Below are all the reviews I wrote for Northwestend.com in 2024. (2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020 are also available)
These include Jekyll & Hyde, David Suchet: Poirot And More, L’Amour Du Risque, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Don’t. Make. Tea, Dead Girls Rising, La Traviata, Twisted, Ghost Light, Faustus Project, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Suggestions of the Unexpected, Elizabeth I In Her Own Words, The Red Room, James Whale Beyond Frankenstein, Dusk, Boiler Room 6, #NoFilter, We Forgive You Patina Pataznik, Conspiracy and Ring That Bell.
Enjoy.
Jekyll and Hyde
at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.
This adaptation by Gary McNair of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, is keen to point to its source’s Edinburgh roots, though mostly through the programme and the lead (and only) actor’s Scottish accent. Unlike some recent productions of Great Expectations or Dracula however, it stops short of relocating the story to Scotland. But even the medium of a play represents a coming home of sorts: this story began with the true tale of furniture-maker and lock-breaker Deacon Brodie, about whom Louis Stevenson first co-wrote a play entitled Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life, though it was his later retooling of the idea of duality into the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which would find lasting success.
The story is well-known (spoilers) for its crucial dual role, which lead at least one actor to being suspected of being Jack The Ripper, so convincing was he in the part. Here this is further emphasised by every other role also being played by Forbes Masson, who ably differentiates the characters through body-language and positioning, juggling humour and drama as well he does the odd microphone and hat during conversations.
He is aided by stage designer Max Jones’s multi-tiered set which, as directed by Michael Fentiman, gives Masson space to move around, on and over, according to the needs of the story, with composer and sound designer Richard Hammarton’s work giving us the necessary transitions into the scary parts where Stevenson and McNair’s words are no longer enough.
Less successful is the work of Lighting Designer Richard Howell, which is effective in conjuring up a creepy door in LED, and adding depth and texture to the set and settings through the use of trusses either side of the stage, but less so in its adherence to the new fashion in modern mainstream horror theatre (2.22: A Ghost Story is another recent example) to just line the proscenium arch with LEDs and set them off in the audience’s faces every ten minutes.
Leaving aside the decision someone somewhere has apparently made to exclude photosensitive epileptics from supernatural theatre, it suggests someone felt the drama of the story needed shoring up. 2.22, for example, was a closed room supernatural drama which was transformed into a “horror play” by having lights flashing and loud noises every ten minutes (justified by being “fox noises” outside the building).
At one act, Jekyll and Hyde was shorter and therefore less structurally reliant on these moments to keep the audience engaged before the big pay-off at the end, but that doesn’t make its reliance on them better, only more unnecessary. The need they felt to bring up several times in the show (and once more in the program) the fact everyone knows the big twist going in suggests more insecurity than excitement about this being a well-known classic, as well as a misunderstanding of how suspense works, as famously illustrated by Alfred Hitchcock in his conversation with Francois Truffaut. Having information about a story isn’t a problem, that’s why people are coming to your show. Using information the audience has and the characters lack should be a source of tension, not something to avoid and replace with the theatrical equivalent to a jump-scare. This is not to say, of course, that all technology is evil and wrong, only to question the reliance on something sudden rather than organic, and something which lessens tension in its aftermath rather than building it.
Having said that, for anyone not sensitive to sudden lights, this will no doubt be a minor aspect of this well-directed, well-written and well-acted production of a classic tale which tells its tale economically and with good use of both humour and fear.
Jekyll and Hyde is running at the Lyceum until the 27th January. Tickets can be found at: https://lyceum.org.uk/events/jekyll-and-hyde#dates-and-times
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 16th January 2024 North West End UK Rating: 4
Original review available at: https://northwestend.com/jekyll-and-hyde-royal-lyceum-theatre/
David Suchet Poirot and More, A Retrospective
at the Festival Theatre.
At one point in this show David Suchet tells the audience the moment he knew he had to be an actor. He describes seeing the stage be prepared from the audience and having the epiphany that this was storytelling, that this was magic. If there was ever any doubt that David Suchet was a born storyteller, and there wasn’t, then this show proves it wrong. He has that magic.
Suchet has spent 25 years (or at least part of every one of them) playing Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. His interpretation is widely judged to be the definitive version of the character, not only in its characterisation but also its scope, as the series covered all (or almost all, if we’re being pedantic) of the Poirot novels and short stories, and is said to always be on TV somewhere in the world every second of every day. This could well be judged enough to justify a show, but the “and more” of the title also carries itself. Over the course of an additional 30 years before, during and after Poirot, the Emmy award-winning actor has played such iconic roles such as Lady Bracknell, Antonio Salieri, Augustus Mellmotte, Professor Moriarty and Sigmund Freud.
The first half of the show takes us, guided by the questions of Geoffrey Wansell, through Suchet’s life from his first performances to his training and his most famous roles, thanks to anecdotes, on-screen photos and some stage props. Like a previous Poirot Peter Ustinov, Suchet is a born raconteur, jumping up to narrate or impersonate specific parts in and of his stories, and the show knows that less is more in terms of staging when we have him.
The second half of these shows is often where their individuality can lie. Some just continuing on with the interview, while others shake things up, with an audience Q&A for example. But Suchet is a born actor, and so we open with only a spot in the dark void of Peter Brook’s empty space, screen off, and a monologue from Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, before a crash course in understanding and performing Shakespeare illustrated with monologues from Oberon from Midsummer Night’s Dream, Caliban from The Tempest, Macbeth from some unknown play, and Sonnet 130 from… oh, what were they called? Ah yes, Shakespeare’s Limericks.
