Review: August 2009 Archives

After what I found as an infuriating version of The Trial, I was very pleased to experience the other side of Belt Up. The Tartuffe is fun and friendly, witty and imaginative. It engages its audience without abusing them (or pretending to abuse them) and has, in a simple but effective way, opened out this story into a meta-theatrical fantasmagoria. That they point out and gently mock their own meta-theatricality and deconstructionism helps to keep the play on the level of satire that Fringe audiences like. Personally, I'm not sure it was necessary to set-up a "reality" logic for the piece, but more on that later.

The story follows Orgon who wants to put on a play (see what they're doing?) of his life. His life's story pivots on his being fooled by The Tartuffe, a faux spiritual man who is basically after sex and money. We meet Orgon's wife, daughter, son and of course The Tartuffe as they go over what happened. There is, hidden behind the quick-fire wit, a serious point here about needed to act out events in order to understand them. This is not looked at in detail and with good reason: it wouldn't be funny. Still, it might be interesting.

The script is riddled with puns - my personal favourite, a mime who says, "I'll make you a Le Coq-tail" (it works better off the page) - and in many instances you feel that some people get some of them and others get some of them but none of us get them all. The play engages its audience to varying degrees - from just holding an object to complement a scene to performing alongside them in a key scene here or there. It is all well intentioned and while it is less generous a show than some that involve interaction, no one is unclear about what they are getting into.

I did feel that in many instances, but particularly in the main role of Orgon, the actors were not listening to one another in a way that would have helped. Of course you want to move through the material with more energy and it's about setting up the joke rather than emotional reality, but it would have helped if there wasn't a feeling of just waiting for cues a lot of the time. Indeed, because the set up asked us to believe that they actually were rehearsing a play of Orgon's life that emotional reality was important and it was a shame to lose it.

The work is unapologetically unempathetic to its characters. Orgon, as the obsessive patriarch of the family and the production, can dismiss the characters around him, mocking them often viciously. What some newspapers would call a "non-PC performance", this is all in the fun of it and feels appropriate to the form. There were one or two moments when this passed a boundary and became both distasteful and not funny at all. At one point Orgon's wife, Elmire, is raped by Tartuffe. She then stands as says something about how much she enjoyed it. It was neither witty nor necessary and clunked onto the floor like the unwieldy piece of performance it was. No one laughed. The worst thing was that it didn't even feel like a wry comment on the sexual relations in that era, or in ours. It was just a bit nasty.

This play has been getting a lot of attention - there were cameras present during this performance - and it is well deserved (even if it has not yet reached the level of performance sophistication that it could, and the script could do with a little editing). I wonder if the decision to take two productions was the best, though. The Trial feels laboured and less imaginative, but still with some nice ideas. Perhaps if the creative drive was more focused on one production it would have really created a great show. As for The Tartuffe, it was certainly a good show, but there were heights it never reached. As for the company, you hope they will continue making work and you suspect they will have some time in the spotlight off the back of this. They certainly deserve it.

8.5 out of 10.

At S Soco (Studio 1a) at 8.55pm.

-    James Grogan.

P.S. This is the last review I will make during this year's Fringe. It is a real shame to leave when there is so much unseen and so many shows not even up yet. I'm missing the Forest Fringe and the British Council showcase, both worth seeing if you're up. The great thing about Edinburgh is that even if you ignored all comedy shows and only wanted to see theatre and a bit of dance you would still have to see 10 shows a day everyday in order to see everything. Alas, such is not the case. In the past 10 days or so we have reviewed 30 shows; we have given 1 out of 10 (A Grave Situation) and 10 out of 10 (Trilogy) and everything in between. We have seen wonderful performances that will have a life far beyond Edinburgh 2009 and we have seen shows that were instantly forgettable. Such is the way with this wonderful festival. Still, we have not seen enough shows. If you want to review any show we have not featured yet, please email your review to James.Grogan@nationalartservice.org.uk and we'll post it online.

Enjoy the rest of the Fringe!

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.

Hugh Hughes is charming as disarming and as his audience enters he does his best to make them feel at ease. If he is, in fact, a sociopath who enjoys torturing small animals - I would be very surprised. Despite one slightly strange interaction with a late-comer - we couldn't find out where she was from or anything about her, but she seemed nice all the same - he maintained a jovial atmosphere throughout. Initially, with the informal banter and adlibs, I thought that this must be more like a stand up show, which while all well and good, was neither what I was expecting nor what I was looking for.

In truth, Hughes has re-evaluated the theatrical experience. Not set or props or scene changes or lighting cues. Just him and a microphone he occasionally uses. He melted into the start of the show, taking a strange joy in the fact that the show officially starts when the door closes. It's hard to know when it did start - there was no sense of ritual about it. Generally you felt he was stripping back narrative and theatre formalities and just being himself.

