupidity test.’ She hopes to be awarded an official set of wings, at which point she will be allowed to go forth and wreak havoc on an unsupecting world with her little bow and arrow

But an administrative error has left several other bows stored in the room where she’s taking her exam. These are the infamous Bows of Destiny, belonging to her illustrious predecessors, and she has been warned not to go near them. But, when she inadvertently spikes herself with a love arrow, she cannot help but pick up each bow in turn, to try it out for herself…

I’ll confess that my first impressions of this are not promising. The concept feels a little too sacharine for my taste and I’m fully expecting not to enjoy it – but McMullen soon wins me over with her assured and confident performance, interracting expertly with the audience and displaying not one ounce of inhibition as she careers through all aspects of love from prim and correct to downright saucy. (A gentle word of warning. This may not be suitable for children.)

Love, we learn, is a complicated process – and McMullen is the perfect guide to help us steer a path through the potential pitfalls.

Charming and thoroughly enjoyable stuff. Those of a romantic disposition, should pop along for further instructions – and it seems, there’s even hope for grumpy old devils like me.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Blue Heart

08/08/18

C Too, St Columba’s by the Castle, Edinburgh

The Bathway Theatre Company comprises students and recent alumni from the University of Greenwich, and they have certainly chosen a complex piece for their Edinburgh Fringe debut. Caryl Churchill’s 1997 Blue Heart consists of two one-act plays, and they are both extremely difficult. But these young performers seem undaunted, rising gamely to the challenge, proving that they are more than capable of delivering Churchill’s high concept work.

First up is Heart’s Desire, where a London-based family awaits a visit from their daughter, who has been living in Australia. They run through the same scene, again and again, some ideas repeated word for word, while others change or are replaced. It’s about wish-fulfilment, clearly, about divergent paths, and choices made. We think it’s also probably about the writing process, about the possibilities of a blank page, of editing and redrafting. Whatever, it must be hard work to perform, a nightmare to remember lines where the same cues act as prompts for different responses, but these actors make short work of it. Bethan Shaw is both funny and tragic as the girl’s mother, Alice, her timing impeccable, and Jason Kennedy (as Bryan) and Jess Buckley (Maisie) are also impressive, his obvious anxiety contrasting beautifully with her placid acceptance.

The second act is Blue Kettle, starring John Dawson as Derek, an adoptee apparently seeking his birth mother, convincing several women that he is their son. His aim, he says, is to defraud them, to claim their money – and they are more than willing to believe his story; they want it to be true. The title refers to the disintegration of language in this piece – the words ‘blue’ and ‘kettle’ are inserted into the dialogue with increasing frequency, at first replacing just occasional nouns, or verbs that rhyme with blue, but soon reducing whole conversations to repeated utterances of the same two words – yet still, somehow, we can discern the meaning, the essence of what’s being said. It’s as audacious an idea as we might expect from Churchill, and another mighty challenge for the performers. But again, this company proves its worth, earning our admiration for their control of the material. Blue Kettle is more of an ensemble piece than Heart’s Desire and the actors work skilfully together – even the detailed set change between the acts is perfectly choreographed, woven into the production, fascinating to observe.

Tucked away down a flight of stairs at the back of a church on Johnson Terrace, this might be hard to find. But it’s well worth seeking out this ambitious production – it really is a little gem.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Improvabunga!

08/08/18

The Space, Niddry Street

Throw a stone from anywhere on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile during the month of August and there’s a strong chance you’ll hit a member of an improv troupe. (Please note, that’s not an encouragement to actually try it!). Improv shows are always popular and, ironically, they’re a safe bet when trying to pick something from the thousands of possibilities offered on a daily basis at the Ed Fringe. ‘Ironically’ because, despite the proud boasts that no two shows are ever the same, we pretty much know the kind of thing we’re going to get.

