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Theater Camp

31/08/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Joan Rubinski (Amy Sedaris) is a bit of a theatrical legend. She has been running her summer theatre camp for young performers for many years. But, when she suffers a debilitating fit (caused by exposure to strobe lights), her outfit is left without a leader. So it falls to her son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), to step up to the plate and fill her tap shoes, despite having no experience of drama whatsoever. Troy is an ‘influencer’, who thinks he has what it takes to overhaul the business.

Unfortunately, he has to try to deal with a whole horde of regular teachers, who have been doing this for donkeys years and who clearly view him as an unwelcome addition to the ranks. They include drama coach, Amos (Ben Platt), and his soulmate, music tutor Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon). The duo actually met at the camp as students and fell in love – but, since Amos came out, their co-dependency can perhaps best be described as ‘complicated’. There’s Rita Cohen (Caroline Aaron), Joan’s no-nonsense right-hand woman, who seems to have a talent for always saying the wrong thing and there’s new recruit, Janet (Eyo Edebiri), who has as much experience in drama as Troy, but is determined to bluff her way through…

This charming and sometimes very funny mockumentary comes from a team of people who clearly know their subject well. Depicted in a series of short, snappy scenes (but for once eschewing the straight-to-camera interviews that are so often utilised in fake docs), we are witness to the three weeks of frantic work it takes to put together a summer show, a tribute to their beloved leader, entitled Joan, Still. We witness the trials and tribulations of creating a musical from not very much by a cohort of bright, eager students, all of whom have their eyes set on their own individual goals. (I particularly enjoy the diminutive boy who has decided he’s born to be… an agent.)

When Troy is romanced by the villainous Caroline (Patti Harrison), who works with a neighbouring, more upwardly-mobile youth theatre group, bankruptcy hovers in the wings and it’s going to take considerable wheeling and dealing on his part if he’s to save his mother’s camp. Can the team forget their various differences and work towards a solution?

Anyone who enjoyed Summer Heights High, back in the day, will get a kick out of Theater Camp, which shares some DNA with the legendary Mr G. It’s sprightly, silly and a lot of fun. Now, if only there were a rousing singalong to finish it all off… oh, wait a minute, turns out they’ve actually written one!

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Matt Forde: Inside No. 10

26/08/23

Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Beyond), Edinburgh

Matt Forde has built his reputation on a canny combination of political commentary interspersed with impersonations of the people in power. He’s a seasoned, confident performer and, pretty much from the get go, Inside No. 10 has the sizeable audience at the Pleasance Beyond laughing it up. The over-riding message is that the country is being led by the biggest bunch of buffoons in history and our only hope is to giggle about it. No arguments there. I’ve always thought that Rishi Sunak would be a hard man to impersonate but Forde manages it with ease, highlighting his ability to sound inappropriately effusive, even when he’s delivering horrible news.

And it’s not just the Tories. There’s a brilliantly observed Keir Starmer in there too, austere and seemingly obsessed with tearfully mentioning his late father at every opportunity and, since we’re in Scotland, the recent woes of the SNP are duffed up too, even if Forde wisely keeps his Nicola Sturgeon down to a few one-liners.

Ironically, it’s when he steps outside of British politics that the show really takes flight. His impersonation of Donald Trump is, as ever, spot on, nailing the man’s petulance and his childlike habit of blaming everybody else for his misfortunes. It’s easily the funniest part of Inside No. 10, (especially after being handed the gift of that mugshot) but, unfortunately, it has the effect of making the remainder of the show feel slightly anticlimactic. The piece doesn’t conclude so much as peter out.

Perhaps a little restructuring would help, holding back Trump (if only such a thing were possible) and finishing the exercise on a high point. Or maybe having him as a guide, observing our political system from his jaundiced POV?

Mind you, it’s bit late in the day to be suggesting changes, when the Fringe has almost run its course; besides, if the object of the exercise is to make an audience laugh, Forde certainly succeeds in that respect, big time.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Mrs President

24/08/23

C Venues (Aquila Temple), Johnston Terrace, Edinburgh

Sometimes at the Fringe, one show can lead to another. A brief mention of Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary, in Mystery House, alerts me to the poster for Mrs President – and I’m compelled to know more about her. 

