Theatre
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Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales
10 Aug 2012
Julia Donaldson over-kill
Scamp Theatre’s 2011 adaptation of Stick Man was a skilful blend of lively storytelling, great songs and playful actors. They did Julia Donaldson proud. So it comes as something of a disappointment to see what they’ve done with Tiddler. As you would…
Treasure Island
10 Aug 2012
Comedy on the seven seas
There’s nothing groundbreaking about this new show from Derby’s Uncontained Arts. But sometimes it’s OK to just tell it like it is, and Treasure Island has enough unusual characters and exciting plot developments for them to get away with it. Building…
Midnight at the Boar’s Head
9 Aug 2012
Shakespeare's characters meet and clash in a folksy pub setting
Here’s one: a porter, a king and a shrew walk into a bar. What happens next? Midnight at the Boar’s Head bumps Shakespeare’s characters’ heads together as they meet in a pub to get drunk, pick fights and flirt with strangers, all in Shakespeare’s…
Africa Calling
10 Aug 2012
Song, dance and drumming from Grassroots of Zimbabwe
Aside from drummers, dancers and phenomenal singers, at the centre of this understated extravaganza is a huge beating heart and a simple message of peace, love and unity. Zimbabwe-based Grassroots tours schools, prisons and local communities with…
Morning
10 Aug 2012
Play for teenagers exerts a certain painful fascination
At first glimpse Simon Stephens’ ‘play for young people’ seems to take place in the same universe as an episode of Hollyoaks. Stephanie (Scarlet Billham) and her friends at sixth-form college hang out and have breathless discussions about sex, clothes…
My Robot Heart
10 Aug 2012
Stylish, likeable one-woman show with live band
This charming one-woman show slathered with well-observed social satire about wardrobes, Morrissey, and the rules of the playground asks an important question: ‘If it’s only physiologically possible to be in love for 12-18 months, then what on earth…
And No More Shall We Part
10 Aug 2012
Deeply affecting contemplation of voluntary euthanasia
Voluntary euthanasia is possibly the most contentious moral issue of our times; made more urgent by both economic austerity and an ageing population. It is, perhaps, surprising therefore that the theatre hasn’t broached the subject more often than it…
Machines for Living
10 Aug 2012
Perky, admirable Fringe debut from promising young company
‘Writing about music,’ Frank Zappa famously said, ‘is like dancing about architecture.’ Well, there’s plenty of the latter in Let Slip’s perky Fringe debut: a goofy, spoofish critique of the Brutalist ideal that gradually caked Britain’s cities in…
Turn of the Screw
10 Aug 2012
Hand-carved puppets in assured adaptation of Henry James thriller
Assured adaptation of Henry James’ thriller Henry James’ slow-burning thriller, Turn of the Screw, demands an exceptionally sophisticated approach. It’s a sign of HookHitch Theatre’s determined ambition that they’re willing to tackle this piece at the…
Blake’s Doors
10 Aug 2012
Existential grappling that overreaches its capabilities
Revolving Shed, from the London School of Economics, offers a bleak meditation on the human condition. A neat framing device sets up the idea of human life being something between everything and nothing, existing in the momentous and the mundane before…
Dead Souls
9 Aug 2012
David Johnstone celebrates Gogol’s masterpiece in his single actor adaptation
Adapting a novel for the stage is always a challenge; especially so when, like Gogol’s Dead Souls, the focus lies in the psychology of characters rather than the action. In this case there is a big risk of making the adaptation either shallow or boring.