The show, we are told, is about friendship. Hugh narrates the story of his eventful friendship with his friend Garreth, their childhood "adventures" and their more recent difficulties in communicating effectively. The undertext of the show is about fantasies, realities and how you can shift and adjust one reality based on perception. It also considers how feelings and atmospheres of spaces affect one's own emotional landscape. By playfully exploring narrative structures and layers Hughes holds a mirror to our own lives and asks if we can't shift our perspective too.

Hughes believes in fantasy as a reality that stands next to our own. He believes that you can choose how you see and what you see - about yourself, about others, about situations. He reaffirms the power of not performing a role that is not yourself for the benefit of others - their prejudices and their worthiness. I fear I am making the show sound more serious than it feels, but that's because the beauty of this performance (it feels wrong to call it a play, somehow) is that it has a deadly serious undercurrent.

Parts of the narrative could be given more time and possibly a better sense of the theatrical event would give the performance more shape - but both of those are part of the performance, so it's hard to criticise them. In one or two moments there was a sense that there is a sharpness underlying Hughes and it might have been nice to see just a little bit more of that - is there a greater complexity to the on-stage persona. I think many of us would have wanted to track what Hughes did and said in the bar that night, just to see if he was for real.

A good story, well told without the pretensions of being more than it is, Hugh Hughes in 360 would endear itself, along with Hughes himself, to any audience member. Recommended.

8 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two) at 7.05pm.

- James Gogan

Once again, a good show, better than most, with only a handful of audience members. It is ridiculous how much people will scrabble for certain tickets and completely disregard a curious, enjoyable and genuine performance. At times, I do despair. Lucy Foster presents us with her campaign to save the polar bear and prevent the world from sliding inexorably towards ecological disaster. She does this by making propaganda videos dressed as a polar bear, giving confident speeches about the necessity to save the planet and imagining a world after the consumerist hell we have built up in this society.

Foster is both funny and charming and a compelling performer. She is incredibly real with us - greeting us as we enter, looking at each of us directly throughout (mind you, that is easier with such an empty house). She asked for our input and participation, but never in a way that feels exploitative or cheap. She is clearly passionate about what she is doing and why.

The reason the play is more than just a playful polemic about the environment is that the real story - or perhaps the more compelling one - is actually about how becoming passionate about an issue can give you the confidence and hope to be more passionate about your dysfunctional love life and more welcoming to life's possibilities without the necessity to be full of beer. In some strange ways, this is a love story - love for polar bears, for nature and the environment, love of affection and intimacy, love of love.

There are moments when Foster undermines her own political statements - by self-deprecating you imagine she is trying to be more endearing, but it comes across as weak and somewhat of a cop-out. It is possible to make deadly serious political points while being witty and charming, and with some subtle reworkings this show could be just that. A simple and effective staging and lighting, the whole show does work well and is a very enjoyable hour in the company of a very honest and compelling performer.

One hopes that in time Lucy will not just pretend to be confident about her ability to affect the course of environmental degradation, but will, in fact, believe in her ability to realise that world she describes to us.

7.5 out of 10.

At Pleasance Courtyard (Above) at 3.40pm.

While well performed, with a great deal of energy and clarity of movement and voice, this piece simply did not have the material to support the energy. A man goes to post a package in a Post Office. He discovers an American postal clerk and together they go to Paris, or do they imagine going to Paris? They meet some people, do some fun things and he is given a new perspective on life, or something like that. A few passable jokes did not make up for the paper-thin plot, with little or no sense of dramaturgy.

The performances were strong. The clear characterisation, strong accent work, good physicality and occasionally strong physical theatre set pieces. Why it is under dance I do not know, but there are moments of solid choreography. There are one or two good one liners - such as when the man says, referring to a bottle of wine, "But we don't have any glasses" and the woman says "Glasses? We don't need glasses. [Long pause] We can see perfectly fine." It's hardly going to become a classic, but worth a titter.

Ultimately, though, it was all-round quite insubstantial. There was little or no sense of dramaturgy - why were people behaving like they were, on what basis were things changing and scenes developing? It completely evaded me. At the end we were told this was Half Wits's first Fringe appearance. I do hope they take this experience and make something more meaty, more gripping and more substantial.

4 out of 10.

At Pleasance Courtyard (Attic) at 2.30pm.

-    James Grogan.

This fine production, featuring many passionate performances, is a great piece of theatre. Examining the history of Long Kesh prison - better known as the Maze - we follow the story of Republican and Loyalist prisoners, a prison guard and their respective wives on the outside. The play looks at the context of violence, rather than the violence itself. It makes the Northern Irish conflict personal, establishing the motivating factors for the various people and making them more than terrorists. Ultimately, in Martin Lynch's play, they are all victims, caught in the same bloody cycle without end. That is not to say that Lynch removes all blame from those men and their actions, but he seeks to understand it and dialogue with it in a useful way.

The cast - Billy Clarke, Jo Donnelly, Chris Corrigan, Marty Maguire, Marc O'Shea and Andy Moore - are clearly passionate about their work and what they are attempting. They give the performances great energy and soul. Béal Feirsteans themselves, they resonate with the characters. I do not know, and it is not important, what any of their political or religious backgrounds are - they empathise with everyone featured in that situation and realise that the most important thing is often not the wider political implications but rather the personal priorities that each individual has.

