14/08/23

theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Grand Theatre), Edinburgh

Ima Collab is a young theatre collective from Hong Kong, and their spirited version of Candide opens this week in the Space @ Surgeon’s Hall. Condensing Voltaire’s sprawling epic into a forty-minute slice of theatre is a tall order, but the fourteen-strong cast give it their all, and the result is both energetic and entertaining.

Like his C18th contemporaries Tom Jones and Gulliver, the eponymous Candide is an ingénue, whose epic journey from innocence to experience spans many decades and several distinct acts. His idyllic youth in a Baron’s castle, under the tutelage of renowned optimist Pangloss, comes to an abrupt end when he is caught kissing the Baron’s daughter, Cunégonde. Cast out, he endures a series of hardships: he is forced into joining the Bulgarian army, for example, and also survives both a shipwreck and an earthquake. Along the way, he is repeatedly reunited with and then parted from Cunégonde, until at last they marry and live unhappily ever after. (I think it’s okay to give spoilers to a three-hundred-year-old story.)

In this production, the tale is narrated to an eager group of travellers, keen to know why one of their number is obsessed with Voltaire’s novel. The contents of their suitcases are pressed into use as props, and the fourth wall is continually broken, as the cast ask questions of the audience, and issue demands to one another (“Can you make me a boat, please?”).

This breathless retelling is vibrant, and the cast are very engaging. There are a lot of jokes, most of which land well, although I’m not so keen on the fat-phobic jibe at the aged Cunégonde, who, played for the most part by one actor, is briefly replaced by a perfectly lovely-looking larger one – a move clearly intended to suggest that she is less desirable than she used to be.

The direction is imaginative and, if the ensemble movement sections sometimes lack precision, they are always enthusiastically performed.

An ambitious and diverting piece of theatre, Candide is certainly a lot of fun.

3.4 stars

Susan Singfield