comedy

William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged), Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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When I was a teenager, I discovered the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). My love for Shakespeare had already started to grow, and I thought the script was brilliantly funny and clever. I never saw a professional production of it, or any of the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s subsequent plays, until their newest, William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (Abridged).

I found it hugely disappointing. The humour I found so witty and topical in the mid-90s, though updated, is bound in hackneyed and punny dialogue. The lack of fourth wall is great, but the panto-esque delivery feels cheesy, dated and over long. The script is fine in concept, but its execution is muddy. My tastes have clearly changed over the last twenty years and the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s work is no longer has the impact it once did.

However, the packed house laugh plenty so their style and concept are clearly still popular. Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor’s play is a mashup of most, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays in one. Found in a Leicester carpark with a pile of bones, this is the never before seen script where Shakespeare tries to fit all his ideas in one in a totally nonsensical story.

Martin, Tichenor and Teddy Spencer are the three performers who play all roles. Their quick changes and timing are most impressive, though they rely on stale stereotypes and basic jokes to generate characters. Ariel from The Tempest becomes the mermaid, a handful of characters are inexplicably gay, and there’s even a joke about Viagra. (Are Viagra jokes even funny anymore?)

The show and the company are still popular after all these years, in spite of shallow, unsophisticated humour. Though the format clearly has staying power and wide appeal, it’s distinctive style in one for those with a penchant for comedy.

William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged) runs through 29th August, then tours.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

People of the Eye, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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Elizabeth has two daughters. Her youngest is “fine”. Her eldest has profound hearing loss. This diagnosis, in our able-bodied world with all its bias and privilege for those that are “normal”, is a hard one to take. Elizabeth wrestles with guilt, frustration and the never before considered world of adaptation to suit her daughter’s needs.

Theatre maker and actor Erin Siobhan Hutching grew up in a mixed D/deaf and hearing household. Collaborating with the Deaf & Hearing Ensemble, People of the Eye is her story, and those of families everywhere. It tells of parents, siblings, signing and secret languages. Projections and signing facilitates aid accessibility and support storytelling, creating a heartwarming montage of moments. The story is thin, but the message is clear: living in both the D/deaf and hearing world is a blessing.

Emily Howlett performs with Hutching as Elizabeth’s eldest. She signs as well as speaks and takes on several roles: a doctor, a sign language teacher and one of the two central characters. She and Hutching have a lovely chemistry and are generally believable as young siblings. Hutching also switches between Elizabeth and her younger daughter; these transitions are not always clear.

There is an added pedagogic element of Elizabeth taking a sign language class where the audience becomes the rest of the class. Though good fun, it is slightly forced – the story of this family is much more engaging than a lesson.

People of the Eye could certainly do with fleshing out, and its initial premise and structure are robust enough to withstand further development. The performances are engaging and they provide a lovely insight into family life with a disabled family member. The visual structure is a model for other productions seeking to increase their accessibility and can easily be applied to shows where deafness is not specific to the script. It’s a fantastic start with great potential.

People of the Eye runs through 27th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Declaration, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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Sarah wants to know everything. She’s inquisitive, gregarious and energetic, the life and soul of any party. But now that she’s in her thirties and wants to start a family, she needs to sort out some of her issues. So, she goes to a doctor to talk through all the behaviour quirks she’s had since childhood – the trouble sleeping, the irrational impulses, the disorganisation, the obsessions.

Diagnosis: ADHD.

Now that she knows what the problem is, does it really solve anything? Will a label help, or hinder? Will medication change the person that she’s always been and actually quite likes? Declaration is an honest, heartwarming solo performance that resonates with those of us who have always felt a bit different or care about people who are a bit weird or quirky. Written and performed by Sarah Emmott, with energy and charisma that’s undeniable, Declaration needs a few minor adjustments to make it an even slicker show.