Replacing rebel songs and Loyalist marching songs with Smokey Robinson hits, Bob Dylan poetry and Beatles melodies, the music of the play is paramount. The songs, not always sung with virtuoso skill but always with gusto and drive, punctuate the action and give motifs to be returned to time and again. Each character's theme song has a special resonance for them and evokes within them the struggle, tragedy or joy they are experiencing.

The play, especially under the direction of Lynch and Lisa May, elaborates on the Northern Irish sense of humour - bitingly harsh one-liners are exchanged back and forth and there is a constant sense of keneticism. The confident and clear movement is only betrayed when they return to their marching movements that begin and end the play. There is a certain tentativeness about it that doesn't really work, and that is a great pity.

There are also moments in the script when you feel Lynch is too carefully making a political point and not dealing with the personal stories. While it is useful for one character to indirectly link the Republican movement to socialism and for the narrator - Freddy, the prison guard - to punctuate the narrative with contextualising comments, it did, at times, feel unnecessary - an attempt at edification, even.

While the play has no evident political bias and the stories of the Loyalist and Republican prisoners are afforded equal or very similar time, the story of the IRA prisoners is much more compelling. One suspects that this is due to the events of those days and the extraordinary situation the Republican prisoners were placed in (during the days of internment) and placed themselves in (or were forced to place themselves in) later during the Blanket, Dirty and Hunger protests. Either way it did give the play a sense of being imbalanced and it might have been more effective to focus it down more particularly or raise the stakes on the Loyalist side.

Anyway, this is a fine play by an exciting and passionate company. In the end the crowd raised to their feet to give thanks to the wonderful performers, and well deserved it was too.

9 out of 10.

At Assembly (Rainy Hall) at 12noon.

-    James Grogan.

I applaud this joyful, lively musical play that asks some big questions, but never in a way that is off-putting or pretentious. It is a polemical piece - against men and male aggression and possessiveness - but that doesn't take from the fact that it has great songs, great movement pieces, great music and a compelling story that does pull you through.

The story follows two women Charlotte - soon renamed Charlie - and Sophie - soon renamed Saphy - who have run away from their respective weddings at the last minute. They are on honeymoon, but not with the person they were expecting. While the names of the characters - an androgynous name and a name that reminds on of the 7th century BCE woman poet, who is often used as short hand for lesbianism (Google "Sapphic" as you'll see what I mean) - might be a little heavy handed, it fits with the generally playful and enjoyable reflection of inter-sexual relationships, violence and freedom.

The songs did exactly what musical theatre songs should do - they advanced the plot, while being witty and funny; they were sung clearly so that each word was audible and they played some fun games in making lines rhyme, which is always a pleasure. The whole set up was blissfully simple - one keyboard and a laptop, both operated from on stage, was all the technology needed to create a whole musical existence. Two singers with two mics on stands did the rest. The set was non-existent and the props and costumes simple, yet well thought-through and well used. So often theatre productions, and not just on the Fringe, confuse themselves with over-complicated sets and props, and it was great to just see the raw performance, without any need, ultimately, for more.

The movement was very well rehearsed and always captured something truthful and visually stimulating. Complementing the narrational activity of each moment, the choreography flowed flawlessly into the action and did provide a good over-layer on the work. It is great to see two performers (in total there are three performers and, despite my best efforts, I have been unable to find their names, if you know, please leave a comment below and I'll make sure to credit them properly) who can sing well, dance well and act well - rare to have such a combination.

Now, it is not a perfect piece of theatre. The ending, which is decidedly tragic, struck me a little naive. While there was no need for it to be life affirming and positive, the unsupported tragic twist - go see the show for specifics - felt immature and unnecessary. Although it may not have made sense, I also felt that there could have been a much more exciting dynamic to have a male performer on stage too. Perhaps this is my new eyes from Trilogy last night, but I do believe it is too easy to create a faceless, nameless enemy and push the responsibility on to them - it must be about dialogue, surely.

Still, this was a brave, well-made and very enjoyable piece of theatre. It is such a joy to see people take great pleasure in making work they are passionate about. I truly do believe that we will see these performers again, either in this production in a bigger, sold out space or in some other capacity - singing, dancing, acting. Let's hope so.

8 out of 10.

At Bedlam Theatre at 10.30pm.

-    James Grogan.

Here's one for the archives. The big, dark, never-to-be-ventured-into-because-you-will-be-lost-in-aimless-mediocrity archive of "Performances that take themselves far too seriously and give post-modernism a bad name". This is a great show if you like to spend 40 minutes looking at pretty things, like flowers and pieces of white cloth, float in a swimming pool - it's surprisingly beautiful and compelling. The rest of it, however, is a waste of space. It's funny, though perhaps not that surprising, that this performance has been getting a lot of attention and good reviews. Ultimately, the only  thing of worth and note in the performance is the swimming pool itself - which looks lovely and hot - and that is simply not good enough.