Attempts to demystify Shakespeare are always appreciated in a country where schools seem to go out of their way to make him sound difficult and boring, and Suchet is clearly aware of that, keeping things light, clear and concise. Suchet is at pains to underline that he always works in the service of “his” writer, be he/she alive or dead (though most often, he says, they are dead). This process has clearly played its part in the development and success of his Poirot, to which we return near the end, almost like a rock star’s encore often had their biggest hit, with the process to develop the physicality of Poirot, around some final questions from Wansell.
As devised by Suchet in collaboration with Liza McLean, and wife Sheila Suchet, and with structure and interplay provided by Wansell, a friend of Suchet’s for 30 years, the retrospective is polished, with the storytelling matching the calibre of the performer and the contents hitting all the areas a fan would want with honesty, humour and depth. Poirot? Yes. More? Also yes.
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 26th January 2024 North West End UK Rating: 5
Original review available at: https://northwestend.com/david-suchet-poirot-and-more-a-retrospective-festival-theatre/
L’Amour Du Risque
at Manipulate Festival.
In this show by Compagnie Bakélite, a man (show creator Olivier Rannou) is served dinner by a collection of automatised vacuum cleaners piloted off-stage by Morien Nolot. Covered in small tables equipped with everything you need for a meal, including romantic music, tablecloths, a candle and a surplus of spoons, these vacuum actors roam around the lined stage with a mixture of robotic awkwardness and occasional personality, bumping into some objects and ignoring others in their mechanical pursuit of simple functionality.
The result is a comedic and hypnotic mix of Jacques Tati and a Pixar short. We watch as these vacuum cleaners struggle with their restaurant jobs, sometimes cleverly, sometimes not, and sometimes both, under Rannou’s constant but mostly non-judgemental gaze. As the customer, he only gets to intervene when things happen in the wrong order, and by the end of the meal is little more than a paying spectator like the rest of the audience.
The show lives up to its ridiculous idea of a “ballet for robot vacuum cleaners” and, at little over half an hour, knows exactly how far to stretch this novel premise. The dexterity required to make two vacuum cleaners light a match and candle gets applause, the logistics of serving wine get a laugh, and the whole stage ends up a huge mess by the end, with food and drink wiped into the stage by a group of now non-functional hoovers. A fun and clever exploration of a silly but challenging idea, it does exactly what it says on the tin, leaving us, unlike our silent audience stand-in, nothing to complain about.
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 3rd February 2024 North West End UK Rating: 5
Original review available at: https://northwestend.com/lamour-du-risque-manipulate-festival/
Peter Pan Goes Wrong
at the Edinburgh Playhouse.
Mischief (here working with Kenny Wax Ltd and Stage Presence Ltd) is the multi award-winning company responsible for the very popular The Play That Goes Wrong, and its many conceptual spin-offs. These include the BBC One television series The Goes Wrong Show, Mind Mangler – Member of the Tragic Circle, Magic Goes Wrong, Mischief Movie Night and, of course, this evening’s Peter Pan Goes Wrong, which was directed by Adam Meggido, with help from Associate Director Fred Gray.
Like many of their shows, the concept is as complicated as the title. The ‘Cornley Drama Society’ (Jake Burgum (Trevor the Stage Manager ), Jean-Luke Worrell (Francis the Narrator), Ciara Morris (Sandra / Wendy), Theo Toksvig-Stewart (Max / Michael), Clark Devlin (Dennis / John), Jamie Birkett (Annie / Tinkerbell), Gareth Tempest (Jonathan / Peter Pan) and Rosemarie Akwafo (Lucy / Tootles)) are putting on a production of Peter Pan, lead by its two directors, Jack Michael Stacey (Chris/ Captain Hook) and Matthew Howell (Robert / Nana). But before the curtain has even gone up, they have already battled through interpersonal drama, professional and unprofessional differences, and technical issues, and it just goes downhill from there.
The potential for a Peter Pan show – itself a play relying on doubling-up and audience interaction before it even was a book – to go wrong is obvious. One associates the show with multiple exciting locations (set designed here by Simon Scullion), colourful characters too numerous for a practical cast number (here costumed by Roberto Surace) and, for the more panto-y tradition (a source of contention for the in-story directors) elaborate song and dance numbers, not to mention multiple characters needing to fly and fight, sometimes at the same time.
The script, by the Mischief writing trio Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, takes full advantage of the possibilities offered by flying stunts, revolving sets and electrical effects, not to mention musical moments, for which Richard Baker and Rob Falconer have written original numbers. If Noises Off was the farcical approach to this concept, this is the Tom-Cruise-Does-His-Own-Stunts version, with actors on fire, bashing into sets upside down several meters off the stage, or seemingly missing being crushed by centimetres. The cast is uniformly great, each providing their own distinctive voice to the group and energetically committed to the gags and tightly rehearsed stunts.
Peter Pan Goes Wrong is a great addition to the “goes wrong” genre, combining traditional slapstick and the pantomime tradition with modern technology and post-modern deconstruction for a hilarious package. The commitment to the concept spreads in every direction, with last minute running around happening as the audience comes in to take their seats, audio issues and light glitches during the interval and exit music (thanks to the lighting by Matt Haskins and sound by Ella Wahlström), and the programme containing in-character pieces from the obnoxious cast and crew. It takes more than belief to make a show work, but this one can definitely fly.