Improvabunga! has been created by Birmingham University student group, Watch This! It’s advertised as a movie-inspired show, and every evening, as they queue outside, members of the audience are invited to write down a non-geographical location of a sheet of paper, one of which will be chosen at random. Once we’re seated and a location has been picked out of the hat (McDonalds tonight. Sorry folks, that was my idea!), we’re invited to shout out suggestions from a range of movie genres and a couple are selected. So, the theme of this evening’s show turns out to be a post apocalyptic/dystopian epic. Four buzzers are also handed out to people in the crowd. When one of them is pressed, the team have to drop everything they’re doing and launch into a pre-arranged task – a musical routine, for instance, or an inspiring speech. Meanwhile, a young chap seated at a keyboard provides suitable accompaniment for the resultng shennanigins. All good fun.

There’s no doubting the enthusiasm and energy that the young performers throw into this production and, if some performers shine more than others, and some scenes catch fire while others only smoulder, that’s only to be expected in this kind of show. Luckily, the troop are pretty adept at sensing when to move things along. There’s no doubting the hearty laughs coming from the audience. This is a pleasant if undemanding way to spend an evening at the Fringe.

But don’t write ‘McDonalds’ on your slip of paper. That was MY idea!

3 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Are There More of You?

08/08/17

Assembly Hall, Mound Place, Edinburgh

After last year’s The Power Behind the Crone (which we awarded an Edfest Theatre Bouquet), we know that Alison Skilbeck is a truly gifted player, and are keen to see her latest offering. Are There More of You? is another one-woman show, this time a series of four loosely connected monologues, and it’s a masterclass in character acting.

We first meet Claire, an ambassador’s wife, recently returned to the UK from Morocco. But their shared retirement plans have been scuppered by his revelation that he’s leaving her, and Claire is struggling to build a new life for herself.

Then there’s Sofia, who owns the trattoria down the road from Claire’s art class; she has big ambitions for the café’s future, but family problems keep getting in the way.

Sara is a “spirit weaver”, and she has a lot to say about the people that she treats. When her old school friend, Sam, a successful business woman, finds herself drunk and alone in Sofia’s trattoria, she sets aside her scepticism and calls on Sara for some spiritual healing.

Skilbeck segues between characters with almost indecent ease; she is a chameleon, transforming before our eyes. There’s not much in the way of props or costume to assist her: she simply adds a headband, shakes her hair loose, changes her jacket or puts on an apron. But her face sags or tightens, her jawline tenses, her lips purse, her shoulders drop, her hand gestures become expansive: she looks somehow completely different; each woman is distinct. Her voice changes too, from prim and clipped to a gravelly drawl, and it’s all so subtle, so nuanced, so precise – I am in awe. Every ambitious young actor at this Fringe should make a point of seeing Skilbeck’s show; it’s an object lesson – and a delight.

Her writing’s good too. There’s a Bennett-esque appeal to these four pieces: a gentle humour permeates throughout, and there’s warmth and fondness for the characters.

So, if you’ve an hour to spare one morning, why not head up to the Assembly Hall and watch this marvellous production? It really is something special.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Kwame Asante: Teenage Heartblob

07/08/18

Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar), Edinburgh

Kwame Asante’s latest show, Teenage Heartblob, purports to focus on his experiences as an overweight child and obese teenager, as well as how he now responds to other people’s obesity in his day job as an NHS doctor. And it does, kind of, although not in much detail.

He’s a likeable character; his stage persona is warm and affable, friendly and relatable. He’s impressive too: still only twenty-eight, and already enjoying success in two difficult careers. He clearly has huge affection for his family, and his openness is quite disarming. When he shows a photograph of his mother, for example, there’s an audible ‘aaah…’ from the audience. His charm is indisputable.

The most interesting sections of the show are those relating to his younger days, especially the stories of summers spent visiting Ghana, his frustration at feeling first-generation immigrant guilt, at not quite fitting in, either there or in London.

It’s not ROFL stuff, but it’s not meant to be: there’s a contemplative air to Asante’s set; he’d be a great after-dinner speaker, I think. Sometimes I wish he’d mine his ideas further – there is a tendency to draw back that means we don’t go deep enough; he skims over losing weight, the impact this must have had, how he really feels about obesity as a doctor, etc. This would be a stronger show if he could make that extra push.