Emmott’s script has the consistent theme of wanting to please but pesky impulses to do all sorts of irrational things get in the way. As an adult, she has developed coping mechanisms (which she marvelously demonstrates with audience help), but as a child, she was a loose cannon. The story of her childhood picks up once she introduces the superhero personal she invented for herself and a doll, Samantha, who is everything that she never could be. The opening exposition, though having important information, lacks the punch and the belly laughs that these sections have. Additionally, some of her transitions need clarity; consistent use of sound, lighting or changing props would help indicate a scene change.

Emmott develops a marvellous rapport with the audience from the moment they enter the theatre. She has the sort of natural magnetism that cannot be taught in any drama school, an innate quality that actors either have or don’t. Laughing and chatting, her stated need to know everything and everyone is evident. The audience rallies to her wide-eyed wonder, and snarky comments about school, doctors and other frustrations get plenty of laughs.

As Sarah works out how to get through life and a diagnosis has the potential to either change everything or nothing, the audience is with her the entire way. She uses props and audience interaction effectively, though she could use tech to further enhance the theatrical experience. Her lovable on-stage persona is a charming reminder that anyone we know may be struggling with mental health, learning or behaviour issues, and even though a few tweaks could be made to improve the show, she dares us to accept her, flaws and all.

Declaration was a one-off performance.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

The Ruff Guide to Shakespeare, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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There’s a good amount of Shakespeare-based work for children and young people at the fringe, which is a great way to introduce children to his work as well as give theatre makers a chance to experiment with different styles when approaching the bard’s text. The Ruff Guide to Shakespeare is a mashup of his most popular plays and characters with a biography of his life. There’s a lot packed into an hour, perhaps too much for the primary school middle years that are the target audience age. The show is otherwise well written, well performed and the story line constructed out of Shakespeare’s life gives it a solid grounding on which to sample extracts of his work.

Six Bristol Old Vic students perform Toby Hulse’s script. Though there isn’t a weak link amongst the cast, the strongest by far is Georgia Frost. She has a charisma and stage presence that the others lack, though they all show promise. The company handles their verse well, maintains high energy and warmly encourage the audience of children to join in.

The script is quick and punchy, most valuable for giving the young audience context about Shakespeare as a person in a easily digestible format framed by his “seven ages of man” monologue – a fantastic idea that parallels a short piece of text to a story. There are gags, games and songs that are interactive and playful, though more time could be taken within each activity in order to allow the audience to engage fully. The characters and scenes that are included are some of the most well known, kept short and explained well. There are a lot of them though, and the sheer amount is potentially overwhelming for the younger children in the audience.

Comparable to the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), this is a jolly, friendly romp through Shakespeare’s life and works that’s great for a young audience. Some tweaking to either cut some of the characters or pitch it to slightly older children would make this an even stronger piece, but it’s polished, slick and jolly good fun compared to similar shows on offer.

The Ruff Guide to Shakespeare runs through 19th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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A cultural relic of its time, the bible is hardly pro-women. Lucy McCormick, here incarnated as one of those vapid pop stars who evangelically (and often inappropriately) rallies for the cause they’re currently backing, wants to turn the spotlight on the new testament’s women. She focuses on their underwritten stories, their emotional involvement in Jesus’ life, and all the fingering and angel snogging that was left out of the text we know so well in Western culture.

Trashy, tasteless, obscene, and absolutely excellent, McCormick’s newest show pushes theatre to to limits of acceptability and beyond – any further and it would be pornographic (arguably it already is), though Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat is still not one for those easily offended. Accompanied by two muscly dancers in Calvins, her three-act play that she dutifully explains scene by scene is the story of Jesus Christ. She plays Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother Mary, and Jesus himself, with her backing dancers in the supporting roles. It’s also very funny, though laughter swells from amusement as much as it does from discomfort.

This gig-theatre piece is interspersed with appropriate pop songs at key moments of the story, accompanied by excellent dancing and raw emotional outbursts. Her personal life bleeds into the act as she slowly falls apart in the wake of the pressures of celebrity life. Take all of those public celeb breakdowns and multiply them by hundreds with a lot more nudity and mess, and you get something resembling the whirlwind of in-yer-face chaos that is Lucy’s stage persona in this piece.

