Making their mark: the York invasion of the Fringe (1)
Jo Shelley outlines the best of the rest of the plays making the trip from York to Edinburgh
This summer York sends its first comedy show to the Fringe under the directorship of Robbie Dale and with a hefty £4,500 worth of backing from the University Alumni Fund. Chipping Stortford Goes Large: The Bid For City Status (Sweet Grassmarket, 4th-27th August) revolves around the crusade of a village, based on Heslington, to get itself onto the map. It will certainly be the most visible to theatre-goers in Edinburgh; the cast are taking the show to the streets between performances, using banners, balloons and petitions to campaign for the fictional place to become “Britain’s next metropolis”. “The kind of comedy we’re going for is like Brass Eye,” says Dale of the play, “something that’s a bit more intelligent rather than just ‘ha, ha, cock’ or whatever. It sounds wank, but thematically it’s sort of a satire on ‘Pop Idol’ culture and people believing they can do what they want even though they haven’t got any talent.”
There were questions over whether Will Seaward would make it to Edinburgh with his production of Bouncy Castle Hamlet (Rocket @ Demarco Roxy Art House, 3rd-19th August); last week he was lacking the most vital piece of staging and an actor in the lead role. Now, however, the first year English student has got hold of a bouncy castle and a Hamlet and the play has quickly become the bookies favourite to win that elusive media review, following pre-show mentions in The Guardian, The Times and The Scotsman as a festival “oddity” to watch out for. The idea for BCH, which, Will confirms, “does exactly what it says on the tin”, came to him while mulling over the original play at a children’s birthday party in Argentina. It’s now stretched to a £6,000 budget and involves trampolines, rope ladders and pogo sticks (for a publicity bounce around Edinburgh’s Royal Mile). A visual distortion of the original play, then; will this, together with Will’s “philosophy of directing – that you can’t respect the text at all”, make Shakespeare’s best-known tragedy completely unrecognisable?
Somehow, Will also plans to perform in Chris Bush’s quick-fire comedy Man and God (Smirnoff Baby Belly, 3rd-27th August)), which starts half an hour after his own production finishes. (“Luckily,” he assures us, “the costumes of the Ghost and God are quite similar.”) Despite the title, this play, which ran at the Drama Barn back in May, isn’t serious, issue-based theatre of the intensely philosophical variety; Edinburgh audiences can expect gently thought-provoking witticisms on religion, the media and the cult of celebrity, but not a spiritual epiphany. Chris’s heaven runs as a corporate enterprise that, in ‘reality’, is controlled by two angels acting as image consultants to make an out-of-touch, grandfather God appeal to twenty-first century consumers. Unfortunately, God’s return to earth to prove his existence to unbelievers is overshadowed by the appearance of an suave, suit-wearing impostor God who talks the talk as well, if not better, than the real thing. Cue what Chris (who was planning to shave his trademark long hair off to help cover the £4,000 budget) admits are “some really bad puns” and affectionately blasphemous slapstick to balance out the brainwork: his rule, as writer and director, was that “for every reference to nineteenth century philosophy, somebody had to fall over.” His view is that “theatre’s there to entertain… it’s not to be taken too seriously, really.”
From religion to television, What’s the Question? (C Central, 20th-28th August), written by Kimberley Datnow and Stuart Young, is another comedy that parodies the interactive game show. Boasting a host with “David Dickinson’s orange tan, Alan Partridge’s personality and a really bad magenta suit” it plans to draw audiences to its ten a.m. showing by giving away bizarre prizes in the interval and free coffee before start. All the characters, which include a Jamaican grandmother, devoted Christian, BNP supporter and college professor, cohere to form what Stuart claims is “a genuinely original idea”.
Two children’s productions are also going to Edinburgh: Alice Through the Looking Glass (Bedlam Theatre, 3rd-19th August), directed by Alison Neighbour, and Fantastic Mr. Fox (C Central, 4th-19th August), directed by Ollie Jones. Both have adapted their stories in original ways. Lewis Carroll’s dark fairytale is accompanied by specially composed music and uses puppets, while the adaptation of Roal Dahl’s eighties children’s classic will project animations of the characters of the Fox and ‘Boggis and Bunce and Bean’ with the features of the actors playing them.
The final word goes to Return of the Actor (Rocket @ Demarco Roxy Art House, 7th-19th August), a full-throttled farce following the tragic misfortunes of two well-meaning but dangerously incompetent backstage assistants. Described by director Kate Lovell as “cathartic comedy for other Fringe performers”, it’s designed “to make people laugh and lose themselves for 45 minutes. It has no pretensions and is what the Fringe is all about, performing and sharing high-quality, entertaining theatre with theatre-lovers from around the world.”
To book tickets, visit www.edfringe.com