Still, there are far worse ways to spend an hour than in the company of this accomplished and entertaining man.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

Bucket Men

07/08/18

C Royale

Bucket Men, written and directed by Samuel Skoog, is an absurdist play in the great tradition of Pinter and Beckett – though it’s inventive and assured enough to stand as a considerable achievement in its own right. A (Jack Houston) and B (Max Aspen) are workmates, who turn up for the same thankless job every day at the same location. Clad in white overalls, they run listlessly through a series of dull observations and listless interactions, before sitting down to eat their habitual (identical) sandwich. The kettle doesn’t work, so their accompanying cup of tea is a rather dry affair.

Our first thought is that these men are decorators, or builders, or something equally mundane – but then we learn that whatever it is they are supposed to be working on is housed in a bath in the corner of the room, a bath that’s covered by a white sheet…

As the play progresses, and the couple’s actions are repeated, we start to believe that we’ve got the measure of this story. But then B does something out of character, something that interrupts the familiar flow – and everything goes suddenly and catastrophically pear-shaped as events career towards a devastating conclusion, the full horror of which only hits me long after I’ve left the building.

Bucket Men is an ingenious metaphor about the banality of evil – about the ways in which  everyday people are compelled by their employment to do the unthinkable. It’s about how much individuals rely on repetition for their own sanity… and how our ‘freedom’ is controlled by forces beyond our comprehension.

Skoog’s script is really very good and the performances by Houston and Aspen, are impressive. The play is performed in a tiny venue that really deserves to be sold out for every performance. Go and see this little gem of a play.

If you don’t end up discussing it for hours afterwards, I’ll be very surprised.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Ken Cheng: Best Dad Ever

07/08/18

Bedlam

Ken Cheng is the standup comedian credited with the ‘joke of the Fringe award, 2017,’ as judged by comedy TV channel, Dave. This can either be regarded as an achievement or something he feels he’ll have to live up to in 2018. The joke? “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.”

Which will give you an idea of how arbitrary the award is in the first place. Every year, we read the results with a general air of bemusement. Who picks the jokes? What qualifies any of them to be dubbed ‘the best?’ I suppose, as any comic will tell you, you needed to be there when it was actually said aloud. And I’ve no doubt that Cheng told it well.

As you might guess from his name, Ken Cheng is of Chinese descent – and much of the subject matter of this sly, erudite set is concerned with his ethnicity and the way it’s perceived by the various people he encounters. He’s very adept at nailing unconscious racism and hoisting the culprit by his or her own petard. His routine about the woman he meets at a party is nicely scathing, pointing out how everything she says is well-intentioned but misdirected. He also talks about his parents’ rather unusual marital arrangements; the fact that he was a bit of a child prodigy when it came to mathematics (and how much of a cliché this is); his giant collection of cuddly lambs – and, at one point, he even treats us to an extract from a science fiction novel he wrote when he was around seven years old, which demonstrates all too clearly what an unusual boy he must have been.

If it’s only occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, it’s consistently chuckle-worthy and Cheng is an affable presence up on the stage of Bedlam, holding his audience’s attention and rarely allowing things to lag. A moment towards the end of his set when somebody has to go out to use the loo, just as he’s building up to his big finish, is handled with remarkable restraint. This is an enjoyable show from a real craftsman – and there are probably several punchlines in here that Dave might like to consider for 2018.

3.5 stars

Philip Caveney

 

Apostasy

06/08/18

I come to this film from a position of tolerance; I’m an atheist and – honestly, from this angle – most religions seem pretty strange. Alongside their (sometimes dubious, but usually well-intentioned) moral codes, they all impose a few seemingly arbitrary restrictions, and it’s easy to poke fun at these. But fundamentalism – of any kind, political or religious – poses more of a problem than any moderate view, I think, and the few Jehovah’s Witnesses I know are lovely people. Indeed, one of my favourite aunts is one. I don’t harbour any ill-feeling towards this particular belief system.

It’s important to make this point, because Apostasy doesn’t make it easy to view Jehovah’s Witnesses in a positive light. This assured debut from writer/director Daniel Kokotajlo is an angry piece, railing against the inflexibility of the church’s Elders, pointing out – again and again – how their strict adherence to the rules shows a complete lack of humanity. And fair enough, it’s his story to tell: he grew up in this community; this reflects his own experience. But he clearly has an axe to grind, even if it’s not with the church’s followers.

