29/8/10, Pleasance Dome (Edinburgh Fringe)
A real cracker by a company that calls itself Pants on Fire, a staging of Ovid's tales of transformations and (mostly) frustrated love, thwarted, unrequited or otherwise problematical. Endlessly inventive, witty, touching, superbly-drilled, it scarcely flagged.
Directed by Peter Bramley, who is head of movement at Rose Bruford College and was among the last batch of students to train with Jacques Lecoq before his death. He clearly knows all there is to know about movement, mime and physical theatre. The cast are all recent Rose Bruford graduates, who act, sing, play instruments (trombone, piano, flute, drum, accordion) and in one case operate puppets.
The conceit had the stories updated to World War Two, a sort of homage to Powell and Pressburger, and one scene (Theseus in the labyrinth) was a pretty straight lift from A Matter of Life and Death with the addition of a routine involving nurses and an inert patient who needs to be given a bed bath and a change which (judging by a video on the company's website) is something of a Pants on Fire signature.
Daedalus and Icarus were in fighter pilots' flying jakets; at one point three girls in 40s evening dress crooned into a microphone (Did I mention the music? Original songs in the style of the 1940s by Lucy Egger); Narcissus was dressed in a fetching fedora and great coat (in a video projection); Tiresias was in evening dress like a 1930s Berlin cabaret turn; the nymph Salmacis wore a blue swimsuit; Echo was a talkative cockney char in Rosie the Riveter-style scarf; etc etc etc.
There were remarkably quick changes, using moveable screens (upright and horizontal), appropriately for a series of stories about shape-shifting. Cupid was a surly little boy puppet with the (female) puppeteer providing his face and voice.
One might quibble that the Narcissus projection was a bit samey, that the actors struggled with the cut-glass 1940s accents sometimes, that it flagged a bit two-thirds of the way through and that the Semele episode looked distinctly under-developed after repeated recent exposure to Handel's version. But these are quibbles. I spent most of the time with a stupid grin on my face.
Unquestionably a company (and a director) to watch.
Showing posts with label pleasance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pleasance. Show all posts
Sunday, 5 September 2010
OPERATION GREENFIELD
28/8/10, Pleasance (Edinburgh Fringe)
Recommended by A, who'd seen it and thought it very funny. Four young people (three girls, one guy) playing adolescents, members of the Stokeley Christian Club, prepare to enter the local talent competition with their gospel rock band: drums and guitar initially, then accordion ("Er, hello, this is my dad's") and finally flute.
I took my producer, E, poor woman, who was polite about it but would probably much have preferred some decent stand-up. She also thought young Christians would have been deeply hurt by it, though I thought the satire was aimed more at adolescents generally than young Christians in particular (indeed, I'd hazard the cast are/were young Christians themselves).
It was episodic, cartoonish, with lots of short scenes capturing adolescent gaucheness and interspersed with music. The drummer was pretty good, but not much of an actress (she gabbled). One girl, with goggle eyes, pretended to be French. The other twisted her mouth into a curious shape to convey teenage self-consciousness. At one point they all put on paper masks over the top halves of their faces, the boy's a cartoon devil, the girls' with glamour-girl eyes, and two of the girls snogged in slow motion. What was all that about?
It could have done with much tighter direction, let down as it was by poor staging, with loads of fiddly props, and four chairs which were endlessly arranged and re-arranged in the centre of the statge.
Recommended by A, who'd seen it and thought it very funny. Four young people (three girls, one guy) playing adolescents, members of the Stokeley Christian Club, prepare to enter the local talent competition with their gospel rock band: drums and guitar initially, then accordion ("Er, hello, this is my dad's") and finally flute.
I took my producer, E, poor woman, who was polite about it but would probably much have preferred some decent stand-up. She also thought young Christians would have been deeply hurt by it, though I thought the satire was aimed more at adolescents generally than young Christians in particular (indeed, I'd hazard the cast are/were young Christians themselves).
It was episodic, cartoonish, with lots of short scenes capturing adolescent gaucheness and interspersed with music. The drummer was pretty good, but not much of an actress (she gabbled). One girl, with goggle eyes, pretended to be French. The other twisted her mouth into a curious shape to convey teenage self-consciousness. At one point they all put on paper masks over the top halves of their faces, the boy's a cartoon devil, the girls' with glamour-girl eyes, and two of the girls snogged in slow motion. What was all that about?