When I enter the performance space at C Venues’ Aquila Temple, I find a tableau awaiting me: two figures frozen in position as the audience files in. They are photographer Mathew B Brady (Christopher Kelly) and Mary Lincoln (Leeanne Hutchison) – or rather, when they first speak, they are a camera and a 300-year-old chair. It’s that kind of play.

This earnest and thought-provoking duologue, written by John Random Phillips, is all about the iconography of the photograph, the way in which a talented photographer can somehow imbue a subject with a certain gravitas, turning them into living legends. Abe Lincoln always maintained that Brady’s photographs ‘made him the President’ – and it was Brady’s image of Lincoln that ended up on the five-dollar bill. Furthermore, his eerie final image of Mary, with the ‘ghost’ of her assassinated husband standing behind her, has endured over the centuries.

But right now, Honest Abe is still alive and Mary is seeking out Brady for another sitting, feeling that her image needs a little bolstering. The fact is that the American public are rather less enamoured with her than they are with her saintly husband. Mary has issues. She is perceived as a spendthrift and her delicate mental health has been the source of some speculation…

Mrs President is an intense, haunting play and both Hutchinson and Kelly submit powerful performances. I’m particularly impressed by Stefan Azizi’s simple but effective staging, and Kristine Koury’s ingenious costume design. I like too the parallels with the celebrated wildlife photographer, Audubon (who also makes a brief appearance here), a man who thought nothing of breaking the wings of his subjects in order to ensure that they didn’t move as he drew them.

As the Fringe rumbles inexorably to its conclusion, those looking for a change of pace from bright lights and brash comedy might like to seek out this quietly assured and authoritative production. 

4 stars

Philip Caveney

JM Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K

24/08/23

Assembly (Main Hall), Edinburgh

Based on JM Coetzee’s 1983 Booker Prize winner and adapted by Lara Foot, Life and Times of Michael K is a bleak and occasionally heartbreaking narrative, brought eerily to life by South African company, Baxter Theatre. While a nine-strong group of performers hurtle around the massive stage enabling the action, Michael K himself is portrayed by a puppet – though that’s rather underselling what’s delivered here. Devised by the Handspring Puppet Company, perhaps best known for War Horse, Michael is a character you’ll totally believe in from the moment he takes his first hesitant steps.

We see him as he emerges from the womb of his mother, Anna (another puppet), into a harsh world, where his cleft lip serves to alienate him from just about everybody he encounters. We watch him grow, share his early encounters with others and see how he eventually finds happiness working as a gardener in Cape Town. But when a violent civil war threatens to engulf the neighbourhood, Michael decides to take his ailing mother back to the family home she so often talks about, a place she knows only as Prince Albert.

They have no money for fares so Michael constructs a rickety handcart, piles Anna and her belongings into it and the two of them set off on the long and arduous journey to a place he isn’t really sure exists…

Their resulting experiences are hard and unrelenting, but the performers work their socks off to ensure that, despite a running time of two hours, the momentum never falters. There’s some exciting physical theatre to relish and sometimes the huge backdrop illuminates with location photography, into which the marionettes are convincingly incorporated.

Michael’s devotion to his mother – who actually does very little to deserve it – is humbling and the overarching themes of the value of human life and the evils of privilege are starkly written.

This is a gentle but powerful production that has the crowd up on its feet at its conclusion. If spectacle is what you’re looking for at the Fringe, this is definitely one to seek out. But you’ll need to move quickly: there are only a few more performances left.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Upstart! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter

23/08/23

Gilded Balloon Patter House (Big Yin), Chambers Street, Edinburgh

The story of Shakespeare’s younger daughter, Judith, is one that I know very little about, so Upstart! seems the perfect opportunity to learn more – though I have to say this is much more entertaining than your average history lesson. It’s a sprightly and engaging piece about a woman who is constantly denied the opportunity to be her true self, never allowed to explore her own creativity.