Night of the Big Wind
9 Aug 2012
Touching show set in an Irish fishing village, ambitiously told
Following last year’s hugely enjoyable Street Dreams, Canterbury-based Little Cauliflower Theatre Company return with more puppetry, physical theatre and clowning in this whimsical and sometimes dewy-eyed show set in an Irish fishing village. But here…
Teach Me
9 Aug 2012
Touching comedy from Edinburgh-based young company
Simon is a naïve 18-year-old, keen as mustard to get his first taste of naughtiness but clueless about how it all works. Emma is ten years older, in a ‘complicated’ relationship with a married man, and now unexpectedly alone with Simon in a bedroom at a…
Belt Up Theatre’s A Little Princess
9 Aug 2012
Unengaging adaptation of a timeworn classic
Young York company Belt Up Theatre have been the toast of the Fringe in recent years for their immersive, intensive renditions of stories new and old, but it feels like things have gone off the boil slightly with this staging of Frances Hodgson…
Lingua Frank
9 Aug 2012
Grindingly obvious comedy with lame jokes fails talented cast
Lingua Frank is supposedly a comic play but is really a sketch show, stretched to snapping point. The scant plot revolves around bumbling English Language tutor Frank (Harry Gooch), who has lost his girlfriend and is on the brink of losing his job. A…
Captain Ko and the Planet of Rice
9 Aug 2012
Sci-fi triptych scuttled by a slow pace and repetition
This retro sci-fi two-hander walks the fine line between conceptually impressive and impressively boring. While this trio of sketches is certainly interesting, ultimately the slow pace, repetitiveness, and rejection of narrative make watching it an…
People Like Us
9 Aug 2012
An A-grade for effort, but sadly Savage Theatre fails to hit the spot
Young company Savage Theatre have brought a beast of a play to the Fringe this year. With its harrowing subject matter, tempestuous characters and broken dreams, People Like Us should be a gripping and engaging drama. Young lovers Simon and Stacey…
Hearts on Fire
9 Aug 2012
Immersive recreation of 2009 sweat lodge deaths
The Fringe guide makes this sound like a participatory event, but it's not any more so than any other performance. It is immersive, though, with a setting inside a heated sweat lodge at the top of C's most recently commandeered venue. Recreating the…
Glasgow's Theatre Royal to get £11.5m refit
8 Aug 2012
The building, owned by Scottish Opera, is to be opened up as 'a social hub'
Glasgow’s Theatre Royal will receive a £11.5m refit in a bid to transform the historic theatre space into a world-class venue. The redevelopment of the 19th century building includes plans for a new entrance, foyer and roof garden, as well as new bars…
The Prize
8 Aug 2012
Steve Gilroy and Richard Stockwell's latest not quite living the Olympic dream
Gold and silver are mere split seconds apart. Hair’s breadths. There’s just as little between Olympians and Paralympians: a ladder that slips; a bout of meningitis; an IED underfoot. Life may not be fair, but – as the London 2012 hopefuls and former…
NOLA
8 Aug 2012
Underwhelming take on the 2010 BP oil spill
Theatre company Look Left Look Right scored two hits last year with innovative interactive pieces – You Once Said Yes and You Wouldn’t Know Him, He Lives In Texas – and their offering this year is a verbatim documentary piece about the 2010 BP oil…
Nggrfg
8 Aug 2012
Stereotypically confessional coming-of-age tale
Aged 16, Buddy aspires to grow up to become Canada’s Prime Minister. His teacher pooh-poohs the idea: ‘Because your bl...’ He checks himself. ‘I’ve never known a politician as – um – flamboyant as you.’ Buddy’s too camp to be black and too black to…
Oliver Reed: Wild Thing
8 Aug 2012
Rob Crouch paints a blazing theatrical portrait of the renowned boozer
In this excellent one-man show, the renowned hellraiser recounts his wayward life from beyond the grave and, appropriately, during the course of a mammoth boozing session. Rob Crouch does a superb job of playing the British film star of the 1960 and…
You Obviously Know What I’m Talking About
8 Aug 2012
Intelligent comic theatre about obsessive-compulsive nerd is surprisingly good
This cleverly devised bit of comic theatre boasts a marvellous set. Good job, too, given it concerns an extreme obsessive-compulsive, a reclusive nerd named Winfield Scott-Boring, whose entire carefully ordered daily life takes place within the confines…
Irreconcilable Differences
8 Aug 2012
Car crash drama is punchy and heartfelt if ultimately rather hackneyed
A couple. A car crash. Who lives? You decide. In reality, Benjamin and Pollyanna are clinging to life from their adjacent operating tables. We see them in an abstract limbo, tied together at the wrists, scrapping for our sympathies in order to…