It could have done with much tighter direction, let down as it was by poor staging, with loads of fiddly props, and four chairs which were endlessly arranged and re-arranged in the centre of the statge.
Friday, 4 September 2009
THE FALL OF MAN
30/8/09, Pleasance (Edinburgh Fringe)
Only 35 mins. A disappointing piece of physical theatre from a company called Red Shift. A man, a woman and a bed: an extra-marital affair with the Slovenian au pair goes sour, intercut with extracts from Milton's Paradise Lost. As Eve eats the apple he recites the relevant section of the poem while the au pair gives him a blow job beneath the duvet (it is at least novel...). She wears only knickers throughout; he gets his kit off just before this point as he gets into bed with her.
He (Graeme Rose) knew how to deliver the verse: I'm not sure I've heard Milton better-delivered. She (Stephanie Day, who despite the name was authentically foreign I think) didn't.
A rather slight idea not fully-enough developed. There were rather a lot of solitary middle-aged men in the audience, which made her accusations that he was just a "dirty old man" hit rather close to home.
Only 35 mins. A disappointing piece of physical theatre from a company called Red Shift. A man, a woman and a bed: an extra-marital affair with the Slovenian au pair goes sour, intercut with extracts from Milton's Paradise Lost. As Eve eats the apple he recites the relevant section of the poem while the au pair gives him a blow job beneath the duvet (it is at least novel...). She wears only knickers throughout; he gets his kit off just before this point as he gets into bed with her.
He (Graeme Rose) knew how to deliver the verse: I'm not sure I've heard Milton better-delivered. She (Stephanie Day, who despite the name was authentically foreign I think) didn't.
A rather slight idea not fully-enough developed. There were rather a lot of solitary middle-aged men in the audience, which made her accusations that he was just a "dirty old man" hit rather close to home.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
EARLY LONG ISLAND ICED TEA
21/8/09, Pleasance (Edinburgh Fringe)
Peter Straker is clearly a fringe institution, though we'd never heard of him. He first came here, he told us, in 1969 when they gave him a week off from the cast of the original London production of Hair. Forty years on he's still going strong, singing scorching cabaret songs to a piano accompaniment by Peter Brewis and with deadpan verbal and musical contributions from Rebecca Brewis ("no relation": cue an entertaining verbal spat with her dad, concluding with his remark, "Of course it's bloody nepotism").
It was directed by Mel Smith, who presumably contributed the backchat and badinage.
Long Island Iced Tea, we were told, was a concoction of equal parts gin, vodka, campari and tequila, and lethal it sounded.
Straker has longish hair tied back in a very tight bun, a pencil moustache (genuine or pencilled on?), eye make-up and a cracking voice.
Highlights: several Jacque Brel numbers, including a belter called Madame, in exceedingly witty English translation (memo to self: must find out more about Brel); MacArthur Park (including a cake "left out in the rain", which Ms Brewis delicately watered from a watering can); a Cat Stevens number; Harry Belafonte's "Day-oh!" with audience participation.
Most enjoyable.
Peter Straker is clearly a fringe institution, though we'd never heard of him. He first came here, he told us, in 1969 when they gave him a week off from the cast of the original London production of Hair. Forty years on he's still going strong, singing scorching cabaret songs to a piano accompaniment by Peter Brewis and with deadpan verbal and musical contributions from Rebecca Brewis ("no relation": cue an entertaining verbal spat with her dad, concluding with his remark, "Of course it's bloody nepotism").
It was directed by Mel Smith, who presumably contributed the backchat and badinage.
Long Island Iced Tea, we were told, was a concoction of equal parts gin, vodka, campari and tequila, and lethal it sounded.
Straker has longish hair tied back in a very tight bun, a pencil moustache (genuine or pencilled on?), eye make-up and a cracking voice.
Highlights: several Jacque Brel numbers, including a belter called Madame, in exceedingly witty English translation (memo to self: must find out more about Brel); MacArthur Park (including a cake "left out in the rain", which Ms Brewis delicately watered from a watering can); a Cat Stevens number; Harry Belafonte's "Day-oh!" with audience participation.
Most enjoyable.
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
THE ISLAND OF AARS
28/1/09, Pleasance.