Her commitment to her cause is unquestionable, but the fact that her character finds the actions that unfold acceptable is disturbing, yet all too familiar. That we can watch someone fall to bits with no dignity and laugh at their plight, righteously judging them, is a powerful comment on the levels of voyeurism and exhibitionism that are now bombard us through all of media’s incarnations.

Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat, for all its deliberate mess and audience discomfort, is a fantastically considered social commentary executed with precision and high levels of consideration and skill. It’s the epitome of fringe shows, and a great one at that.

Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat runs through 28th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Missing the Mark: Three Shakespeare Appropriations, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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As great as it is to see Shakespeare inspiring contemporary theatre makers to create derivative work, like any new writing it has the chance of missing the mark by a long shot. Annika Nyman’s Romeo and Juliet Post Scriptum poses the question, “What happens and Romeo and Juliet don’t die?” and the answer isn’t pretty, nor well thought out or well-written. Z Theatre Company’s The Female Question gives us Shakespeare and his female alter-ego bickering over whether or not they shortchanged his female characters, from whom we hear a lot of moaning. MacBain, part of Summerhall’s Big In Belgium season, retells Macbeth through a hybrid of drug-addled Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love and Shakespeare’s text, giving us MacBain.

Romeo and Juliet Post Scriptum is such a lovely premise, but the route Nyman takes is inexplicably far from the characters Shakespeare created. Romeo is the main issue here. Nyman presents him as an indecisive coward who now regrets the whole “feigning death and running away” idea. Deciding that family is more important than love, he wants to go home and make up with his dad. Juliet, unimpressed by this, tries to convince him to stick to the plan and when he is unconvinced, they argue for pretty much the rest of the play. They speak in stilted English that isn’t Elizabethan, but it’s certainly not modern either, preventing the actors from connecting their text. The characters partly make up, then they argue again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The rushed ending is disconnected from the all the fighting leading up to the moment, making the overarching effect one of pettiness that doesn’t relate to Shakespeare’s characters and no clear message about their actions.

It’s 400 years since Shakespeare died, and he and his female alter ego meet for their annual discussion in his office. She’s trying to convince him of their legacy, but he doesn’t believe her. Hamlet has been bugging him lately, and he’s feeling like he didn’t do his female characters any justice, hence The Female Question. He talk to the skull on his desk, texts on his phone and has a desk covered in books about himself and papers. Quite what is occupying his time since his death is never revealed, neither is how he got a mobile phone, why there are two of him and why Hamlet keeps giving him grief. Some of his characters come in for a chat, but the through-line (that was never really made clear to begin with) only tenuously connects these characters to Shakespeare’s inner dilemma. This could likely be due the fact that there are two of the same dead person and the rest of the characters aren’t real. Whilst the idea to give Shakespeare’s women another crack at the spotlight is admirable, the execution is muddy, badly performed and has no solid resolution or narrative structure.

MacBain has the most promise due to it’s Summerhall location, but this one-trick pony also disappointed. Despite excellently imposing lighting and sound design, the performances of Kurt and Courtney off their heads playing at talk show interviews that randomly morph into a two-person Macbeth with children’s toys is almost completely pointless. There is no commentary on the Macbeths’ power dynamic, sexuality or guilt. The only thing of any interest is the introduction of “the babe that milks me,” a son that eventually committed suicide. Otherwise, the banter between Kurt and Courtney, a powerful, mythic couple in their own right, comes across as self-indulgent stoners. Watching MacBain is like being the only sober person at a party where everyone else is off their nut, having a great time making in-jokes and reminiscing, only truly coherent to each other. When they are finally pinned and silenced beneath a descending sheet of plexiglass covered in vibrating cutlery, it is sweet relief.

In three unrelated productions that have premises with potential to offer fresh insight into Shakespeare and his work, the lack of dramaturgy and clear concept is painfully apparent. None of them managed to have any meaningful follow-through and most ended with an unspoken question hanging in the air – “what was the point of that?”

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Impromptu Shakespeare, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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Though there was likely to have been a level of improvisation in Shakespeare, Impromptu Shakespeare creates a whole new, short play every performance inspired by Shakespeare’s style and language. Though quality will vary from show to show, it remains an impressive display of skill in long form improvisation. This is obviously not a polished performance of a play or a script worthy of development, but the source material is evident and consistent comedy ensure plenty of laughs.

To compile a suitable stimulus on which to ground their piece, each audience member is given ping pong balls with thematic words on them. From the barrage of balls that are soon tossed around the room, several are chosen and written down. An audience member provides his/her name and a location, and off they go.

Today, the English are preparing for war against the Welsh and Cornish. King Matthew of England’s beautiful daughter (played by a man) wants to fight the forces of the Welsh bishop, but the Celtic nations are strong and brutal. Who will win? Will the single bishop find a companion? Will the princess be allowed to fight? The play becomes a rough draft of an unpublished Shakespeare history play that is more talk that action, but still delightfully funny.

The main issue with this format is sustaining any sort pace as the performers think on their feet and deliver lines they make up on the spot. There may be a format that the company follows to ensure some sort of story develops, but there are inevitable loose ends and undeveloped subplots.

Even with a slow pace and a story that doesn’t quite live up to the quality of Shakespeare’s writing, laughs are plentiful in this entertaining display of skill.

Impromptu Shakespeare runs through 28th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

A Fool’s Paradise, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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“Americans can’t do Shakespeare,” joke the five women from A Fool’s Paradise.

The self-deprecating, all-female company of players from Baltimore boot that myth out of the theatre with relish. Having learnt 45 scenes, speeches and moments from Shakespeare’s cannon, they promise to perform 30 of them in 60 minutes or else one of the actors gets a pie in the face.

In this delightfully raucous hour, the audience chooses what the actors perform from a bingo card that adds play to their autonomy, and they’re encouraged to take photos as well. The performances are a mix of styles, from emotionally committed and realistic through to outrageous slapstick. Some stick to Shakespeare’s text, some eschew it all together. Some use audience volunteers, some use props. The range is reminiscent of variety, vaudeville and US-style improvisation shows, creating a wonderful mix of theatrical traditions. It’s part-game show and part-celebration of Shakespeare teetering on the edge of total chaos. The atmosphere becomes wonderfully Elizabethan, with the actor/audience and actor/character boundaries heavily blurred.

Kids get involved in order to fill their bingo cards and win sweets, adults are swept away by playful joy. The performers’ response rate is lightening fast and each of them plays about a dozen or so roles. It’s a fantastic display of improvisation, multi-rolling, ensemble and physical skill, and the company are warm and charismatic, sharing enthusiasm rather than alienating through an acrobatic display of Shakespeare knowledge. The material isn’t all from his most popular plays, either – they include histories and the late romances though not all of the scenes include context, which makes it a challenge for even the most Shakespeare-familiar to keep up.

It’s a shame they aren’t here for the whole festival as it promises to be different each night and the exuberance of the company is a delightful celebration of Shakespeare’s greatest moments.

A Fool’s Paradise runs through 12th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

A Midsummer Night’s Dreaming, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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Tang Xianu and Shakespeare were writing about similar themes at the same time, on opposite sides of the world but never met. Teaming up to create a cross cultural performance, Leeds University and International Business and Economics University (UIBE) in China each took a play from each other’s culture and created a new play inspired by the foreign text. Inspired by the Chinese legend of Sophora, a spirit of the woods associated with visions and dreams, UIBE chose A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Adding multiple levels of reinterpretation, they swap the lovers’ genders and who fancies who in order to comment on gender roles in China and the pressures young people face. Performed in English, the students struggle to connect to the emotion behind the words but their adaptation is a complex and clever commentary on relationships and social expectations.

