Putting the drunkard into drunken sailor

Magnificent Bastard Productions have come up with an award winning and crowd-pleasing combination with their shit-faced formula. Take one well known play, in this case The Pirates of Penzance, add one particularly drunken sailor, in this case Connor Going who prior to playing Frederic the swashbuckling pirate slave was obliged more than a few fair rums (on this case his tipple of choice was beer) and then he continued to wet his alcoholic whistle through out the performance. As you can imagine with songs and full blown dance routines, quick changes and rather whimsical plot hilarity soon ensues.

Every person holds their drink differently, and I’ve no doubt had the drunken Russian roulette landed on another member of the cast we have witnessed a completely different form of merriment. As Frederic Going exudes an impish playfulness, as he skips and prances round the stage, pushes his luck seeing if he can steal a few cheeky extra kisses from Dora Rubinstein who plays the dainty songbird Mabel. Not dissimilar to an inebriated individual trying to convince that a police officer that they aren’t over the limit, Going hurtles through his lines at lightening speed. Which although is impressive, does make some of his key dialogue hard to follow.

The quick changes, and Tom Reade’s melodic tinkering of the ivories is it apparent that Shit-faced Showtime: Pirates of Penzance is a slick well oiled machine. No matter how tipsy any of this stellar cast may be, they never veer too far from the narrative. Our drunkard in question definitely hams up his drunken state, playing to a crowd who paid to see an intoxicated chap stagger through an operatic classic.

That said, when Going accidentally stumbles over a cable tripping their sound system, he looks genuinely worried, that he may have ruined the entire show. Equipped to deal with all eventualities and esteemed pros at improvising at the motley cast take the buzzing and the intermittent sound interference in their stride.

The camaraderie present between the players is tangible. More so than Going, the rest of the cast have tricker job of keeping a straight face despite the drunken tomfoolery, Reade as the Modern Major General, takes charge and steers the sometimes wayward ship back onto its narrative course with real buoyancy.

Shit-faced Showtime: Pirates of Penzance is another well honed and exquisitely executed show to add to Magnificent Bastard Productions shit-faced cannon. Watching a drunk person attempting to stagger their way through a play was always going to be amusing. They must have to tolerate fair few hangovers, but suppose it all part of the package when being shit-faced is your USP. These drunken sailors, pirates and maidens know exactly what they are doing, as they are quite simply masters of their craft.

He glistens, he rants & most importantly he entertains.

Glittering skirt, clashing prints, a necklace made of pencils, tatty heels complete with knee-high football socks all offset by clownish makeup applied with a trowel – there’s no mistaking David Hoyle’s inimitable style. Part cabaret act, part drag and all round dazzling starlet, Hoyle holds the captive audience in the palm of his hand (complete with badly painted fingernails). As he addresses the “Ladies, gentleman and those of you clever enough to transcend gender.” The first five to seven minute involves Hoyle roaming the Spigletent to tell various members of his audience just how fabulous who thinks they look. Clearly at his happiest when improvising, Hoyle barely thinks twice before answering an audience member’s ringing phone.

Hoyle’s opinionated – we are treated to rants on the misuse of tax money and also his musing’s on politics, homophobia and his abhorrent disgust towards the lower middle classes. None of these segments last too long, and in-keeping of his own mantra of keeping things frothy, he diffuses any potentially controversial topics by bursting into song.

It won’t surprise you to learn that Hoyle doesn’t simply take to the stage and sing, he would rather also do this in an avant-garde manner. For instance, Maybe This Time from Cabaret is performed to sounds of an MRI scanner. Hoyle belts out numbers in the style of a self-assured crooner with the sass of all of the great divas.

Hoyle is the epitome of an artist in every sense of the word. Showcased by the speed painting he does of two girls from the audience, as he promises to immortalise them on the canvas. Some people were born to be on the stage, Hoyle is one of these people. Charismatic, talented and spirited. Nothing is ever understated or subdued about Hoyle. He glistens, he rants and most importantly he entertains.