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 27th February 2024 North West End UK Rating: 5
Peter Pan Goes Wrong is running at the Edinburgh Playhouse until the 2nd March 2024. Tickets are available at: https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/peter-pan-goes-wrong/edinburgh-playhouse/
Don’t. Make. Tea.
at the Traverse.
In a near future in which government attitudes to disability have supposedly been revolutionised, Chris (Gillian Dean), a former police detective now facing a deteriorating condition, receives a visit from Ralph (Neil John Gibson) to “check” whether she is indeed entitled to benefits. But their competing agendas are clearly mutually exclusive: if displays and white lies are not enough, then how far must Chris go to get what she needs?
A dark comedy written by Rob Drummond and directed by Robert Softley Gale, Don’t. Make. Tea. tackles many of the issues of current attitudes towards disability.
As with many stories set in the future, the applicability is clearly in the here and now rather than the impossible. Many of Ralph’s slogans, repetitions and little tricks clearly struck a cord with the audience, with responses suggesting not only sympathy but also recognition of Chris’s plight. When the more thriller aspects of the show take over, these subjects only become more overt, thanks to the character of Jude (Nicola Chegwin) whose very name is a wry joke on a symbol which contrasts with its outlook. As both a wheelchair-user and a powerful figure of the new system, through her the show can directly question her attitudes without ever twirling-moustache-strawman her, Ralph having already sufficiently awoken the sense of injustice and hypocrisy of the system Jude looks after and defends.
The show takes its ethos on accessibility right into its format. All performances are captioned, with BSL interpretation and audio description integrated into the script. It’s a tired cliché these days to call an important aspect of a show that isn’t an actor (isn’t that… most of them?) “almost a character in the show”, but here the audio description and sign language features are literal characters in the show. They go from references in dialogue to flesh-and-blood human beings, Francis and Able, played by the motherly Emery Hunter and Richard Conlon (if Robin Williams played an Alexa), who interact with the lead. This makes becoming in itself a display of inclusivity that contrasts with Ralph’s empty words, and a call for compassion echoed even by the songs playing over the audience’s entrance and interval.
Of course, this also gives Chris people to interact with in moments of solitude, a dramatic device in-of-itself which allows for added layers of humour and communication during dramatic moments. The entire cast play both aspects beautifully, Gillian Dean being both sympathetic and strong as a woman driven to her limit, Neil John Gibson as the often-punshable but human face of a deeply flawed and dishonest system, Emery Hunter juggling (almost literally) the needs to convey the entire show while also being a part of it physically and emotionally, Richard Conlon as an Alexa played (metaphorically) by Robin Williams, and Nicola Chegwin as the show’s added fly-in-the-ointment.
The show’s marriage of theme and plot adds to the appeal of the show, and gets the audience fully involved in the plight of the characters as events become increasingly desperate and darkly farcical. The sloganeering is Ralph’s, not the show’s, and the audience’s response is emotional, as it should be. To say it is more than a dark comedy would be reductive. In fact, it is a very good dark comedy you might get something else out of too.
Don’t. Make. Tea is running at the Traverse until the 22nd March. Tickets can be found at: https://www.traverse.co.uk/book?id=244602
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 21st March 2024 North West End UK Rating: 5
Dead Girls Rising
at the Traverse.
The play opens in media res in a dark forest. At a pivotal moment in their lives, Katie (Helen Reuben) and Hannah (Angelina Chudi) accidentally summon The Furies Tisiphone (Izzy Neish), Magaera (Zoe West) and Alecto (Rebecca Levy), the Greek goddesses of justice. A life-time’s obsession with murder (one in particular, literally close to home) has brought with it consequences and the two young women might need help. We follow them through a series of moments from childhood to adulthood, themed by reasons women and girls learn to fear men (here played by the cast in masks and androgynous/Michael Myers boiler suits) and linked with Riot Grrl-inspired punk songs written by Anya Pearson and performed by the Furies (plus drummer).
At the start, the audience might get a bit caught in the middle of the mix of theatre and punk music, as one tends to call for quiet sitting in the dark and the other for loud interaction in the glare, and one wonders if the audience reaction is the same in the traditional theatres and the community spaces and gig venues which the tour also goes to. However this space in between is where this Hull-based company Silent Uproar (here producing in association with Hull Truck Theatre) operates, dedicated as they are to creating “fun nights out to engage a younger, funkier, and punkier crowd” with “relevant, daring, and bold stories”.
Written by Maureen Lennon and co-directed by Ruby Clarke and Alex Mitchell, Dead Girls Rising is definitely relevant, daring and bold. Managing to tackle many different areas in 100 minutes, it pulls on everything from Greek mythology to true crime podcasts to cover as many facets as possible of the topic of violence against women and girls and plays with its equally diverse audience, seemingly relishing the reactions they must be eliciting from the male portion of the audience before bringing everything together in the second half.
The cast and live band are uniformly excellent, keeping the energy high while balancing some very different tones and sequences, with the set (designed by Lizzy Leach), lighting (by Adam Foley) and sound (by XANA) hitting a good mix between the murky and the brightly-coloured between the spoken and sung. A highly memorable and hard-hitting show that deserves to be seen.
Dead Girls Rising is running at the Traverse until the 23rd May. Tickets can be found at: https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/dead-girls-rising-spring-24
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 21st May 2024 North West End UK Rating: 5
La Traviata
at the Festival Theatre
It is an under-reported fact that the 2001 Baz Luhrman jukebox musical Moulin Rouge is an adaptation of 1853 Verdi opera La Traviata, itself an adaptation of the 1848 novel La Dame aux Camelias, the most famous (and autobiographical) work of Alexandre Dumas Fils (son of the more well-known creator of the Three Musketeers). All three works take place in Paris and, in all three, a famous courtesan (here Hye-Youn Lee as Violetta Valery) with consumption falls in love with an idealistic young man (here Ji-Min Park as Alfredo Germont) with a disapproving father (Giorgio Germont as Phillip Rhodes). She then forsakes all others until convinced to leave him by a father figure, which she does reluctantly with a lie, for an aristocrat (either a Count, a duke, or here Baron Douphol, played by Nicholas Lester) who threatens her lover’s life. Said lover, once spurned, publicly throws money at her in “payment” for their time together, and the two are reconciled only for her to die of the aforementioned secret lung disease.
Maybe these are spoilers, but then all three of these stories are between 176 and 23 years old, and must therefore be considered beyond spoilers. The version currently on stage at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre evidently believes so, as it takes place entirely on the cracked marble tombstone of its female protagonist.
The production was first staged in 2008 by director Sir David McVicar, who was able to advise the rehearsals for this revival, directed by Leo Castaldi. Jennifer Tipton’s lighting is here revived by Robert B Dickson, most strikingly in the corridor of light through which Violetta exits at the end of Act II.
Having not seen the 2008 version, I cannot comment on this one’s faithfulness, or how advised that would be, outside of this production’s evident success in its own right. This story offers certain pitfalls in this day and age, when the concept of a “Fallen Woman” – the literal translation of La Traviata – who finishes her story with a painful death, would raise eyebrows in a modern context, as it did the opposite way in the 1850s (“How daaaare you speak about prostitutes!”).
However the production and text is sympathetic to its lead (as is, even, the disapproving father figure) and the two main actors manoeuvre skilfully through the emotional and musical changes of this doomed whirlwind romance. The rest of the cast is also made good use of, even when they are not technically part of the action, thanks to the transparent back wall through which we can glimpse the dinner parties and balls which form the backdrop of this intimate yet public love story; the latter aspect of which is emphasised here with a bedroom set for Act II scene 1, which cleverly vanishes during the scene. Tanya McCallin’s set is a perfect backdrop to all these scenes, providing luxurious openness, privacy or tragedy with relatively subtle changes.
Thanks to all these elements, the production, advertised as 2 hours and 50 minutes (including two intermissions and, amusingly, one “short pause”) flew by, amply demonstrating why this story and music has survived into its third century and why it is so beloved by both artists and audiences. Marie Duplessis, the inspiration of LA Dames Aux Camelias and its author’s lover, is said to have requested a weak lock upon her coffin as she always felt she would come back to life. Thanks to productions like this, in a way, she does.
La Traviata is running at the Festival Theatre 7, 11, 13 & 15 June 2024, 7.15pm, 9 June 2024, 3pm (Matinee) . Tickets can be found at: https://www.capitaltheatres.com/whats-on/all-shows/scottish-opera-la-traviata/2218
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 7th June 2024 North West End UK Rating: 5
Twisted
at Cre8 Theatre, Edinburgh College.
Twisted is a retelling of Disney’s Aladdin from the point of view of that cartoon’s villain, Jafar (Fionn Cameron/Oliver Payn on alternating nights), portrayed here as a well-meaning public servant struggling to deal with his tragic backstoryTM with Sherrazade (Cosette Bolt), and to fix the Magic Kingdom’s (an amalgamation of Disney and Agrabah) issues, including its incompetent Sultan (Mitch Gardiner), immature princess (Mhairi Goodwin/Heather Richardson), criminal dude-bro Aladdin (Calum Philp/Orla Bayne) and belligerent neighbour Prince Achmed (Darren Walls).
Unsurprisingly, much of the comedy is built around the Disney version of the tale. Quotes from song lyrics from the original film are peppered throughout the dialogue, scenes from the cartoon are comedically described to have happened offstage, and gentle jabs at such elements as Robin Williams’ humour depending on pop culture references abound. Disney being its own brand, it is perhaps unsurprising that the expected knowledge also encompasses Disney as a whole, with parodies of songs (played here by a live band, which is always appreciated) from many different Disney cartoons, a library set of books whose only link is Disney adaptations/films, and plentiful references to the history of Disney, such as the fraught distribution deal with the land of Pixar, the supposed sexual Easter eggs in the films or the firing of all the 2d animators.
At times, the show seems somewhat hamstrung by its loyalty to the Disney film, changing elements where it needs to but also bending over backwards to explain other bits from the film it could have just ignored. The inclusion of other Disney villains in one song would suggest a revisionist take on the material which is ultimately not followed through enough to be truly effective.