The Sophora Nest Hotel, run by three nameless staff members with otherworldly powers, is an escape from university studies for glamorous young couple Lysander and Hermia. They are followed by their friend Helena, who’s in love with Lysander, and Helena brings along Demetrius, the geeky, shy boy who will do anything for her. Helena is blind to his love, and instead uses him more as servant than a friend. Mostly in contemporary language, the lovers’ plot thread from the original unfolds but rather than the boys being drugged, its the girls, who then both fall in love with Demetrius. Lysander, who orders Hermia around to no end, needs to learn to not take advantage of her. Helena needs to do the same with her devoted sidekick.

All the chopping and changing from the original is wonderfully refreshing, and effectively communicates our need to open our eyes to those right in front of us rather than focusing on our own wants. Other themes emerge as well, particularly the pressure on women that results from being under their father’s thumb, then their husband’s. All four characters also have the drive to be the sexiest, cleverest and have the fanciest gadgets. Though China is so far away, it’s both comforting and disconcerting that young people feel this the world over.

The three hotel staff add a lovely dynamic. One is purely logical and analyses the hotel guests’ behaviour. A second wants to play tricks, and the third tries to maintain harmony between the first two. The emphasis on balance between this trio and the lovers feels distinctly eastern, and one worth worth considering in the west.

Though still maintaining an amount of student-level execution, the insight these Chinese young people provide through their script is provocative, relevant and culturally eye-opening.

A Midsummer Night’s Dreaming runs through 13th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Swansong and Road to Huntsville, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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Though climate change has long been a problem, political theatre often ignores it. DugOut’s Swansong faces the issue head on, placing four survivors of a global flood in a swan pedalo. A capella songs and situation comedy bring plenty of joy and laughter to the boat, but the enormity of their survival and uncertain future weighs heavy. Will they find land, or will they kill each other first?

Like the start of a joke, hippy vegan Bobby, posh boy Steven, gym bunny Claire and nihilist Adam are on a boat, and have been for at least a little while now. They’ve already worked out exactly how to wind each other up, which generates the comedy that keeps Sadie Spencer and Tom Black’s script from becoming too heavy. The lightness contrasting the serious of their post-apocalyptic waterworld tips more towards comedy, but the balance mostly works. As they make plans for rebuilding the world to the vision they are creating from scratch in Bobby’s journal (obviously with plenty of arguments), there’s a natural progression towards eventuality – will they find land and survive, or will they all die on the pedalo?

The characters are rather stereotypical for the sake of comedy; despite this there are some poignant moments of understanding and empathy. They are effectively performed but somewhat lacking in depth, though sung interludes between scenes and the resolution help negate this unsatisfaction.

This spirited production is a relief from more sombre approaches to political issues, and a good laugh at that despite its shortcomings. Road to Huntsville is an entirely different beast, though the topic is just as infrequent on British stages. Theatre maker Stephanie Ridings stumbles across a documentary about women who fall in love with prisoners on America’s death rows. Thinking this could be the start of a new play, she latches onto the subject and delves into a world that she doesn’t understand, but doesn’t want to judge. As her research leads her further down the rabbit hole, she emerges in the “death penality capital” of the country, Huntsville, Texas.

Road to Huntsville shares Ridings’ process and turns it into a story of itself. More of a documentary, there are no preconceptions – we are in a theatre to hear about her findings. The curious but emotionally detached beginning takes its time to cave into emotional connection with the people she meets who are at the mercy of a state sanctioned killing machine. This show is a slow burner, but by the end, her passion and rage against the death penalty rally the audience to her side. Her frustrated helplessness hangs heavily in the air as she tries to return to normal life, then she does the same to us, sending us out into the busy joy of Summerhall. Though it makes for melancholy, lingering reflection, Ridings’ reminder that not everyone has the privilege of living in a country where the government won’t kill you if you commit a crime.

Swansong runs through 29th August, Road to Huntsville runs through 28th August.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.