Despite this company's slightly disturbing name, one suspects that they would be the last in line at a baby feast. They are really just a bit too nice. They are the sons and daughters who excuse themselves before leaving a table and who you really wouldn't think twice about inviting to your mother's 60th birthday dinner where the Hendersons and all the residents association eat retro canapés. There is no baby on the menu here.
The fact is that A Clockwork Orange needs to pervade a vicious and menacing poison throughout. If we don't feel in immediate danger, there's a pretty good chance that we'll feel it's all a bit over the top and cartoonish. Walking in a few minutes late (very rude, I know, but the previous show had overrun) I did have a slight expectation that I might be abused by the cast. Alas, no, I took my seat under the very distracting overhead fan that is a favourite of all Fringe venues and realised that actually, I wasn't going to enjoy this very much at all.
A Clockwork Orange follows Alex and his droogs as they rampage around a dystopian city seeking cheap and violent thrills. Well, the why of the rampaging will always be open to argument - not one I wish to start now - and that's very much the job of any given production. In the course of the rampaging Alex is arrested and imprisoned and eventually subjected to a treatment for his violence that is worse than the affliction itself. It is a complex tale with no straightforward moralising and both Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick have rendered the story with such unforgiving cruelty that it is hard to top their efforts.
The acting was solid enough and watchable for much of it, but it did lack both nuance and menace. The fear that characters were supposedly feeling did not make it past the first row and the stakes were never really raised. It's funny, but looking at men in bowler hats and canes inflicting stage violence on people is really a bit pantomimeish. It's such an oft repeated image that it has just come to stand in for ultraviolence, rather than actually evoking it. As someone pointed out to me later, it is the hooded teen who invokes such fear for many people these days. While I'm not sure that interpretation would have quite cut it either, it at least would have been a clear statement and could have inspired some fear.
The staging and the lighting are both simple and understated but in many ways the most clear elements present. The spot pointing directly down centre stage is a common devise, but effective nonetheless. The costume design was also clear, but as discussed before, a little unimaginative.
It was often difficult to hear the actors, especially over the incessant whirl of the fan, and that did add to the lack of intensity. It's a shame. This - relatively - large cast could, I feel, have produced something much more unleashed and terrifying. Alas, it has become just one more Fringe show that leaves its potential unfulfilled and its audience largely unmoved.
3 out of 10.
At C Venues (C +1) at 10pm.
- James Grogan.
The fact is that A Clockwork Orange needs to pervade a vicious and menacing poison throughout. If we don't feel in immediate danger, there's a pretty good chance that we'll feel it's all a bit over the top and cartoonish. Walking in a few minutes late (very rude, I know, but the previous show had overrun) I did have a slight expectation that I might be abused by the cast. Alas, no, I took my seat under the very distracting overhead fan that is a favourite of all Fringe venues and realised that actually, I wasn't going to enjoy this very much at all.
A Clockwork Orange follows Alex and his droogs as they rampage around a dystopian city seeking cheap and violent thrills. Well, the why of the rampaging will always be open to argument - not one I wish to start now - and that's very much the job of any given production. In the course of the rampaging Alex is arrested and imprisoned and eventually subjected to a treatment for his violence that is worse than the affliction itself. It is a complex tale with no straightforward moralising and both Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick have rendered the story with such unforgiving cruelty that it is hard to top their efforts.
The acting was solid enough and watchable for much of it, but it did lack both nuance and menace. The fear that characters were supposedly feeling did not make it past the first row and the stakes were never really raised. It's funny, but looking at men in bowler hats and canes inflicting stage violence on people is really a bit pantomimeish. It's such an oft repeated image that it has just come to stand in for ultraviolence, rather than actually evoking it. As someone pointed out to me later, it is the hooded teen who invokes such fear for many people these days. While I'm not sure that interpretation would have quite cut it either, it at least would have been a clear statement and could have inspired some fear.
The staging and the lighting are both simple and understated but in many ways the most clear elements present. The spot pointing directly down centre stage is a common devise, but effective nonetheless. The costume design was also clear, but as discussed before, a little unimaginative.
It was often difficult to hear the actors, especially over the incessant whirl of the fan, and that did add to the lack of intensity. It's a shame. This - relatively - large cast could, I feel, have produced something much more unleashed and terrifying. Alas, it has become just one more Fringe show that leaves its potential unfulfilled and its audience largely unmoved.
3 out of 10.
At C Venues (C +1) at 10pm.
- James Grogan.
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