However this is really just good-natured, energetic fun, taking a look at a childhood story through another, more adult lens (in both the thematic and somewhat ruder sense) in a funny, revisionist way. (The jabs at the genie’s humour depending on pop culture references even tie into the ending of the show). The cast clearly relish each moment, with Heather Richardson shining as the bratty princess (ironically, a more faithful adaptation of Howard Ashman’s original version of Aladdin), Orla Bayne bringing a perverted Bill & Ted energy to Aladdin, Indrid Heron making full use of the Past Vizier’s few minutes onstage and Cosette Bolt’s sweetness giving the love-story its required weight, while Oliver Payn keeps the show together as the reluctant master of ceremonies to all the insanity. It’s fun for all the family, though not at every age/stage.
Twisted is running at the Cre8 Theatre 25-29 June 2024 . Tickets can be found at: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/6295024
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 25th June 2024 North West End UK Rating: 4
GHOST LIGHT
At the Space @ Niddrie St
In 1865’s London, aspiring author Henry Webster befriends Edward Price at the local Ghost Club. The latter tells Henry about a real haunting at a nearby lodging-house, where the ghosts of two young children apparently wander the house in search of light… The two men decide to investigate.
Orange Works’ Ghost Light is a classic ghost story, being set in Victorian England, including candlelight wanderings, ghostly children’s chants and vengeful spirits. It even name-checks the most famous ghost-story writer of the era, Charles Dickens (well, at least for A Christmas Carol and The Signalman). This gives the production a somewhat predictable quality, though not entirety in a negative way: these tropes are classics for a reason, and the cast are good-storytellers, their voices being vital components since the production is almost entirely lit by lantern-light, in another bold move.
Unfortunately they are let down by the handling of the malevolent paranormal entity, with an attempt at tying him into a pre-existing legend feeling forced and inconsequential, and his closing moment not having the desired effect due partly, and ironically, to ghost lights. Doing the Fringe is a gamble due to limited time in the performance space beforehand, and one feels that the production was expecting parts of the show to be entirely shrouded in a forgiving darkness which, thanks to significant light bleed from such things as fire exit signs, wasn’t the case, adding awkwardness to several scenes, mostly in the climax. One hopes some of this may be corrected for future performances, though the health and safety angle might place the onus on the blocking of the show rather than a more convenient light-switch.
Its cast and lanternlight staging add flavour to Ghost Light’s classic ghost theatre trappings, however these are not enough to elevate it beyond its tropes. The advertising asks “Why would a ghost be afraid of the dark?”. It’s an intriguing question, but fear is an irrational reaction which the villain and staging were better at evoking than provoking.
Ghost Light is running at the Space @ Niddrie Street until the 17th August (not 11th). Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/ghost-light
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 5th August 2024 North West End UK Rating: 3
The Faustus Project
At the C Arts C Alto Studio
Doctor Faustus is universally known as the man who sold his soul to the devil, and that basically sums up the play by Christopher Marlowe. Remembered as a scholar and a rebel, Marlowe’s play is actually quite reactionary, very much boiling down to, between patriotic swipes at the papacy, “I want knowledge, consequences be banned! “No, don’t have knowledge, you’ll be damned!”, “oh no I had knowledge but now I’m damned!’, like the College Humour Ye Old Black Mirror sketch played straight.
As such, it seems a good frame to riff off of, which Half Trick Theatre have done by casting a new actor in the main role each night with no knowledge of the show, with all the comedic opportunities for embarrassment and confusion that offers.
The secret to all these shows is the cast themselves, who must deliver performances while dealing with whatever happens on the night and giving the Faustus Stand-in as much rope as possible to hang themselves with, and the cast here is universally good. Their energy is high, their gymnastics are impressive and their delivery, studied and adlibed, is strong. Several of the added set-pieces work very well, such as the aforementioned pope scene, which here becomes a series of pie in the face gags.
Less effective is a Jackass style undercurrent to some of the humour. Something like “importance of Being Earnest??”, to reference another fringe show with a similar conceit, gives their “performers” clear characters they can exploit when things go wrong, and replacing more and more performers gives the show a rising action, while something like Shitfaced Shakespeare shows the Disruptive element is clearly having fun and is just a problem the rest of the cast has to work around. Now, I’d like to think I’m as much fun as the next person – actually that’s not true, I fully accept I’m the most boring person alive – but when a show gets to the point where a third of the audience are chanting “kill it! Kill it!” to pressure someone into genuinely beating a living creature to death with a mallet, it might be time to say that maybe some fun shouldn’t be had.
I’m sure many would argue that the fact the death is of a large insect makes it fine, yet I would say that few shows deserve a body count, especially not one a night. This deliberate attempt to provoke a less good-natured discomfort colours other gags too, such as when the Faustus is made to think they are involved in a trust exercise gone wrong, or involved in a judo move seemingly without warning. And whereas many of these shows carefully limit the stage time of their victim and give their main cast the brunt of the action, here it is placed upon someone reading Elizabethan verse for the first time, which is itself a challenge to keep fresh and entertaining over 80 minutes entirely spontaneously.Though it is clear the Faustus has been given a safe word to use – and used it was, twice, when the insect had to be killed and then eaten by them-
it still seemed like there was a lot more pressure on the Faustus to be “game” than in most other shows of this nature, and the cast’s “all in” attitude could have been better served as a first resource rather than a last resort. And while some gags and the cast worked well, the show, like Faustus, might have benefited from more humanity and less devilry.