Confessions of a Red Headed Coffeeshop Girl

Confessions of a Red Headed Coffeeshop Girl, follows the story of Joanie Little a flame-haired college graduate who finds herself stuck in a dead-end job as a barista. Part comedy, part monologue and with a few spirited songs thrown in for good measure. Joanie is the lovable and slightly eccentric girl next door, who keeps herself entertained by likening her customers to animals and spending a little too much time talking to a portrait of Jane Goodall. Joanie grins and bears her humdrum life, until one day the unexpected arrival of Marco, the mysterious coffee drinker who leaves his business card behind, makes quite the impact on Joanie’s run of the mill life.

As Joanie, Rebecca Perry is an accomplished performer who morphs back and forth impersonating a wide range of customers with great ease. The redheaded protagonist has great comic timing, is a klutz and reminds you of a Canadian version of Jess from the American sitcom New Girl. The coffee shop related observational humour is far from groundbreaking, however, the whole production is crafted in a very slick manner, with characters that are established earlier on rearing their heads again at opportune moments. A personal favourite is Sue, the jogger who, like a deranged roadrunner, can never stop jogging, not for even a moment to make her coffee order.

Alongside the comedic moments in Confessions of a Red Headed Coffeeshop Girl, there are also a series of songs written by Perry herself. Ranging in style from jazzy renditions through to the last number which has beautifully melodic folk like undertones.

Confessions of a Red Headed Coffeeshop Girl is very slick and delivered seamlessly, not surprising considering the flyer states that it has been performed to critical acclaim in 14 cities. At the end of the play, Perry reveals that at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival she will be performing the sequel. In Joanie, Perry has created a charming character and no doubt folk will be curious to find out what unfolds on her next adventure.

Powerful + gut wrenching piece of theatre

The nature of the Fringe, is you never really know what you’re going to see or what impact if any, a production will have on you. You don’t expect to watch Groomed, written and performed by Patrick Sandford with a lump in your throat, a knot in your stomach and to feel truly moved by what you had just witnessed. Groomed is a difficult and uncomfortable watch, as Sandford recounts his own true story of child abuse – when he was molested by a school teacher with wandering hands at the age of just 10 years old.

Groomed is both brave and ambitious in that in succeeds in recalling the ordeal from both the abused and the abuser’s perspectives, achieved by having Sandford flit between playing both parts. Groomed doesn’t present a black and white depiction of abuse, instead, it explores the intricacies and subtle shades of grey that exist. Demystifying many of myths, and commonly held misconceptions that are present in society.

It is an extremely powerful statement to have Sandford play both the 10-year-old schoolboy and the teacher, as it visually exemplifies the idea that many abusers were abused themselves as children. Although Sanford will never be able to justify what the abuse of trust that his teacher committed, the fact that now, at the age of 63 he can relate to fact that his teacher was also a victim in that he too was also failed by a society who didn’t intervene or offer him support before it was too late, this is both humbling and hard-hitting.

Throughout Groomed, Sandford is accompanied by the saxophonist Tomm Coles who at times juxtaposes the harrowing tale by playing jazzy and upbeat music, and other moments when words fail Sandford, the melancholic tones go part of the way in expressing the heartfelt emotions that have left him speechless. The recurring use of the melodic When You Wish Upon A Staris particularly haunting.

Every performance ends with an audience discussion, during which ,without a script to protect him, Sanford seems all the more vulnerable and exposed, as he bravely answers the crowd’s probing questions.

Groomed provides a platform (supported by the charity Mankind) for Sandford to speak truthfully and honestly about a dark secret that he had previously suffered in silence. Occasionally a play moves you and lingers in the mind long after the final applause, Groomed is one of those powerful, gut-wrenching pieces of theatre.

Triumph of imagination

Airswimming is the tale of two best friends Dora and Persephone who refer to each other affectionally as Dorph and Porph who find themselves in St. Dymphna’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Spanning over fifty years, the pair meet to undertake their daily duty of polishing the stairs and the bath. Written by Charlotte Jones in 1997, the characters in Airswimming still feel relevant and intriguing. Our protagonists personalities are almost kaleidoscopic, in that you are never sure exactly who you are going to encounter.

They laugh, they quarrel and soothe each other. Starting off as untrusting strangers it is touching to watch Dorph’s and Porph’s friendship to involve to one that is so close that they are bonded together like sisters. There are stellar performances from both Tanya Chainey as Dorph and Alison Nicol as Porph, their onstage chemistry is at its’ most tangible when they escape into their fantasy alter egos of Porph as Doris Day and Dorph as a toy solider of the highest regiment. Portraying insanity in a believable manner is no mean feat and the pair do so triumphantly.

