Monthly Archives: September 2014

Looking back at Edinburgh Fringe 2014 – three excellent plays – No 3 – Review – Frank Sent Me, The Dairy Room, Underbelly Bristo Square, 11th August 2014

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As Mrs Chrisparkle and I were having a coffee in the summer sunshine (actually, during a brief unrainy moment) in the Underbelly Complex, a friendly chap with a handful of flyers asked us if we had “got our lunchtime theatre sorted”, whilst offering us a flyer for “Frank Sent Me”. “Indeed!” I replied brightly, “that’s the very play we’ve got tickets for!” “Oh, great!” he replied with a look of relief, “see you there”, which made me wonder slightly if anyone else would be turning up for the performance.

Fifteen minutes before it was due to start, we popped round to the Dairy Room and started to form the queue. There was one other man there. I was beginning to get worried. I needn’t have though, as loads of people suddenly appeared with about two minutes to spare, and we all trudged up the staircase into a room that I expect in real life is a rather grand Edinburgh University lecture room. The play began with a man coming on stage with not much on (but still decent) slowly getting dressed, apparently for a meeting. It was the man with the flyers, which was a good reminder that these fringe productions sometimes get assembled on the flimsiest of budgets, and with an awful lot of goodwill.

He was playing Howe, an underworld enforcer about to meet his match. Frank, the boss, has obviously had enough of him, although we never find out why; I guess all underworld enforcers have their “best by” dates. Tough, serious, knowing today’s the day he was going to be taken away and “dealt with”, Howe’s going to meet whoever it is that Frank sends to do the deed with dignity and honour, his head high, his integrity intact. But two things stand this manful stolidity on its head. One is that Howe’s partner, Wallace, is also a man – and that their relationship is never questioned as being anything other than something perfectly ordinary, which is delightfully non-judgmental for a gangsterland drama. The other is that the chap Frank sends to collect Howe is a dork called Blake, an inexperienced, ham-fisted, matey coward whose inability to do the job is the biggest slap in the face to the tough guy. Having a knobhead come to whisk him away is more insulting than death itself. When Blake, inevitably, fails at his task, it’s up to Howe to rescue the situation – but what does he do?

It’s a surprisingly sensitive tale of a man facing death, the man who’s got to kill him, and the man who has to live with the aftermath. In amongst all the bravado this is basically a domestic black comedy; the man facing the death sentence still has to keep on the right side of his occasionally tetchy partner, as you get little insights into the rifts that have developed between them over the years. But it’s a relationship which, despite everything, is pretty solid. Tight and tautly written by Julian Poidevin, the promotional material described it as Ortonesque with which I would agree in part; but it doesn’t have Orton’s sense of the outrageous, and the central relationship between Howe and Wallace is more realistic than if it had been Orton’s work. It doesn’t really need comparing with anything else – it is its own thing, and very satisfactorily so.

It features three excellent performances. Rob Pomfret (our man with the flyers) is very convincing as Howe, never letting us overlook the seriousness of the events unfolding as the story progresses, and you can imagine he would be a slick operator with his enforcer’s hat on. Despite his job, you actually feel sorry for him and identify with him to the extent that you wonder how you would cope in the same boat. Matthew Gibbs as Wallace provides the perfect foil to him with his house-proud, rather motherly, “let’s not make a fuss” attitude. Actually he reminded me of my late Auntie Joan, keeping the place immaculate, being unnecessarily generous to guests, adopting a “shush and get on with it” manner even when the consequences could be ghastly. It’s a really persuasive study of someone who has little vision but makes up for it with heaps of practicality. And there’s a very nice comic (but not too comic) performance by Izaak Cainer as the hopeless Blake, trying to be positive and upbeat whilst stifling fear-induced vomiting. We were in the front row of this tiny theatre and the action was taking place probably no more than five feet away from our noses, and I was really impressed with the concentration and complete immersion in the characters by all three actors. They were really living it! All in all, a superb production, a satisfying and constantly surprising story performed with elegance, wit and style.

We bumped into Mr Pomfret again outside after the show. I told him it was really good – and he seemed pleased!