A horrible disappointment. We went to see it because the same team (writer-performer Chris Larner, plus composer and musician Mark Stevens) created a little gem a few years ago called The Translucent Frogs of Quup which D and I saw at Edinburgh and then took the kids to when it transferred to the King's Head in Islington, so much had we enjoyed it.
That was a very silly boy's own pastiche tale of a pair of buttoned-up newly-weds travelling up the Amazon or some such, he anxious to find the frogs of the title, she desperate for sexual satisfaction which she eventually finds, if memory serves, in the arms of a scantily-dressed local. It had lots of puns and bad jokes, some jolly songs, a wry narrative by Larner and some exceedingly dodgy props.
They tried to pull the same trick off again and failed. The setting this time: the Hebridean island of Aars (pronounced as you'd expect, allowing for a rousing final song with a chorus which went "Isle of Aars" - geddit? - over and over). Larner plays a bass player who has somehow washed up in this desolate spot and lives rough while observing the only remaining inhabitants, a pretty little thing called Morag and two competing wee wee wee free pastors, a jolly one called McSurname and a miserable one called Donald, played by the same actor. All three are stranded on the island (which eventually turns out to be a giant turtle) because the rest of the inhabitants have left taking all the boats with them. Into this peculiar Eden comes a serpent in the shape of a noisy Dutch lesbian, a frustrated health and safety officer who cops off with Morag and causes catastrophe all round.
There are some predictable jokes about bass players, intolerant wee frees, health and safety officials etc etc. There are some engaging songs, including a couple of very good ones for the earnest and innocent Morag. But not enough to rescue the show.
It was well-received in Edinburgh. It was less well-received in North London, even though the first night audience included the ex-Python Terry Jones and Adrian Lester and his missis, presumably there to show support as friends of Larner.
Perhaps it started out at 50 minutes, a sort of standard Edinburgh length, and was unwisely expanded to fill an entire evening (with interval).
We would have left during said interval but A said she couldn't: a friend from one of the courses she attends was associated in some way with the production, and to have jumped ship would not have been seemly. We stayed out of solidarity. But D had a glass of wine for fortify her, thus falling off the wagon and abandoning this year's dry season.
A horrible disappointment. We went to see it because the same team (writer-performer Chris Larner, plus composer and musician Mark Stevens) created a little gem a few years ago called The Translucent Frogs of Quup which D and I saw at Edinburgh and then took the kids to when it transferred to the King's Head in Islington, so much had we enjoyed it.
That was a very silly boy's own pastiche tale of a pair of buttoned-up newly-weds travelling up the Amazon or some such, he anxious to find the frogs of the title, she desperate for sexual satisfaction which she eventually finds, if memory serves, in the arms of a scantily-dressed local. It had lots of puns and bad jokes, some jolly songs, a wry narrative by Larner and some exceedingly dodgy props.
They tried to pull the same trick off again and failed. The setting this time: the Hebridean island of Aars (pronounced as you'd expect, allowing for a rousing final song with a chorus which went "Isle of Aars" - geddit? - over and over). Larner plays a bass player who has somehow washed up in this desolate spot and lives rough while observing the only remaining inhabitants, a pretty little thing called Morag and two competing wee wee wee free pastors, a jolly one called McSurname and a miserable one called Donald, played by the same actor. All three are stranded on the island (which eventually turns out to be a giant turtle) because the rest of the inhabitants have left taking all the boats with them. Into this peculiar Eden comes a serpent in the shape of a noisy Dutch lesbian, a frustrated health and safety officer who cops off with Morag and causes catastrophe all round.
There are some predictable jokes about bass players, intolerant wee frees, health and safety officials etc etc. There are some engaging songs, including a couple of very good ones for the earnest and innocent Morag. But not enough to rescue the show.
It was well-received in Edinburgh. It was less well-received in North London, even though the first night audience included the ex-Python Terry Jones and Adrian Lester and his missis, presumably there to show support as friends of Larner.
Perhaps it started out at 50 minutes, a sort of standard Edinburgh length, and was unwisely expanded to fill an entire evening (with interval).
We would have left during said interval but A said she couldn't: a friend from one of the courses she attends was associated in some way with the production, and to have jumped ship would not have been seemly. We stayed out of solidarity. But D had a glass of wine for fortify her, thus falling off the wagon and abandoning this year's dry season.
Part two was marginally better (because shorter and tighter).
The picture is from the Edinburgh production.
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