Theatre and Matt Boothman

Poland 3 Iran 2

Merhdad and Chris share the political football

9 Aug 2010

Iran’s narrow defeat at the hands of Poland in the 1978 World Cup serves more as punctuation than as the main text of this lecture-cum-barroom shaggy dog story. Lecture because its main visual element is a slideshow; barroom tale because it’s told in a…

Stripped

Insightful, not salacious

23 Aug 2010

Hannah Chalmers proves herself a versatile performer in this one-woman show, dropping comfortably into an array of archetypes: the naïve first time stripper, the lecherous club manager, the nervous, kind-hearted client. Chalmers seems to acknowledge…

Others

Impressive piece of verbatim theatre exploring the modern media

19 Aug 2010

Jemma and Kylie, two thirds of the Paper Birds, perch in an armchair and speculate about Nazim, an Iranian woman Jemma’s been corresponding with by post. Maryam, the third Bird, plays Nazim, updating her performance to reflect her colleagues…

Cirque de Legume

They must be aiming to be ‘so bad it’s good’

14 Aug 2010

The most impressive feat achieved in this send-up of circus performance is training the audience, Pavlov-style, to applaud whenever the phrase ‘How ‘bout that?’ is uttered – whether it follows a ‘levitating’ radish or an onion ‘striptease’. The two…

The Door

An unexpected outcome to an ultimately un-engaging play

11 Aug 2010

Two men argue in spiteful spirals about responsibility and religion as a door bangs offstage. Each has his own particular brand of self-righteous posturing; both are equally grating. The outcome of the debate is unexpected without being contrived, and…

The Sum Of It All...

Storytelling to the fore in melancholic, stimulating multimedia extravaganza

26 Jul 2010

Anomic is a brand new company, never before seen at the Fringe – but the style of the company’s debut, The Sum Of It All..., will ring some bells for Zoo regulars. Dan Shorten, Anomic’s artistic director, was also a co-founder of Precarious, and the…

The Tartuffe

Belt Up makes the impossible possible

10 Aug 2009

Belt Up’s immersive Red Room programme was among the most exciting events at last year’s Fringe. Even sharing a line-up with six other highly praised productions, The Tartuffe managed to stand out. The 2009 version is even better. The great (and…

Gutted. A Revenger’s Musical

Elaborate but strangely poorly thought-out revenge

15 Aug 2010

Orphaned Sorrow has finally married her parents’ murderer, step one in her elaborate but strangely poorly thought-out revenge. Early on her resolve fluctuates for the sake of making her redeemable, instead making her a ditherer: an even less sympathetic…

The Harbour

Folk tale’s inherent poignancy still manages to show through

14 Aug 2010

Peter, a fisherman, falls for a selkie (a seal-woman) he finds in his nets. Peter is at sea a lot, not to mention underdeveloped as a character, so the focus falls on the strained relationship between ‘Sally’ the selkie and Peter’s mother Betty. Sally…

Poignant

Three Argentinean stories are narrated consecutively

14 Aug 2010

The effort that’s gone into creating this multimedia experience is phenomenal considering its brevity. Three Argentinean stories are narrated consecutively through our headphones as we move through the environments being described, watching the action…

Lorca is Dead

A lament in the key of surrealism

13 Aug 2010

Belt Up’s eulogy for Federico Garcia Lorca is anything but a stately affair. So much happens, and continues happening, all at once, in such a short space of time, that it’s impossible to pay attention to it all, and frequently difficult to know what is…

The Vanishing Horizon

Idle Motion stick to their winning formula

11 Aug 2010

Did someone accuse Idle Motion of being one-hit wonders? Because as if in response to such an accusation, the company has recreated the success of its 2009 smash Borges and I with near-scientific precision. Recreated, that is, as opposed to…

Julien Cottereau - Imagine-toi

Former Cirque du Soleil performer conjures a spectacle from nothing

10 Aug 2010

The power of Julien Cottereau’s imagination knows no bounds. He has only to imagine a ball to make it as tangible for the audience as for himself. When he imagines an adorable suffering puppy, no one has the heart to put it out of its imaginary misery.

Operation Greenfield examines the complications of being a teenager

Risky theatre from Little Bulb’s latest Fringe show

27 Jul 2010

It may sound counter-intuitive, but in an environment like the Fringe, where envelopes are being pushed and boundaries broken in every second venue, a degree of restraint can be the best way to stand out. Little Bulb don’t claim that their folksy tales…

Belt Up

Acclaimed audience-centric company returns to the Fringe with nine shows

26 Jul 2010

Remember that unruly rabble that spent last August squatting in C Soco? The ones that kept partying and fighting the nights away with hordes of strangers? Well, they’re back, and this time they’re really making themselves at home.

Me Too – A Sideshow

Would play better somewhere more intimate

24 Aug 2009

Ulrike Quade’s one-woman show, about the outrageous, tragic life of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet, would benefit from a change of space. The Majestic is too large for sideshows, and the play’s dream-logic plotlessness would play better somewhere more…

A Tribute – Gielgud’s Ages of Man

Good, but a poor fit for the Free Fringe

24 Aug 2009

Billed at two hours, George Innes rushes to complete his tribute to Gielgud on time, losing several impatient people halfway through. It’s a shame; while his Romeo lacks youthful vigour, Innes is an imperious Prospero, and reads Gielgud’s letters with…

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…

Oh, My Green Soap Box

Whimsical yet heartfelt

19 Aug 2009

Lucy Foster aims to illuminate why we haven’t yet pulled our collective finger out and saved the planet. We get sidetracked by the trials of everyday living and loving just as her proposed game-changing environmental campaign gets sidetracked by…

Home

Fails to play to the company’s strengths

13 Aug 2009

Berkshire’s Theatre Oikos have their hearts in the right place, but that can’t conceal the fact that on the whole they aren’t particularly good actors or storytellers. The dance elements are the highlight of immigration fable Home. Imagery subtly…

Chronicles of Long Kesh

Martin Lynch’s history of the infamous Irish prison camp

12 Aug 2009

A cappella Motown numbers provide an unexpectedly effective accompaniment to Martin Lynch’s history of the infamous Irish prison camp. The episodic style allows the well-drilled ensemble to cover decades of Troubles – from internment through hunger…

The Bitter Belief of Cotrone the Magician

Package tour theatre is worth it for the scenery

10 Aug 2009

Considering it demands £25 of your cash and nearly five hours of your time, Cotrone the Magician is inexcusably incomprehensible and unsatisying as a piece of theatre. But it’s also impossible to judge independent of its venue – the island of Inchcolm…

The Tiger Lillies' 7 Deadly Sins

21 Aug 2008

You’re all going to Hell. That’s the message the Tiger Lillies are gleefully preaching with the help of a punk Mister Punch and his civil partner Jude. Gogol Bordello and Flogging Molly influence the Lillies’ distinctive sound, which flavours…

Padamme, Padamme

21 Aug 2008

Monolingual Brits will inevitably miss some of Teatr Ecce Homo's captivating ensemble sequences while reading the (frequently frozen) surtitles, in this adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward. Fluid movement work grants…

Reasonable Doubt

Confessions in a Sydney hotel suite

14 Aug 2008

Two former jurors reunite in a hotel room two years after a controversial hung verdict in this smart two-hander from Australian playwright Suzie Miller. Both harbour guilty secrets, and sex – initially top priority – is soon shelved in favour of a…