Looking back at Edinburgh Fringe 2014 – three excellent plays – No 2 – Review – Lace Up, New Celts Productions and Trig Point Theatre, The Space on North Bridge, 10th August 2014

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I’ve often thought that boxing would be a good subject for a meaty drama and so it proves with this engrossing and thought-provoking one act play by Mikey Burnett and Joseph McCann. Stuart is a talented young boxer, trained by his brother Teddy, who gets a shot at World Title glory in Las Vegas. But as his success grows he is confronted by a tragic occurrence that almost puts paid to his career – how does he deal with it?

It’s a play about ambition and integrity, and the precarious balance that can exist between the two. It’s also an examination of the sport of boxing, and how it almost uniquely combines (if you look at it from extreme points of view) both barbarism and nobility. There’s risk in all sports of course, just as there is in almost everything we do on a daily basis. But the risks involved with boxing are more acute than in most activities. Personally, I’m a great admirer of the sport and view it as a force for good. But the content of the play cannot but unsettle even the most ardent boxing fan. As you follow Stuart through his confidence, his shock, his self-doubt and his self-loathing, you never really know which way he’s going to turn at the end. And the end is a real cliffhanger – I was itching to discover what actually happened next in the story.But then I realised that the tale of Stuart’s boxing prowess was actually a different play, and that Lace Up is specifically concerned with the repercussions of accidentally causing another man’s death.

The three-man cast are excellent throughout. Daniel Campbell is very impressive as Stuart and he certainly convinced me he is a natural boxer! Preparing for a bout and in the ring, his face showed the sheer determination of the supreme sportsmen, focussed and fixed on the job. Outside that environment, the contrast with the devastated Stuart coming to terms with what he has done is extremely moving. Patrick Wallace as Teddy successfully conveys both the anxiety of the coach trying to keep his protégé on message and also the irritation of the individual who finds themselves in a teaching role when really they should be doing it themselves.The two make a terrific partnership, although I must confess, Sassenach as I am, I didn’t understand every word they said with their strong Scottish accents – but certainly enough to follow the plot! The third member of the cast is James Garvock, who captures perfectly the ruthless, hardnosed condescension of the American promoter, compared with whom Stuart and Teddy are mere innocents abroad; and he convincingly conveys the pathetic aggression of Stuart and Teddy’s father. Three young actors definitely to keep an eye on!

Looking back at Edinburgh Fringe 2014 – three excellent plays – No 1 – Review – First Class, Aulos Productions and Relief Theatre, at the Pravda Room, Laughing Horse @ Espionage, 9th August 2014

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It’s been a few weeks now since Mrs Chrisparkle and I had our first ever foray into the Great Artistic Thing that is the Edinburgh Fringe, and we’re already planning next year’s jaunt. In the meantime, there were a few plays we saw that we really enjoyed and that I thought merited a little more consideration than the brief mini-reactions that I only had time for during the Festival. So here goes with the first.

First Class by name, first class by nature. James Beagon’s exquisitely crafted little play held me spellbound from the start. Three lives intricately woven over the decades, set against the same backdrop of a train trip to Manchester Piccadilly. Each character reflected the attitudes and problems of their own respective era, and the three performers – Erin Elkin, Joe Walsh and Maddie Haynes – inhabited their roles so completely and conjured up other passengers and the train setting so successfully that I never for a moment noticed that it was just three people perched on three small chairs on a tiny stage.

The minimalist environment really helped the whole experience to work on your imagination. It’s only fifty minutes long but that time flew by. There’s one scene where you think Lydia is going to commit a terrible atrocity, and, I kid you not, my heart was absolutely in my mouth fearing that she was going to do it. When she didn’t, I felt a sense of massive relief. There’s another riveting and sadly hilarious sequence where tennis “almost-star” Rachel is cornered by an insensitive “fan” on the train who unwittingly gives her a good verbal kicking in a scene worthy of Ayckbourn at his best. The text does not shy away from giving us three different insights into mental instability, providing each cast member with a great opportunity to explore how each character deals with intense pressure in a world full of difficult people.

There’s something of a plot twist at the end, which Mrs C predicted but I didn’t, and when that twist became apparent, everything fitted together so perfectly that I could feel my face positively beaming. This won the best new writing award for the 2014 Buxton Fringe, and quite rightly too. I hope it’s not the last we see of this moving, funny, scary one-act play, and I trust producers Aulos Productions and Relief Theatre will be giving us more riveting drama in the near future.

And if you weren’t lucky enough to see the production – you can here!