Issue 637

Wolfboy

Unintentionally funny, with unmemorable songs

21 Aug 2009

This musical adaptation of Brad Fraser’s play feels like someone’s titillating soft-core fantasy, in which two troubled boyband-pretty teens with hard bodies and perky nipples come very close to kissing but can only cope with bashfully simulating…

Around the World in 80 Days

Steve Coogan in the recent interpretation of the classic adventure

21 Aug 2009

The little ones will be back at school soon, but if the schizophrenic weather is doing your head in then it may be time for Saturday morning trip to the cinema. This chaotic and silly adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel starring Steve Coogan and Jackie…

Ritter, Dene, Voss

Torment amongst siblings

21 Aug 2009

Skilful acting and inventive staging underpin this menacing yet comic tale, in which two sisters bring their brother home from a mental institution and are confronted by their fraught relationships over the dinner table. Taking Austrian writer Thomas…

The Dandelion’s Story

The circle of life

21 Aug 2009

A dog drops an enormous poo. The lonely shite is then shunned by birds, chickens and farmers until a delicate friendship is formed between her and a clod of earth, and she turns into a dandelion. This Korean variation on The Ugly Duckling with physical…

Words of Honour

Lifting the lid on the Italian mafia

21 Aug 2009

This exposé of the inner workings of the Sicilian mafia is a frustrating failure. Based on Attilio Bolzoni’s Parole D’Honore, it uses the testimony of an investigative journalist and a handful of criminals to lift the lid on life inside the Cosa Nostra.

A Fistful of Snow

The strange but amusing tale of an estranged writer

21 Aug 2009

Danny Alder plays Chester James, a writer who has inexplicably ended up in Svalbard guarding the world seed bank, paralysed by the success of his first novel, and with only an inflatable moose, a pompous budgie and a hungry polar bear for company. It’s…

The Rap Guide to Evolution

Combining Chuck D and Charles Darwin

21 Aug 2009

Part gig, part stand up, part lecture, Baba Brinkman, the man who brought you The Rap Canterbury Tales, tackles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Instantly accessible, destroying creationism through the music of The Notorious BIG, Dead Prez, Mobb Deep and…

No Parole: Family is a Life Sentence

A true story of rocky relationships and career criminal mums

21 Aug 2009

One man show from Carlo D’Amore concerning his life and rocky relationship with his career criminal mother and her one woman crime wave from Peru to America. This true story is touching, funny, poignant, outrageous and very personal but is ultimately…

Nightfall

Experimental mime

21 Aug 2009

Hurtwood Theatre Company’s experimental work is a charming meditation on different forms of love. At first relying solely on mime, the impreciseness of some of the actors’ movements means a few sequences are hard to follow. But as the form progresses…

I Don’t Live Here Anymore

Poignant rather than heavy

21 Aug 2009

Emma’s dying, David’s wondering how to move on. We see scenes from the beginning and end of the relationship. The audience might feel weighed down were it not for interruptions from two jocular narrators, who extrapolate subtexts and keep things…

George in the Dragon’s Den

Bringing the Saint into the 21st century

21 Aug 2009

The tale of St George is brought into the 21st century as the eponymous hero becomes an illegal Polish worker and the dragon a greedy banker. Performed entirely in verse, the spoken word dominates and confuses, while attempts at creating a…

Parents’ Evening

Interactivity brings the fear of parents' evening to life

21 Aug 2009

This interactive show works best in its first five minutes. Brief one-on-one encounters with the staff of Aultyme High easily recreate the dread of parents’ evening. Group activities follow, and while fun, these never achieve the same kind of genuine…

Been So Long

Great tunes, pounding voices and beguiling dialogue

19 Aug 2009

The Scottish premiere of Che Walker and Arthur Darvill’s straight play-turned musical brings a bittersweet reflection upon love and our fear of it, tempered by a sardonic streetwise wit, which, pleasingly, isn’t nearly as tough as it makes out. The…

Broken Records

A dry atmosphere and a workmanlike performance

19 Aug 2009

Promoted to the Queen's Hall after last year's Edge festival performance at the Liquid, and following a year of showing the world just how beautiful music can be, you'd think this old cacophonous church would be the ideal place to show off the…

Where Eagles Dare/The Bridge of Remagen

19 Aug 2009

Fans of great war movies shouldn’t miss this great Sunday double bill which has been programmed to coincide with the release of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (see review). Brian G Hutton’s familiar but still brilliant 1968 men-on-a-mission epic…

The Grind Show

Carnival slapstick and profound questioning from the TBA Collaborative

19 Aug 2009

A mix of slick physical theatre and naturalistic dialogue, The Grind Show follows wide-eyed ‘Boy’ through a surreal circus. Underworld characters, including the double-bodied Miss Von Ambourg (whose act involves splitting apart to throw daggers at her…

Susurrus

A triumphant reworking of David Leddy’s boundary-pushing piece

19 Aug 2009

A triumphant reworking of David Leddy’s boundary-pushing piece of promenade audio-theatre. While at first it feels odd setting off around the Botanics, map in hand, Leddy’s dark tale of an opera singer’s family, loosely based on A Midsummer Night’s…

Jack Mink

A mesmerising spectacle

19 Aug 2009

Blending improvisation with mime, humour with tragedy, this show is entirely what you make of it. Mink in Victorian-style garb and clown make-up welcomes you to his space and presents a series of hypothetical situations that on this occasion included…

Phil and Phill

Toe-curling awkwardness

19 Aug 2009

Phil and Phill are best mates. So much so that they’re planning a double wedding: if they can find some brides. The show’s intention is one of studied discomfort as the pair occupy a far too close relationship for onlookers to witness, but the result is…

Almost Like a Virgin

Strikes an impressive pose

19 Aug 2009

The problem with pretending to be someone else is that there’s always a chance the audience will want more of them and less of you. This ode to the Queen of Pop is a case in point. Madge impersonator Evelyne Brink strikes an impressive pose as she belts…

Killing Me Softly

Rhyming couplets that feel remarkably natural

19 Aug 2009

In this one-man verse play, we are guests at a ‘welcome-home party’ for Sylvia, complete with 80s pop and cheap decorations. Slowly - in rhyming couplets that feel remarkably natural - we learn why we're invited. Our host is chatty, evasive, and…

The Moonfish Rhumba

A jarring clash between the potential and the misfiring, crude reality

19 Aug 2009

Billed as a ‘unique blend of musical mayhem and off-the-wall comedy’, this double act is, at least, visually unique as Dan Lees and Guy Combes sport the looks of a 1930s detective and a Hispanic Freddie Mercury respectively. Their material is a…

Michael Fabbri

Destined for a bigger stage

19 Aug 2009

The Brighton funnyman brings a strong, very smoothly delivered set, with tales about being employed in a job centre, and snippets of internet forum abuse making for smart comedy fodder. A section with melodramatically soppy background music is a…

Super Situation

An engaging physical performance

19 Aug 2009

Imagine a super heroine with a banal suburban life who, between foiling an evil genius repeatedly attempting to destroy the earth, likes nothing more than to curl up in front of the telly with a pizza, and you’ve seen the whole joke of this one-woman…

Porn: the Musical

Misses the money shot

19 Aug 2009

Conceived in Malta, this bawdy sing-along tells the story of a native nerd who trades his small island for the Big Apple and finds happiness making skin flicks in the US. The parody of stage musicals is energetically performed, but it’s too raucous for…