Henry Maynard

Endgame

14/08/26

Pleasance at EICC (Lomond Theatre), Edinburgh

Which adjective best describes Samuel Beckett’s Endgame? Depressing? Dystopian? Dingy? Dark? Take your pick. And yet this is also a funny play, full of clowning, jokes and silly absurdities. Who better to illuminate the weirdness than the wonderful Flabbergast Theatre?

We’ve been fans of Flabbergast ever since we stumbled across Tatterdamelion at 2016’s Fringe; in the intervening years, we’ve been wowed by The Swell Mob, The Tragedy of Macbeth and Paper Swans. We’re excited to see what they do with “the play that Beckett considered bleaker than Godot“.

Henry Maynard is not only Flabbergast’s founder and the director of Endgame, he’s also Hamm, the blind and dying man at the centre of this piece. Hamm is angry with life, railing against his failing body and the terrible state of the world. The view from his window, he is told, is desolate, post-apocalyptic. Something dreadful has happened out there – and it’s not much better inside his home. Hamm is stuck in his chair, unable to move, utterly reliant on the hapless Clov (Simon Gleave), who’s been with Hamm since he was a boy. Part servant, part surrogate son, Clov is cowed by Hamm, incapable of standing up to him.

The play’s most transparent metaphor is Hamm’s parents’ accommodation. Old and useless, Nagg (Derek Ellwood) and Nell (Complicité’s Annabel Arden) have been discarded like rubbish: they live in a pair of dustbins outside their son’s house, popping up occasionally to beg for food. The price for a hard biscuit is high: they have to listen to Hamm’s endless shouting about how they neglected him when he was young. His accusations are born out by Nagg’s cruel replies but their helplessness makes us sympathise with the aged couple.

Mostly, though, our hearts go out to Clov. He’s the only one who’s able to move, albeit with difficulty, and so he’s stuck caring for these dreadful people, none of whom has a kind word for him. Gleave’s expert clowning gives the play its physical dynamism, preventing it from seeming static, despite the fixed positions of the other three characters.

Skilfully conceived, this production has a clarity that illuminates Beckett’s dream-like, complex play, making it more accessible than any other version I have seen. Just as in life, death looms large – but there are plenty of laughs along the way.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Tatterdemalion

2016TATTERE_AYY

12/08/16

The Omnitorium, Assembly George Square, Edinburgh

As soon as we take our seats in the wonderfully quirky Ominitorium, it’s clear that we’re in for some old-school clowning. Performer/director Henry Maynard takes an empty seat and sits among us as if waiting for the show to start. Half dressed and wearing a red fez, he proceeds to make us laugh without uttering one intelligible word – a series of grunts and gestures does the job as eloquently as words might.

Eventually, he’s up on stage rooting through a tattered trunk of props, each of which he uses to tell a little story. It’s hard to review an act like this. Too much description would give away the game and what this set is all about is a series of delightful surprises – but I will say that the highlight for me is a routine he enacts using nothing other than a white shirt, which he manages to turn into something surreal and magical.

There’s lots of audience interaction in this show. People are pulled up onto the stage and made to perform alongside the clown, but don’t let that worry you. This is gentle and charming stuff and all those who are invited to perform leave the stage looking very pleased with themselves. If you’ve a liking for a mixture of physical comedy, mime and puppetry, this is surely the show for you.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney