Paines Plough

Edfest Bouquets 2015

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It’s been an amazing August for us at Bouquets & Brickbats. We’ve spent the entire month running from show to show, and have seen some truly brilliant performances. Here’s our pick of the best we’ve seen at this year’s Fringe:

Drama Bouquets

  1. Phantom Owl Productions – Filthy Talk for Troubled Times by Neil La Bute
  2. Phantom Owl Productions – Fault Lines by Stephen Belber
  3. Paines Plough – Lungs by Duncan McMillan

Monologue Bouquets

  1. Noni Stapleton  – Charolais by Noni Stapleton
  2. Thom Tuck – Scaramouche Jones by Justin Butcher
  3. Tom Neenan – The Andromeda Paradox by Tom Neenan

Stand-up Comedy Bouquets

  1. Stewart Lee – A Room With A Stew
  2. Sarah Kendall – A Day In October
  3. Garrick Millerick – A Selection of Things I’ve Said to Taxi Drivers

‘Ones to Watch Out For’ Bouquets

  1. Alfie Brown – Isms
  2. Morro and Jasp – Morro and Jasp Do Puberty
  3. Master of None Productions – Foxfinder by Dawn King

Philip Caveney and Susan Singfield

Lungs

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14/08/15

Roundabout@Summerhall, Edinburgh

He suggests that they should have a baby – but she has so many reservations. After all, she argues, the world is becoming increasingly polluted and a baby creates an awfully big carbon footprint. ‘Ten thousand tonnes of CO2. That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.’ And… on reflection, maybe the checkout queue at Ikea wasn’t the best place for him to broach the subject in the first place.

On a grey, rainy day in Edinburgh, Lungs by Duncan Macmillan is a breath of fresh air. The witty, sparkling script picks you up by the scruff of the neck and hurls you along in a series of perfectly created flash-forwards as the couple argue, chatter, break up and make up. On route, they suffer all the emotions under the sun as they attempt, by hook or by crook, to become parents. Will they get there? We they end up together? You’ll have to see the play to find out but the snug confines of Paines Plough are the perfect place to watch such a delicious confection and I’m happy to report that the venue was packed. I laughed a lot and in a couple of places my eyes filled with involuntary tears because there are moments in here that everyone can identify with and some moments we all hope we’ll never experience. You’ll emerge from the experience feeling wrung out.

As the young couple, Sian Reece-Williams and Abdul Sallis are every bit as assured as they are in Dennis Kelly’s Our Teacher’s A Troll (also at this venue) and as the story accelerates towards it’s poignant but inevitable conclusion, you’ll be with them every step of the way. Clever, dazzling, intelligent, this is a perfect delight and it’s not to be missed.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Chicken

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13/08/15

Roundabout@Summerhall, Edinburgh

As we queue to go in to Chicken, the guy on the door gives us a strange warning. ‘If you’re allergic to straw or chicken feathers, don’t sit in the front row,’ he says. As it happens, we’re not, but this must count as a first, even for the Fringe.

Set in a near future dystopia on the Eve of ‘the separation’ – when East Anglia declares it’s independence from the rest of great Britain – the play is an examination of folklore, superstition and ‘Nationalism.’ Emily (Rosie Sheehy) works at a Tesco store, but she has a reputation for not speaking much, preferring instead to sing traditional folk songs and visit the places where witches used to be ‘swum.’ Her father, Harry (Benjamin Dilloway) and Mother, Lorraine (Josephine Butler) both work at a nearby chicken farm (hence the straw and feathers strewn liberally around the stage). Into this setting comes a ‘returner’, Layla (Beth Cooke), who having tried her luck in London has come back to her home town and is eager to reconnect with old crush, Harry. But he’s been dehumanised by his years of organising the slaughter of chickens on a massive scale. Chickens (along with bicycles) are now East Anglia’s biggest export. Meanwhile, Emily seems to be planning something very strange indeed…

The play is beautifully acted by all the cast, but we were somewhat distracted by a noisy fan that blew a stream of cool air into the theatre, making much of the dialogue hard to follow. It was happily dispensed with for the final third, which helped enormously; but I have to admit I found it hard to swallow the play’s conclusion or to feel at all terrorised by the prospect of marauding chickens attacking a family home.

This is a decent play with an intriguing premise. Just make sure you sit well away from that pesky wind machine!

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Happy Birthday Without You

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12/08/15

Roundabout@Summerhall, Edinburgh

Meet Violet Fox, “award-winning-live-and-visual-spoken-word-vegan-solo-artist-and-occasional-collaborator,” with her autobiographical tale of unhappy birthdays and emotional trauma (“Yes, it’s all about meeee!”).

This is a satirical piece, expertly skewering the self-obsessed posing of a certain type of wannabe, and, if this truly original slice of comic nonsense is difficult to categorise, it’s certainly a pleasure to witness it unfold.

Sonia Jalaly, as Violet, is a gifted comedian, with a penchant for wild emoting and exaggerated gesture. This is clowning at its most engaging, and there’s some decent mimicry and singing here as well, with pastiches of Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Julie Andrews and Shirley Bassey, cleverly woven into the narrative. There are beautifully clumsy references to Plath and Woolf as well, underlining both Violet’s pretentiousness and her immaturity. There’s a lot going on within this script.

The play works well in the round, and Jalaly uses the space effectively, laying out her boxes (‘This is my emotional baggage”) and props to create a real sense of her myopic, chaotic world. The mother character is evoked by a scrunched up facial expression and the use of two cigarettes as props, and the climactic moment when we, the audience, become involved, is deflated instantly by Violet’s joyful declaration: “Oooh, immersive!” We are reminded, all the time, that Violet has one eye on the way her performance makes her look, however personal the story that she is telling us.

If there’s any criticism here, it’s that it’s all perhaps a bit one-note. It might be more compelling if our empathy were allowed to develop further on occasion – before the balloons are popped.

This is a funny and entertaining performance, and deserves to be seen by a bigger crowd than is here tonight. Make the trip; you won’t be disappointed.

4 stars

Susan Singfield