Right. So this is a rendition of Ophelia's attempt, ultimately successful at killing herself. She considers pills - taking paracetemol from the audience, who, in an act of gracious mercy were only too happy to hand them over, she gave that a go but was stopped by Gertrude - that big spoil sport - who insisted we sit through another 30 minutes of it. She then threw a hair dryer into the pool and proceeded to dunk her head into the water and electrocute herself. But that didn't do the trick either. Turns out she had also tried to slit her wrists, but we only saw the unsuccessful results of that, I'm afraid. Eventually, she gets in the water and it's all over and done with.

The text is a combination of pop songs - such as Prince's When Doves Cry, Hero by Enrique Iglesias and Video Tape by Radiohead - and Shakespearean text, some of which is repeated several times, to no great effect. The pop songs really do take any semblance of considered dramaturgy away from this piece and reveal it for what it really is - a lazy, sensationalist piece of nonsense, which is not nearly as clever or profound than it thinks it is. This is a student production, but I know students who could come up with something subtler, more interesting and more imaginative in 30 minutes. If you took away the pool and the pretty flowers in the water this would be a nothing show and no one would care.

What it also does is give the artistic cornerstones of deconstructionism and post-modernism a very bad name. Non-linear narratives, self-aware theatricality and non-traditional staging are not innovative and you cannot just make lazy attempts at realising them. Re-interpreting old texts implies, necessitates actually, that you do give them an interpretation and not just put them in the same space as pop songs. The best works that are post-modern maintain an honesty and a humility to them. They try to move away from pretension and fakery because that's the very thing post-modern theatre was created to counter (well, that's an argument worth having, but perhaps not just at this moment).

In terms of performances, they were all pretty woeful. The performers were Helen Morton (Ophelia), Rose Walker (Gertrude), Pete Wheller ("The Prince") and Serafina Kiszko ("The Lover"). I feel it would be cruel to start singling out individual performances. What I would say, though, is that one particular moment in which the Prince and the Lover are, supposedly, having sex in the swimming pool was the least sexually charged passage of movement I think I've ever seen. I've been served tea in a more erotic way.

The director/designers Daniel Marchese Robinson and Daniel Pitt really have some thinking to do. Yes, their show has sold out for the rest of the Fringe. Yes, it's been getting lots of great press and will be remembered as a "hit" Fringe show. But, no, this is not good enough. The art itself is hollow, unsupported by emotional honesty and an insult to the performance makers who bring a rigour and a passion to deconstruction and reinterpretation of old texts. If ever one needs a pretty swimming pool scene, they are the people to call. When it comes to creating a performance totality, this creative team has a long way to go.

1.5 out of 10.

At Sweet Swimming Pool at 9.30pm.

- James Grogan

This one-man-play (that's two in the Traverse in one day, bit like buses really) consists of the reflections of an old man after his wife has died - the title probably gave that last bit away. It is a fiction, or perhaps more like an imagined future autobiography. While the performance has many problems, it is performed with joy and written with a passion and skill that is clear and undeniable.

Stefan, a septuagenarian, looks back over the trials and joys of a long life. He speaks with unflinching detail about disease, death, grief, sex and pain. The plot is the narrative of a life, so it's hard to break it down into a clear description, but it covers the making and breaking of family life - love, sex and death (not always in that order).

The play is sprinkled with references to "future living", like paperless books, iChip (which seems to be a step towards androidism; exciting), the trends "in the '20s" to wear sunglasses everywhere. It is endearing and makes for some funny moments, but you do wonder what the point is. The essentials of human interactions are the same, it seems, and considering that that is the point, more or less, then why not set it today, looking back over the last 70 years? Well, an artistic choice is just that, and that's fine. What I will say is that Stefan Golaszewski does not look, or sound or act old. I don't think it would have been a good idea to do a pantomime act of an old man, but just referring to your oldness doesn't make you old. I saw a thirty something year old fantasising about being an old man. And, I suppose, that is what we saw. That's ok, but what level of reality were we meant to view it on? Maybe we don't need to be able to answer that question. Either way, he does not have an old spirit, and that is disconcerting.

Another disconcerting this is that the character - and I hope not the writer-performer - seemed to equate sex with love. He appeared to indicate that possessions are the same as happiness. His wife - Pudding - really is something he wished to consume and could not stand another consuming her. At some moments it did feel a bit more imagination therapy, which is fine and didn't feel indulgent, but did create a very curious dynamic. At the core of this piece is a reflection on (by the audience, not the character) male possessiveness and inability to contextualise actions from another's point of view - essentially pointing out the male tendency to lack empathy.