When we first meet her, she’s elderly Judith (Susannah May), who has long outlived her famous father, her husband and even her three children. She now delights in spreading mischievous falsehoods of Shakespeare’s final days to his over-persistent fans, but still finds time to tell us her story.

In flashback we meet the younger Judith (Rachel Kitts), her long-suffering mother, Anne (Aisling Groves-McKeown), her older sister, Susanna (Becky Sanneh), and of course, Will himself (Luke Millard), the successful young playwright spending far too much time in that London, and carrying on with the lady he will later write sonnets about. We learn too of young Judith’s ill-fated relationship with Tom Quiney (Angus Battycharya), her first love, whom she eventually marries against her father’s wishes.

Written by Mary Jane Schaefer, this intriguing tale illustrates how Judith is denied pretty much everything she ever wants – she never even learns to write – and how she always feels that she exists in the shadow of her twin brother, Hamnet, who died of a fever when the pair were only little. Judith cannot rid herself of the powerful conviction that her father would have preferred it if she had died in her brother’s place.

This is a complicated tale and the eight-strong cast are compelled to inhabit a variety of roles, which they do admirably, switching costumes and handling the many scene changes with considerable skill, especially impressive on such a small stage. The dialogue feels authentic to the era and there are some short musical interludes, songs of the ‘hey nonny no’ persuasion, which are pleasant distractions as tables and stools are rearranged. Director Alexandra Spence-Jones keeps everything moving along at a brisk pace, right up to the play’s ironic conclusion.

I leave the venue feeling I’ve been informed and entertained. Result.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Concerned Others

13/08/23

Summerhall, (Demonstration Room), Edinburgh

Concerned Others is a meditation on addiction – a vast, sometimes overwhelming subject for which there really are no ready answers. Tortoise In a Nutshell approaches the subject from a different perspective – using an intimate table-top performance, above which spoken verbatim dialogue is also displayed on a series of screens, while immersive music plays.

A miniature camera glides cinematically past rows of tiny houses and intricately detailed miniature figures as the words spill onto the screens. The effect, curiously, is to focus my attention on what’s actually being said and while it’s not saying much that I haven’t heard before, it does have the effect of making me concentrate. No easy matter when I’m sitting in the Demonstration Room, arguably the most uncomfortable venue of the Fringe.

Now the scene shifts to a character whose face is a video screen, a vapid smile interspersed with mixed-up advertising videos extolling the virtues of various beers, and I’m reminded of my youth, when television adverts like these ones made me long to look old enough to go into a pub and buy a drink.

Again, we’re back to the little camera, which now glides through a series of empty rooms, emphasising the loneliness and desolation of addiction, the fact that so many people are obliged to face it alone…

By the conclusion – which somehow manages to end on a rising note of optimism about the future – I leave thinking about the ubiquity of addiction, it’s prevalence and it’s many different forms. We’re all of us addicted to something, aren’t we?

You could argue that perhaps Concerned Others could delve a little deeper into its chosen subject but there’s no mistaking the superb and affecting style in which this story is told.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Distant Memories of the Near Future

12/08/23

Summerhall (Red Lecture Theatre), Edinburgh

Set somewhere in an all-too-identifiable near future, David Head’s thought-provoking storytelling session is a stern warning that we’re all going to hell in a handcart – and that the eventual destination may be a lot closer than we think. 

In this dystopian world, the Department of Productivity is now partnered with Amazon shopping, and everything that makes us human appears to be up for grabs. 

Head leads us confidently through his quasi-lecture, aided by languorous mood music, remarkable lighting effects and an AI avatar, with whom he occasionally converses – and who seems to disagree with a lot of what he’s saying.

The stories are skilfully interwoven and Head throws in the occasional snarky comment to ensure that proceedings are never in danger of becoming too pompous, but I occasionally find myself thinking that he’s not really telling us anything we don’t already know, he’s just amping it up. The overarching theme seems to be that human relationships develop in their own bumbling, accidental way and that the endless attempts to commodify them are inevitably doomed to failure, because no matter how sophisticated technology becomes, it can’t really duplicate our ability to make connections with each other. 

It won’t stop companies from giving it their best attempt though, not when there’s money to be made. At regular intervals, the talk is paused while we listen to advertisements – a dating app that offers to find our ideal partners; a company that wants to buy the rights to use our voices as selling tools… 

I’m particularly drawn to one section that depicts a space miner, marooned on a planet full of diamonds, trapped by the very wealth she’s been seeking, and helplessly contemplating her own lost love as her air supply runs out. It seems an apt metaphor for the state of humanity in this bleak vision of the future. I love the miniature puppet-figure that Head uses to illustrate this story, illuminated by the light of a torch.

Head is a charismatic and quietly authoritative storyteller and he handles the presentation with consummate skill. I leave the Red Lecture theatre with plenty to think about.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Sean and Daro: Flake It ‘Til They Make It

06/08/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we missed Sean and Daro on its initial release, so we’re delighted to discover it’s having a further run at TravFest 23. And deservedly so. This sprightly tale of two young Glaswegians seeking to become ice cream entrepreneurs finds a delicious sweet spot between comedy and tragedy – and runs with it. And any play that begins with an ode to the wonders of ice cream gets my vote any day of the week.

At his mum’s funeral, the moody and introspective Sean (Sean Connor) bumps into his old pal, Daro (Cameron Fulton), whom he’s lost touch with since going to Uni. Daro is the epitome of the unreliable best friend, the one your mum warns you about: full of ambition and hubris, but lacking anything with which to back it up. But he can talk like nobody’s business. Despite the solemness of the occasion, he’s soon persuaded Sean to use his inheritance – his mother’s flat – as collateral in a new shared enterprise. Together, they will become The Whippy Brothers, joint owners of an ice cream van. They will take to the highways and byways of Glasgow and make a proper killing, selling their sweet-tasting goods to all and sundry. After all, that’s how Duncan Bannatyne started, right?

But the road to success is a distinctly bumpy one – and there are plenty of obstacles they’ll need to navigate on their way…

Laurie Motherwell’s script is packed with hilarious observations and some moments of genuine pathos. Robert Softly Gale handles the direction with skill, giving the eponymous duo plenty of scope to interact with Karen Tennent’s simple but effective set. Connor and Fulton do not so much play their roles as inhabit them. As the spectacularly mismatched pals, they make a brilliant double act.

Anybody looking to leave their worries at the theatre door should seek out Sean and Daro without further delay. This isn’t just a plain cone – it’s served with a flake, a generous dash of sauce and extra hundreds and thousands on top.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

02/08/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Those sewer-dwelling, pizza-devouring ‘heroes in a hard-shell’ return to the big screen, courtesy of Seth Rogen and his team and it’s clear from the outset that the key word here is Teenage. The word Ninja has also been reinstated – those in the UK with long memories may recall that, for a while, Hero was used as a replacement. How times change. This film only has a PG certificate but it doesn’t hold back on the violence – and clearly the message isn’t getting through. The afternoon screening I attend features quite a few parents trying to handle confused-looking children, who clearly aren’t sure what to make of what’s happening up on the big screen.

TMNT:MM begins with a pre-credit sequence explaining the origin stories of Leonardo (Nicholas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr) and Raphael (Brady Noon). They begin life as part of a disrupted science experiment, and are accidentally flushed down the drain into the sewers. (We’ve all been there.) Down in those malodorous depths they are adopted by friendly rat, Master Splinter (Jackie Chan), who is also affected by the chemicals they’ve absorbed and, like them, grows to be bigger than he should be. After a disastrous attempt to introduce his ‘family’ to human society, Splinter decides that people aren’t quite ready to embrace something so different so he keeps the foursome hidden below ground – but he does give them intensive martial arts training.