The songs of Doris Day are recurring motifs throughout Airswimming. They are sung on stage, the use of a piano and a whistled version of Que Sera Sera acts as a particularly haunting ear-worm. Another memorable momentis the simple but effective choreographed unison of the duo going swimming through the air. Nicol’s gleeful childlike innocence foiled perfectly my Chainey’s brisk jolly-hockey-sticks manner.

In may be just quite how airless and hot the venue is, but at an hour and five minutes, Airswimming does feel a little long, and could perhaps do with some tightening in places.

Airswimming is dark, funny and surreal. A celebration of the triumph of imagination and above all the power of friendship.

Shining a light on a gimmick

As a concept, Comedy in the Dark doesn’t take too much explaining. Cheeky-chappy Joey Page comperes an evening with three comedians on the bill, that are each brought onto the stage in the light, before the lights are turned off and both the performers and the audience are plunged into darkness. Last night, alongside Page, Chris Betts, Ahir Shah and Ellie Taylor all attempted to get a titter out of a silhouetted room that they couldn’t read the reactions of. Page quips that we should have just stayed home and listened to comedy on the radio… but quickly added that this was better because it’s live. Watching comedy in the dark is certainly a gimmick, but does it add anything to theoverall experience?

With a varying weekly lineup, some comics enter into the spirit of lights being out more than others. For instance, Page’s playfully takes off his shoes so that we can’t tell where he is in the space. For many, at any comedy gig there’s an inbuilt fear that at any moment as an audience member you could be picked on to participate or be mocked. Page still plays for audience interaction, but people’s blushes are saved as instead he asks us to cheer in agreement to certain statements, quite liberating really to be able to answer honestly without any judgement from those sitting around you. Page is charismatic performer both with and without the lights on.

Next up Canadian Betts whose material seems to be more an acquired taste, but those that find him funny are highly amused. Noticeably not as playful as Page, and I am not sure if he used the possibility of performing in the dark to its’ full potential. It was helpful to see Shah in the light prior to the dimmer being hit as there was a real disconnect being his appearance and what you would expect him to sound like. An observation that formed a key part of Shah’s routine. The final act of the evening was the chirpy and slightly crass Taylor, whose material was a bit hit and miss, as even she herself acknowledged that some of her material relied heavily on visual cues. Felt very much like this was a warmup for her Work in Progress gigs that are happening next week in Brighton.

Comedy in the Dark is a showcase of four comedians each with a twenty-minute slot, well programmed to tickle a variety of funny bones. 

Seeing it in the dark is a novelty that doesn’t really add anything to the overall enjoyment of the evening, but is a fun gimmick.

The most beautiful shell in among the pebbles

Thorn is a superb one-man show written and performed by Thom Jordan. There’s an unshakable honesty and grit to his delivery, as he takes inspiration from his own childhood growing up as the son of a minister in Australia and skillfully interweaves his own upbringing with the real-life scandal of a minister who faked having leukaemia.

Thorn is extremely well paced, Jordan begins by introducing Paul, a happy-go-lucky chap who is instantly likeable, at first it feels like the audience may have stumbled into a comedy gig rather than a one-man play. The ease that Jordan feels onstage transmits to the audience and a rapport is soon established. A dynamic which is tested throughout Thorn as he asks us questions, and later we transform into Paul’s captive congregation as he sermonises with gusto-filled intensity.

Thorn is raw and fearless, as it tackles taboo topics such as greed, religious exploitation, hypocrisy and a preacher’s abuse of power over an impressionable congregation. As is the culture of any fringe festival the audience numbers fluctuate, and despite only having sparse numbers, Jordan performs with such conviction and boundless energy as if he were addressing a room of hundreds – a testament to Jordan’s professionalism and commitment to sharing this tale.

The staging is simple, with a set of brown chairs and a clothing rail at the back of the stage containing various costumes to help signify different stages of Paul’s life. Taking the one man show mantra a little further Jordan also acts as his own stage manager cueing his own music. Which in turn only adds to the authenticity of the production.

In many many ways Thorn feels like a very special piece of theatre, like you’ve discovered the most beautiful shell in among the pebbles on Brighton beach. No doubt that this won’t be the last we see of either Thom Jordan or Thorn.