Molly Wright plays Alex, a quiet eighteen-year old Jehovah’s Witness, keen to dedicate herself to God. She wants to prove herself worthy of a place in the ‘New System’ – even though she has a medical condition that means refusing a blood transfusion could cost her life. Her mum, Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran), supports her decision; she too believes implicitly in the tenets of her faith. But Alex’s sister, Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) is not so sure: she’s suspicious of the edicts issued by a remote governing body; she’s restless; she wants out. And when she finds herself pregnant, she’s disfellowshipped and the whole congregation – including her family – is ordered to shun her. But nothing shakes Ivanna’s faith: not one daughter’s ill health, nor the other’s banishment. How can she defy the church? She truly believes her children will be damned if they don’t do as they are told. She does what she has to do, and tries to guide them to the light.

This is a slow and sombre film, and Siobhan Finneran’s compelling performance is the heart and soul of it. She doesn’t do much; Ivanna is still, outwardly composed; her turmoil is all internal and unexpressed – and yet it’s there, clearly, conveyed in subtle tensing of muscles and clouds behind the eyes. Sacha Parkinson and Molly Wright are also very good; they are both engaging young actors, appealing and identifiable. Jameses Quinn and Foster are suitably implacable as the Elders, and it’s interesting to see trainee Steven (Robert Emms) begin to change as he’s accepted into their ranks, parroting their words.

Kokotajlo’s direction is interesting: the whole film has a dreamy quality, as if it’s slightly removed from reality. There’s a subtle shift in light and colour that renders it quite different – effectively symbolising the skewed vision of these JWs.

A fascinating insight into a little understood religion; this won’t change hearts and minds, but it will certainly make you think.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

Brexit

06/08/18

Pleasance Beyond, Edinburgh

The Pleasance Beyond is packed: the cast’s pedigree or the subject matter or a combination of the two mean that the three-hundred-plus seats have all been sold. Which is great, obviously, but also… hot. It’s a muggy day, so we thank our lucky stars we remembered to bring bottles of cold water, and hope the play is worth it.

It is. Hurrah! I’m not sure at first: there’s an air conditioning unit running, and it’s swallowing the sound a bit, so I have to strain to hear, and it’s a wordy piece, so it matters; I need to catch the nuances. But I get used to it, and am soon drawn in, enjoying the intrigue and barbed repartee.

We’re in the near future – a year or two hence – and Adam Masters (Timothy Bentinck) has just been elected as our new Prime Minister. He’s inherited the Brexit stalemate, trying to tread a line between opposing factions in his cabinet, his main aim being to do nothing, to ride out the status quo. Adam’s best friend and advisor, Paul Connell (Mike McShane), slyly suggests allocating key roles in the negotiations to arch rivals Simon Cavendish (Hal Cruttenden) and Diana Purdy (Pippa Evans), forcing them to work together, appeasing both the right and left wing commentariat. Chief EU negotiator Helena Brandt (Jo Caulfield) looks on in disbelief as the British government ties itself in knots, kiboshing every idea Adam presents with acerbic ripostes.

Adam’s strategy – using his inaction to force others to act – is bound to end in disaster. And as the inevitable betrayal approaches, he becomes increasingly desperate.

Although Brexit is billed as a comedy – and there are plenty of laughs along the way – it’s actually quite a serious piece. It’s a smart move to cast comedians in the supporting roles – so that Adam is isolated, alone, facing an onslaught of expertly timed quips and snide putdowns. The performances are uniformly strong – Jo Caulfield is a real revelation, and we love her middle-European accent, which is subtle enough to avoid parody.

The staging is simple: a fixed set representing a series of offices, some neat cross-cutting highlighting the cut-throat nature of events. I feel for the actors in their three piece suits and formal dresses (especially Mike McShane, who seems to be wearing clothes he’s borrowed from a much larger man – or perhaps they were his, several sizes ago); luckily, the characters are supposed to be stressed and sweaty, so their shiny faces don’t seem out of place.

Sadly, the story is just too prescient; I can believe every word of it. It’s Shakespearean in its exposure of human frailty and brutality – and sobering in the extreme. Still, it’s definitely one to watch. Et tu, Boris?

4 stars

Susan Singfield