Now they are teenagers and itching to be out in the real world, where they can chase after girls and watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (it’s pretty clear what decade we’re in). When they see teenager April (Ayo Edebiri) being robbed of her scooter, they cannot stop themselves from helping her out, swinging into action and despatching a whole gang of tough customers with ease. But this starts a complex chain of events that will eventually lead to them taking on mutant master villain, Superfly (Ice Cube), who has dedicated himself to the task of eradicating human life from the face of the planet.

The first thing to say here is that the animation style is ravishing, borrowing some of its look from the Spider-Man animations, perhaps, but adding its own expressionistic dazzle into the process. Occasionally, the four heroes have the solidity of stop-frame animation characters; at other times, they are more fluid, more experimental – and there’s even a delightful childhood experience rendered as crayons on paper. Co-directors Jeff Rowe (of The Mitchells Versus the Machines) and Kyler Spears attempt to keep everything coherent and mostly succeed.

The script, written by Rogan and Evan Goldberg (in collaboration with several others), is obsessed with the horrors of puberty and never misses the opportunity to go for cheap belly laughs. (Want to see somebody puking uncontrollably? It’s here.) This occasionally feels like a bunch of older guys desperately trying to reconnect with their own teenage years and, inevitably, not all of the quips hit their targets as solidly as they might. It’s also true that some of the action sequences – particularly an extended set piece towards the film’s conclusion – are a little muddled at times. Who’s hitting who? With what? And… why?

Reservations aside, I have a lot of fun with this, despite the fact that I’m not a former Turtles fan and barely gave them a glance back in the 80s. It has some interesting points to make about inclusivity but it doesn’t hammer me over the head with them. However, those looking to entertain little ‘uns in the school break should be warned: unless you want to explain a giant rat snogging an enormous cockroach, this may not be the film you’re looking for. Just saying.

Oh yes, stay in your seats for the post-credit bit, which seems to suggest a follow-up is in the works.

3.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Talk To Me

29/07/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

So which other film is prepared to stick its head above the parapet in week two of Barbenheimer? Come on, who thinks they’re hard enough?

Talk To Me, the debut feature of former YouTubers Danny and Michael Philipouhails, hails from Australia, where presumably they’re so fearless they don’t give a damn about the opposition. It starts like most generic teen-terror flicks, but promptly ventures to some unexpected places, pushing its 15 certificate about as far as it can in the process.

The film starts with a short sharp shock: something bad happens at a party. We’re not really given much explanation for it, but that comes later. First, we’re introduced to Mia (Sophie Wilde), who after her mother’s suicide, is feeling disconnected from her father, Max (Marcus Johnson). She’s consequently spending a lot of her time with her best mate, Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and her younger brother, Riley (Joe Bird), watched over by Jade’s mother, Sue (Miranda Otto). The two girls keep seeing some weird footage online posted by a couple of mutual friends, scenes of people seemingly ‘possessed’ at parties and going berserk. Being teenagers, they can’t resist giving it a whirl themselves and, when Riley asks if he can go along, they reluctantly agree.

Soon enough, the three of them are at the party, where Jess (Chris Alosio) and Hayley (Zoe Terakes) bring out a stone hand they’ve ‘acquired.’ One of the guests is invited to take a firm grip of it and say three words (the clue’s in the title), whereupon something rather creepy is sure to ensue.

And of course, Mia volunteers to go first….

That’s all I have to say about the plot, except that it feels like a parable about drugs: how people might be tempted to try them out of curiosity and then decide that they want just one more hit – and how that compulsion might lead them to some very dark places. Those of a squeamish nature should be warned that, as well as enduring psychological damage, some of the characters are subjected to wince-making physical injuries, so this is definitely not for the faint-hearted. The sense of mounting dread is there from the beginning and steadily cranks up as the film progresses, but the weird happenings are never allowed to get too silly, or too unbelievable.

Talk To Me keeps me hooked right to the end and sends me out thinking about what I’ve just witnessed. Co-written by Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman, the story is based on a concept by er… ten other people, which means, I think, that it was created collaboratively.

It’s a wonder it’s turned out as smoothly as it has but, if you enjoy a decent fright film, this offering should fit the bill nicely.

4.1 stars

Philip Caveney