I feel I am sounding harsher than I feel towards this piece. It was performed with great skill, and true joy - something rare enough these days. There was a great sense of the emotional dynamics - bringing us through the character's feelings of happiness, despair and everything in between. We may not have always liked the character we saw, but I do believe we understood him. The performance used repetition of movement and words to great effect and while pushing the physical and vocal limits in certain moments, still managed to feel understated. For that credit must surely go to Philip Breen, who also designed the show. I really did feel as though the emotional highs and lows were well supported and wholly appropriate. Overall, a very strong piece of theatre.

7 out of 10.

At the Traverse (Traverse 2) at various times.

-    James Grogan

This Faustian tale of desire is beautifully performed by an extremely talented ensemble. Every element works so well in unison and the elaborate set and concept is refreshing. As an adaptation of Gogol's classic, it finds a lot of ingenious staging and movement set pieces to race through the hour and 10 minutes in a flash. Half of the audience rose to standing ovation at the end and this was their first preview - I have not doubt that once the full run starts this will inspire many more to their feet in applause.

What holds the whole thing together is the fantastic set design. Ti Green has done a phenomenal job at creating an innovative, moveable, adaptable, beautiful and playful set. It changes height, it involves a lot of performers defying gravity, it allows scene changes and scenography in general to add an entirely new level to our understanding and appreciate of the work. It is a massive achievement. The music and sound design, created by Dave Price and Dan Steele respectively, offer another epic layer - punctuation the movement and narrative perfectly, they created an atmosphere that heightened everything that was happening. Without it, this would have been half the show it was.

We meet Akaky - a lower level worker in a busy and generally soul-destroying office. He dreams (fantasises, indeed) of being with the beautiful clerk in his office, who appears to like him but seems more interested in what type of coat he wears than anything else. As it is Akaky's coat is far from what it could be - with holes and generally cheap, he is rejected by his co-workers on social occasions as he would not be let into fancy restaurants and bars. Alone and rejected by a society he is desperate to be part of and willing to do anything to win the love of his dreams, he, essentially, sells his soul to the devil for a coat. Well, that was never going to work out too pleasantly, was it? While Gecko have made the link to Faust a bit more clear than it might necessarily appear, they seem to have been generally faithful, in spirit at least, to the source material. And I don't really care if they haven't been.

The performances, by Robert Luckay, Dave Price, Dai Tabuchi, Natalie Ayton, Amit Lahav, Sirena Tocco and Francois Testory, have a wonderful sense of physicality. Let's be clear, though, this is not dance theatre (why, I might ask, is it under dance in the Fringe broucher?) it is theatre with some dance-like elements. It is certainly not Tanztheater, seeking to find the elusive limits of what the human body can do and what that means. It has a frenetic pace and many very slick movement sequences, but what choreography there is, is unimaginative and generally pretty low key. In fairness, that is made up for in the other qualities of the performances - the vocal clarity (all characters speak different languages but at no time is it unclear what is being said, it is a great example of inter-lingual communication), the movement clarity and the character clarity all stand side by side to make a top notch performance.

The dramaturgy of the piece (we are told that David Farr provided dramaturgy advice, presumably mainly to able director Amit Lahav) was very clear and very useful for our understanding of what it is about. While the over-text is about sexual and emotional desire (an eroticism pervades the entire work) the sub-text makes clear that desire and damnation are both products of consumption - Akaky wants to have the female clerk, he wants to consume her, in order to do so he must possess the coat, when he does, it costs him his life. It's hardly Das Capital but it works all the same.

All in all this is a wonderful performance (though minus points for a company member who was giving out to some one who was flyering at the door as people were leaving; everyone's got to sell their show, no point in bickering about it) and it will no doubt go down very well during the festival. It will strike many as a refreshingly professional production. It should be popular, which is good as it needs to fill the Pleasance Grand, which, as the name suggests, is really rather big. With a show like this, it should be simple.

8 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Grand) at 5.20pm.

-    James Grogan

A beautifully fragile play about fathers and sons, about loss and grief, about being a man and being yourself, Icarus 2.0 is a gem. With a set that keeps on surprising and two excellent performances (by Sébastien Lawson and Jamie Wood), this play is definitely one to see.

Icarus and his father are locked in interminably preparations for the day Icarus will fly. The world outside is toxic and hateful, so only inside their laboratory-cum-home do they feel safe. Fantasy and fear pervade this post-industrial purgatory - which is, in fact, a council flat.

Reminisent of Beckett (two male characters filling time) and Walworth Farce by Enda Walsh (where two sons and their father are trapped in their London council flat and continuously act out passages from their lives), there is a certain Irish theatrical tradition underlying this piece - the conflict and necessity of relationships between fathers and sons, the crippling effect of expectation, the domestic hell that you choose out of need and habit.

The characters absent are as interesting as the characters present. Icarus's mother and sister are referred to and clearly important, but at not time actually there. The lack of female balance in the play means that the self-inflicted purgatory can continue and, indeed, it is the intervention of a female character that shifts the balance and brings the work to its conclusion.