The Faustus Project is running at C Arts C Alto studio Aug 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, 23, 25. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/faustus-project
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 7th August 2024 North West End UK Rating: 2
The Picture of Dorian Gray
At The Space On The Mile
Oscar Wilde’s famous novel (commissioned 125 years ago this month as it happens, during the same dinner that brought back Sherlock Holmes for his second novel) is, in case you didn’t know, about a man who gives up his soul to have his portrait age instead of him. It is presented here in a new adaptation curtesy of ETC theatre company, promising “a fast-paced adaptation featuring music, slapstick and plenty of Wildean wit”.
While I’m not sure I’d agree with the last part of that description outside of the lines plucked straight from the novel – can anything be called Wildean when it includes dancing to Abba and Robbie Williams? – the first two are indeed here in buckets and the show is a joyously silly farce from beginning to end which had its audience laughing throughout.
Playing up the gay subtext for all its worth with an all-female cast playing all the (mostly male) parts, the show makes good use of its sound, lighting and even the occasional prop malfunction to great comedic effect, committing 110% to the cartoonish characters and silly moments to great success. While this wouldn’t be the most accurate introduction to Wilde or the original gothic story about vice and appearance, it is a great hour’s entertainment thanks to its stellar cast and humour.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is running at The Space On The Mile until August 10th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/picture-of-dorian-gray
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 9th August 2024 North West End UK Rating: 4
Suggestions of the Unexpected – The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall
The creators of Any Suggestions, Doctor? The Improvised Doctor Who Parody (who are also called Any Suggestions) return after a limited 2023 Fringe run with their improvised anthology in the style of The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, or whatever that Roald Dahl TV series was called.
With three tales mixing the supernatural and the morality tale – always with humour of course – there is much variety on show, and being a show that changes every night, this is one of the rare occasions when I can illustrate my point without fear of spoilers. On the night I attended, the stories we saw involved an AI (kind of) taking over the world, witchcraft to win a tiddlywinks championship, and a pheasant infestation in an ancestral manor, all based on answers to questions asked of the audience by the host, The Promise Keeper, ably played by Matthew Stallworthy.
The nature of improv is that you don’t know what will happen next and every part will be different, but each member of the cast, Lewis Dunn( also a producer), Louise Jones, James Gamblin and Charles Dean (also the director) got to shine in at least one story. Overall the show was a fun play on short-form moralistic sci/fi fantasy by a solid cast of improvisers. If you like what it says on the tin/poster, you’ll enjoy what you find inside.
Suggestions of the Unexpected is running at The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall until August 24th (except 11th). Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/suggestions-of-the-unexpected-an-improvised-horror-anthology
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 9th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 3
The Red Room – Greenside Riddles Court.
The infamous red room of Lorraine Castle is said to be haunted, and has seen the deaths of several people. But our protagonist (Ellie Ball) is a sceptic and, despite the warnings from the 3 castle inhabitants, has decided to spend the night in the room, alone. Or is she…?
The Red Room was adapted from a story by HG Wells (writer of The War of The Worlds, The Invisible Man, and The Time Machine, amongst others) by the performer’s sister Charlotte Ball. It’s told entirely from the point of view of the protagonist and on that single night (with a few semi-flashbacks through tellings of what happened to previous occupants), with only the performer, a torch and a covered mirror in the corner.
Ball is an energetic and likable performer, bringing both urgency and the occasional moment of humour to her performance. The script, though possibly overly faithful occasionally in its descriptions of actions the performer is doing at the time entirely coherently, lends itself well to the medium and venue, with the location being kept fresh through some effective lighting and sound changes.
The team has effectively brought to life this closed-room spooky story, using their time and space well to adeptly tell an old-fashioned (if less-well known) horror tale by a classic writer.
The Red Room is running at Greenside Riddles Court until August 17th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/red-room
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 14th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 4
James Whale: Beyond Frankenstein – Zoo Southside.
James Whale is remembered today – if he is remembered at all in the mainstream – as the director of the two best classic Universal Frankenstein films Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), as well as The Invisible Man (1933) and, if we’re feeling really fancy, The Old Dark House (1933). However, these were only part of a much longer career, one which saw a small-town English boy become a major Hollywood director in a time in which his homosexuality was illegal and his themes increasingly scrutinised under the Hayes Code.
Written and performed by Tim Larkfield, this one-man show eschews the straightforward approach of having Whale be that one man, telling his own life story, in favour of a series of snapshots from the perspectives of a collection of professional and personal connections from his life. Whale becomes an interviewee, scene partner or unseen subject as Larkfield jumps from partners, to film technicians to family members in quick succession.
It’s an ambitious approach, but one that succeeds. What the play loses in terms of a deep connection to Whale it makes up for with a quick, filmic pace, with Larkfield’s versatile performance, sound and lighting and a single chair (and, of course, a clear script) providing us with all the necessary context for each sequence, and even some lovingly recreated performances from the films.
It’s a tough needle to thread, especially with a show selling itself on the premise of getting you in to discover more about a name you recognise, but Larkfield holds it all together, providing an always entertaining and educational hour that manages to cover most of the facets of the man in under an hour with humour, horror and sympathy for his life, death and work. As more than a dramatised character lecture, this should offer something to both the curious and the informed on this legendary horror (amongst other things) film-maker.
James Whale: Beyond Frankenstein is running at Zoo Southside Studio until August 25th (except 19th). Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/james-whale-beyond-frankenstein
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 15th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 5
Dusk: A Bite-Size Celebration – Greenside @ George Street.