At times, however, the play does explain itself too much. For example, defining "genius" as someone who has the power to influence another person seems a bit too obvious given the otherwise quite subtle script devised by the company. Perhaps a single playwright would have weeded out such looseness. That looseness does prevent the play from really taking off, but there is enough by way of visual metaphors - for example, the rope that Icarus uses to find his way home when he goes out scavenging for food - and unspoken tensions to pull it through.

Icarus's father creates a fantasy world and in many ways the play is about what happens what you life through a fantasy and then take it away. What is believed to be an act of protection turns into an act of cruelty. By living vicariously through his son, the father seeks to recapture his own masculinity, uncover success where he had none. If that sounds rather Freudian, that's because it is - there is a psychological subtext that pervades this play.

In terms of design, the set, by Susannah Henry is full of lots of interesting and visually curious bits. There are aspects that you don't notice until the exact moment you are supposed to, and that works extremely well. The sound design, by Claire Keating, perfectly augments the action and is well thought through.

It is not a perfect play. Some editing might help and possibly the climax lacks foundation in its build up. However, it is an inventive, curious and other touching piece of work.

7 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Courtyard (Below) at 3.25pm.

This is a solid script and generally pretty good acting. It won't change you're life, but it won't bore you either. The minimal staging and clearly differentiated characters reflected the production's origins as a radio play, but it has transferred media well. It makes a good stab at looking at some interesting ideas about reality, the film industry, reinventing history and believing what you want to believe. It takes quite a few twists, some more interesting than others. Followers of verbatim theatre will be familiar with some of the ethical questions raised, but here those questions are not that rigorously rendered.

The play is set on a day in which Raymond (Brett Goldstein) a newly successful British writer/director in Hollywood, who just bagged an Oscar nomination. He's being minded by PR woman and finance Katie (Susanna Herbert) through a series of interviews in which he is being asked the same questions over and over. Tara (Felicity Wren), from Britain's own Observer, comes to interview him. But - surprise, surprise - all is not what it seems. A few turns one way or another punctuate the action from here on. Without giving too much away, it essentially has to do with the origin and factual accuracy of the film Raymond has made ("Walking with Therese", staring Susan Sarandon, apparently).

The play is about how a male artist will re-imagine, re-member, if you will, a personal history that paints him and other men in a better light than they may deserve (there is not definite conclusion on whether they do deserve it or not, it's not morally clear, which is good, but at times it does get a bit weak because it clearly doesn't want to be polemical. Understandable, but not necessarily good theatre). In some ways whatever strength the concept has it is lost in the performance of Tara. This Tara is somewhat cruel, somewhat hysterical, somewhat weak - for us to be truly compelled, I think, Tara needed to be the only character we understood completely. It's not a simple case of sympathy, but more one of respect. Still, with a male writer (Brett Goldstein again) and a male director (Chris Lince), that may never have been possible. The imbalanced dynamic makes for a play that lacks the conflicting drive to see it through. That's a shame.

It's not a bad play and will nicely fill an empty hour if you're around the Courtyard. It has faults that should have been ironed out, but still, worth a look.

5 out of 10.

At Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs) at 2.20pm.

Magical realism and domestic autobiography pervades this fascinating and at times frustration one-man show. Written and performed by Edgar Oliver, we hear of how Oliver found and came to live in a house, run by a Mr. Supter - shorthand for Superintendent - the master and arbiter of conflicts amongst the house's many odd characters.

Oliver has a style that does grate a little. Emphasising his As and Rs words like "Stared", "Apartment" and "Arbitrary" take on a bizarre importance to a sentence, skewing the sense of whatever is going on. His somewhat convoluted theatricality is largely unnecessary, as the story stands on its own feet, as does his magnetism. Still, I'm sure many would find his stylised delivery an advantage - each to their own. Also, he does use certain techniques, like repeating a particular phrase throughout a series of sentences to great effect - it really does evoke something important about that thing or place or person he is repeating, in a way that I don't think I have ever seen before quite in the same way.

It is the strange residents, with homicidal tendencies, who are most interesting. Alongside Oliver and his normal sounding sister, there are a midget cabalist (who stores his faeces in Maxwell House coffee jars), a suspected Nazi (who appears to make soup from his urine), a very old woman who spends most of the day in the bathroom washing rags (the Lady Macbeth of rags, we are told) and a man who likes to frighten the washing woman, for no discernible reason. The veracity of these characters is hard to say, but doesn't really matter - they form the landscape for Oliver's time in this house, a house that clearly shapes his very sense of identity and belonging.

The play is infused with ideas of ritual spiritualism - his sister bases her paintings on the I Ching, Mr Supter sees ghosts every night, and all of the other characters are caught in their own never ending struggle against ritualised obsession. These concepts do add a sense of the supernatural, almost, to proceedings and, I suppose, another layer to consider. It's not, though, particularly gripping.

The narrative at times did stay as Oliver necessarily jumps from one time period to the next. Characters come and go, some exits are explained, others just happen. The whole production does strip down to the story itself and one man's attempt at telling it. The lighting by David Zeffren is simple but effective, doing what it needs to to set the scene and create some atmosphere. The white light of different warmths worked well. The direction, by Randall Sharp, is inevitably hard to trace - in a one man show there is not a great deal of moving about, or at least in this one there wasn't, and so the studied understated movement felt natural, though one does suspect a director's influence there.