2023’s Fringe sell-out Twilight parody, Dusk: A Bite-Size Love Story, returns in a shorter one-hour format as the “roasting of Edwin and Bea”, a collection of highlights from the 2023 show (and, by extension, of the most famous moments from the Twilight franchise), linked together by the couple’s daughter Regina (or Renesmee in the Sacred Texts).
To anyone not still living the green-tinged mouth-breathing life, this might be a little confusing as the show definitely expects you to know who everyone is – or rather, who everyone is replacing – but clearly this was not an issue for the audience of (mostly) twilight fans, who were howling with laughter throughout.
All the more well-known aspects get skewered. One Bea’s performance (there is more than one: we all need stunt doubles) is 60% lip-biting and manages to be both very-over-the-top and very recognisably Kristen Stewart-y, and there is sparkly skin, while the depression chair song (parodying the montage from New Moon) might be the best part of the show. More niche is stuff like the Charlie-Carlisle romance: was/is that a major ship? The show also makes good use of projection for backdrops and some extra scenes and montages.
Some nicely choreographed musical numbers and a suitably hammy (or is that not vegi-vampire enough?) cast make this silly love letter a show that no twilight fan will want to miss.
Dusk: A Bite-Size Celebration is running at Greenside @ George Street until August 24th (not 18th). Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/dusk-a-bite-size-celebration
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 15th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 4
Boiler Room 6: A Titanic Story – Greenside @ George Street.
Stories of the Titanic’s crew are comparatively rare in popular retellings of the sinking. We remember the opulence of First Class and the tragedy of Third class (and the most famous fictional retellings try to mix both), but underneath the boat-deck, there was a crew that did everything to slow the ingress of freezing water and keep the lights on for the evacuation going on up ahead, and it was this crew that had the lowest survival rate of anyone on the ship.
Written and directed by Tom Foreman, Boiler Room Six tells the story of one such worker, and survivor, stoker Frederick Barrett (played here by Max Beken), who made it out of the flooding of the titular Boiler Room 6, was involved in the desperate and potentially ship-saving attempt to save Boiler Room 5 and several more dramatic fixtures of the Titanic legend.
The story of the Titanic is one of legend, and Foreman’s script perfectly condenses it to a one-man telling for a simple stage, with lights, sound and Beken’s dirty face and wet clothes vividly bringing the location to life. Beken’s performance is masterful, jumping in and out of characters with ease and never letting up on the urgency and tragedy of the situation, making it a titanic story in more ways than one. There are many reasons why the story of the Titanic lives on, and most of them can be found in this one-hour, one-man Fringe play.
Boiler Room 6: A Titanic Story is running at Greenside @ George Street until August 24th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/boiler-room-six-a-titanic-story
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 16th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 5
#NoFilter – Greenside @ George Street.
Based on real stories gathered from conversations and social media, new musical #NoFilter follows three duos and the effects social media has on their lives and relationships. One pair are friends, Sina (Jamie Douglas-Turner), who runs an OnlyFans, and Ember (Vincenzo Dipasquale), who links us with the next two couples, Pandora (Eva-Marie Blaire) & Candor (Sirus Desnoes), and Savannah (Natalie Gray) & King (Aaron Andrews). The former’s relationship is defined by social media, having started on Tinder and seemingly fallen apart through Instagram, while the latter’s was formed in person.
Dipasquale’s Ember is the glue of the show, linking not only the characters but also stories and numbers through his narration, and Dipasquale’s likable performance helps paper over some narrative cracks. Despite the diverse stories and characters on display, Jack Storm’s book feels unfocused, perhaps due to an uncritical look at the “true stories” prioritising reporting over significance.
However, the lyrics (also by Storm) and pop-rock score by Daniel Ruffing are well done and energetically brought to life by the talented leads and ensemble. The accompanying choreography, often done in clinical white, faces lit up by the LED screens of the characters’ phones, also keeps the show propelling forwards. As such, its ambition and talented cast make #NoFilter an energetic and fun addition to the musical genre.
#NoFilter is running at Greenside @ George Street until August 24th (not 18th). Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/nofilter
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 16th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 4
We Forgive You, Patina Pataznik – Gilded Ballon Patter House.
Jake (Jake Glanc) and Liv (Olivia McLeod) go to their High School Reunion maybe partly, totally not entirely, because of Patina Pataznik, the popular, totally gorgeous girl from their year who totally ruined their lives by doing one socially embarrassing thing when they were 13. So when they time travel back to that day, it’s obvious what they have to do: get a gun and kill Patina Pataznik.
While this may seem a camp time-travel horror-comedy, the plot is really a roadmap the show has no issue detouring from for various wacky sketches. While this might seem a waste of a good (albeit more filmic than theatrical) premise, McLeod and Jake’s campy delivery and absurd sense of humour (as well as some handy and inventive props, the over-the-top sound and lighting design) keep this a consistently interesting, hilarious and energetic show, whether it is being what I described above, an alternate split-second life, a french road film, or something else entirely.
More of a showcase of ideas and for its creators, We Forgive You, Patina Pataznik offers the best of the Fringe with a short, bonkers show bursting with ideas and humour that knows how to play to its strength and never outstays its welcome.
We Forgive You, Patina Pataznik is running at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose until August 26th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/we-forgive-you-patina-pataznik
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 18th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 4
Conspiracy – Hill Street Theatre.