All-in-all it is an interesting story told in a very distinctive style. It won't be to everyone's liking, but it does open a small window on to what sounds like a very curious part of New York. Worth a look.

6 out of 10.

At Traverse (Traverse 2) at various times.

-    James Grogan.

A masterful exploration of the female body and women's place and status in society and history; a beautifully captured piece of choreography; a strong statement of political intent; a playful, entertaining performance lecture; a deadly serious work about what makes us who we are; an attempt at genuine dialogue; a community formation exercise; a joyous celebration of who we are; an absolutely pitch-perfect masterpiece that everyone must see: Trilogy is a truly great piece of performance. Perhaps the most important performance to be made in decades.

There is so much to say, so much to think; one could write about Trilogy, think about Trilogy for weeks, months. I feel, and this is something I have never written in a review, and may never again, that I have been changed by this piece. It did not try to convince me of anything, it simply affected how I use my eyes, how I see the world around me.

This is an incredibly honest and truthful piece of performance. It never pretended to do something or be something it was not. It found truth in poetry, in the unspeakable. It found beauty in the layered image, it playfully affected our perception of reality. In the near three hours we spent in that magnificent space at St. Stephen's (with possibly the best sight lines in all of Edinburgh) we engaged in an act of communion.

Performed by Nic Green, Laura Bradshaw, Louise Brodie, Murray Wason, Jodie Wilkinson, Rachel Amey, Amy Cade, Anny Deery, Linda Douglas, Rasana Cade, Becki Gerrard, Jo Hutton, Rosie Marshall, Sarah Morrison, Kim Ward, Fiona Watt and Sophie Younger we witnessed a retaking of the image of the female body. We saw it for what it is, and what it should be - a wobbly, moving, imperfect and breathtakingly beautiful work of art. The joyous dance that ends the first section of Trilogy captured what actually constitutes a body - the natural and often uncontrolled complexity of humans, rather than the plasticised, commodified, simplified depiction of the female form in popular culture.

They identified a consumerist culture, working within a male hegemony, as a driving force behind the subjugation of women in contemporary society. The argument was hardly shoved at us, just opened out to us, over time and with generosity. They pointed out that much of their inspiration draws from a 1971 book (The Female Unich, my Germaine Greer), but that they still found a resonance with that work today. And, indeed, perhaps it is even more important today to remind ourselves of the earth quake within academic and critical circles of that second wave feminism - while those circles may have advanced their discourse, the dialogue happening within society is still one rooted in a misogynist context. And in this work, context is everything - it is the structures that propagate the belief systems that are anti-woman that are to blame, not individuals. That does not, however, remove responsibility from the individual, indeed, it heightens it: now that those structures are exposed, they can be fought.

In many ways and at many points the audience is asked to participate - whether through answering a question, getting up on stage to perform a simple (but achingly beautiful) piece of movement or in the grand finale, the singing of Jerusalem. At no point, unlike many other shows, is this exploitative, forced or uncomfortable for anyone. Non-participation is a choice, but one that I, personally, could not understand.

Some men might feel that a piece of performance explicitly and unapologetically about feminism is not for them. This is not a performance that just women should see. Nor it is a performance that just men should see. Or that just the old or just the young should see. Nor just the middle class nor just the working class. This is a performance everyone should see, witness, participate in, be moved by. It so humanly and carefully opens the space for dialogue between men and women. It asks us to speak together, not to shut one another out. The performance my Murray Wason, the only non-audience male performer, is so importance in its presence. Wason talks about seeing the dark man in him, the man who is capable of violence, of rape or objectifying. But he is not that man. And he is ready to talk, to open a dialogue. And that, ultimately, is this performance - one large, never ending discussion about these most important of things.

Throughout the whole performance, with all the naked bodies gracefully moving about the stage, I truly believe that not one man in that audience would have viewed any woman present as a sexual object. If for three hours of our lives we transcended those most ingrained of behaviours, then that is surely something unspeakably powerful.

You cannot help but be moved by the sheer goodness of the occasion. Everyone present wills the events to raise us, to transform us, for moments, single precious moments, into divine creatures. And as we raised our voices in that fine church and later as we left into the Edinburgh evening, we were more hopeful, more peaceful and more open to all the discussions to come. The intricate dynamics of gender politics do not sort themselves out in an evening. But at least, at last, we can all sing the same tune.

10 out of 10.

At The Arches at St. Stephen's at 7.30pm.

- James Grogan.

Sometimes cheap tricks really do work. The Bone House is presented as a sort of lecture - although, on reflection, there wasn't actually that much information contained within it. You are greeted by Eugene Crowley, a "Mind Hunter". A "Mind Hunter", is, apparently, someone who investigates series killers. At first it felt a bit like an episode of Criminal Minds, though to be fair to Crowley, his production had more coherence and didn't play around in psychological nonsense.