Conspiracy is the story of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, the secret 90 minute-meeting chaired by the SS which put in place the Final Solution, responsible for the deaths of at least 6 million Jews (as well as some other groups). This stage version by Strawmoddie and RFT, a remount of their 2018 production, was adapted from the 2001 TV film of the same name, itself adapting the authentic script taken from the only surviving transcript from the meeting.
Following in the steps of the HBO film is no mean feat. Its cast included Colin Firth, David Threlfall, Kenneth Branagh, and Stanley Tucci, the latter two of which won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award respectively. However the point of the story is to put you into the room of the most evil “this could have been an email” office meeting in history, and this stage production therefore has the advantage of being able to literally put you in the same room as these people, filing in as you do between two sets of chairs, one around tables for the conference, and the other in lines for the audience.
Before we even start, we can see the clear attention paid to everything, from the more relatable food platters and stationary to the more historical uniforms, and after we are joined by the cast we continue to see this attention to reality, with both the TV origins and the reality of the situation respected through the snippets of conversation that come to us over the overall mutterings of the Nazi socialising.
The cast is uniformly (oh no, a pun) good, each a clear human being with a job, while also clearly being… well, who history has correctly judged them to be. The two halves are clearly in evidence, for example, in Heydrich’s musings on a peaceful retirement interspersing his one-track obsession with genocide.
It was at the trial of Adolf Eichman – present here, of course – that the phrase “the banality of evil” was first coined, and its meaning is clearly in evidence here, albeit brought enthrallingly to life by Strawmoddie and RFT. Decades of over-exposure in comedies and pulp entertainment have sometimes made it difficult to recognise this evil in the act, and Conspiracy is an important reminder that it is done by people, with deniability, rules, purpose, and sometimes even shame, but done none the less.
Conspiracy is running at Hill Street Theatre until August 25th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/conspiracy
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 18th August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 5
Ring That Bell! – The Space on The Mile.
Fallen angels Lucy (Grace Baker) and Bubs (Eleanor Tate) are here to direct you, dead person so in denial you think you might be at a Fringe show, to your assigned circle of Hell, which might be the ring of (actual) fire, the billionaire ball pit, the circle jerk or the cone of shame. But as the presentation unfolds, Lucy and Bubs’ mutual resentment bub-bles (geddit) to the surface as they confront their conflicting views on the events of their fall, not to mention the soul that they let turn into goo that they almost definitely shouldn’t have.
Part of playwright Kira Mason’s inspiration for the show was about responding to heteronormative models of paradise and about the focus on punishing and excluding those we categorise as unworthy, and the play definitely has a Miltonian “better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven” attitude, albeit one that includes Vanilla Ice, condoms, and anti-cat propaganda, though this angle feels somewhat underdeveloped where it pertains to its protagonists.
Baker and Tate are an endearing double-act, one with a cheery customer service attitude hiding a more hellish bent, and the other with a more deadpan fury, counterintuitively due to her more heavenly persuasion. Their personalities are clearly delineated and their comic banter and physical humour consistently good.
In director Matthew Attwood’s hands, Ring That Bell is an enjoyably comedic turn around hell that, much like its fallen angel Lucy, knows how to keep things fun, even when facing the hardships of a broken kettle.
Ring That Bell is running at The Space on The Mile until August 24th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/ring-that-bell
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins
Reviewed: 21st August 2024
North West End UK Rating: 4
The Brenda Line
at the Traverse Theatre
Inspired by the lesser-known history of the Samaritans in the 1970s and ’80s, The Brenda Line is about Karen (Charlotte Grayson) and Anne (Fiona Bruce), a new-start and an old-hand during their first Samaritans night-shift together. Both are there to answer the phone and help callers (voiced here by Colin McCrodie, Eden Barrie, and Ali Watt), with Karen also hoping to get inspiration for a book out of them. However, reality and experience don’t always live up with ideals, not least of which through the existence of the Brenda Line, the Samaritans philanthropic sex-line.
Grayson and Bruce effectively anchor the show through their performances, with Bruce in particular conveying well the earthy weariness of reality against Grayson’s two-dimensional idealism and imagination. Harry Mould’s script, though apparently inspired by real-life events in their mother’s teenage life, is at times predictable (I heard at least 3 audience members whisper the punchline to a joke about 2 minutes ahead of the actors), however, with that minor caveat, both it and Ben Occhipinti’s direction ably juggle comedy and drama in a, at times literally, locked room.
Speaking of the setting, Natalie Fern’s design effectively sets the period – aided with some popular introductory Thatcher-bashing in Niroshini Thambar’s sound design – the set also giving the actors geography and props to set business around and immersing the audience in the time and place, with some minor concessions made to reality. We must tip our hats to the usher stationed each night to make sure the audience keeps their dirty paws off the carpet while entering or leaving the space, or to characters apparently able to read a book in the dark.
However these are very minor quibbles which I am sure even those who notice will not mind in a show which, with both comedy and drama, pulls back the curtain on topics which are both period and present, even when certain facets may not be very well known to us.
The Brenda Line is running at the Traverse Theatre until 16th November 2024 . Tickets can be found at: https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/the-brenda-line-autumn-24
Reviewer: Oliver Giggins Reviewed: 14th November 2024 North West End UK Rating: 4
The Verbal Diarist 