Crowley talks about how serial killers need to control. He then proceeds to instruct the audience to move from their seats, to take a seat elsewhere. He gives very clear and distinct instructions about what we are to do and how. And you do get the feeling that not cooperating is not really on the cards. So, inevitably, we start thinking, maybe he too is a secret serial killer...But that would be too obvious.

Anyway, I'm not going to detail everything that happens as with these things half the fun (or all the fun) is not knowing what will happen or thinking you know and then being surprised. Against my better judgement, indeed, entirely despite myself, I was drawn in by this well designed and carefully pitched performance. And yes, I was scared.

The trick is to acknowledge people's cynicism about fear - we're just in a theatre performance, right? There's no actual danger. The late night slot definitely helps to create a sense that you really don't know what will happen. And there was something about the sparseness of the audience that made it feel a little isolating.

However, there was a level of theatricality that meant that really it was impossible to be completely sucked in. While the special guest appearance of a witness to a terrible murder was well performed, I couldn't stop thinking that it was performed. Perhaps what has been missed here is the idea that truth is captured, sometimes, better by clearly unreal performance rather than realist renditions. Still, I challenge anyone to go through the whole thing and not jump. Or, indeed, to not do as you are told.

Ultimately, while it is not a sophisticated show and the points about being and audience to the performance of a murder are a little heavy handed, it does exactly what it claims it will, and it does it well. There's not many shows that can say that.

6 out of 10.

At Underbelly (Belly Button) at 11.35pm.

-    James Grogan.

This tale of Charles Darwin's early years has much to commend it. Taking a bawdy and theatrically knowing look at his years from birth until he joined the crew of the Beagle, Origins is often funny and occasionally moving. While far from a perfect play, it has many strong elements, most of which cohere most of the time.

The play follows the twists and turns through Darwin's early years - basically he doesn't know what he wants to be and his family feel very strongly that he should be a doctor. It's a well known, though hardly particularly compelling central conflict, but it keeps things moving most of the time. He is guided by his dead grandfather (Maxwell Hutcheon) who punctuates the action at regular interval, offering comments on the action or advice to young Charles. To be honest, it is the portrayal of this grandfather character that is the greatest flaw of the play. From the very first moment of the play you can tell that the actor either doesn't entirely understand what he is saying or has found no way to say in such a way that makes sense. This character should be the most funny of them all, but he produced the least laughs, and it is no surprise.

Elsewhere, the acting is decidedly better (the rest of the cast are: Emily Wachter, Damian Lynch, Harry Arkwright and Joseph Alford) While there are a few dud lines and fluffed words, the movement and characterisation is clear and all actors (except Charles and the grandfather) play many parts, all executed very well. There was, in the first while, a good deal of puppetry and while it was not expertly done, it was more than competent.

While the script was sometimes overly obvious and straightforward, it had many good one liners and was well constructed in terms of narrative progression. The occasional anachronistic touches (such as a character talking about putting a cap in someone's ass) were well tuned to the crowd. Pointing out the theatricality of a theatre event might seem a little obvious, but it was generally used to good effect. The bawdy moments were substantial but never cringe-worthy, which is saying something.

The strongest element was by far the design aspect. The sound design might have been slightly sentimental at times, but the staging was both uncomplicated and versatile. The lighting design was excellent, very evocative and transformational, one of the best I've seen this Fringe. It was the coherency of the design elements that made this a strong play.

While at 90 minutes, it started dragging towards the end (when that central conflict seemed to run out of steam somewhat), it is a well made piece of theatre, a most solid Fringe show.

6 out of 10.

At Pleasance Dome (King Dome) at 3.30pm.

- James Grogan

Forgotten Things is a show you will either love or hate. The play, written by Emma Adams and directed by Rod Dixon and John Barber, has a very strong storytelling and visual aesthetic - so strong that at times it overwhelms. It is a play about families, about how they don't listen to each other and how their attempts to make things better usually result in things getting even worse. We follow Toby (Woody Murray), a depressive teenager, mother Margot (Simone Lewis) and father Philip (Stephen Mosely) and Philip's mother, Lilly (Jo Mousley), who is gripped by dementia.  Margot and Philip are trying to find answers to their son's depression from unconventional psychiatrist Dr. Kevin (puppeted by Murray) while Toby and Lilly find companionship and solace in their own way while hunting for something Lilly has lost.

The acting was extremely, and purposefully, styalised. At times it did fall into the trap of just being shouty. Representing a sort of heightened reality, everything became more important, more painful, more tragic. To be honest, I never felt that left much space for emotional honesty, so when the play starts taking turns towards what could be a heart breaking conclusion, it never quite pitched itself at the right note to really work. The same criticism could be levelled at most Fringe plays, but seemed more acute here because the stylistic choices are so clear. I also felt that there was a danger in the portrayals (both in terms of acting and writing) of Lilly and Toby making depression and dementia very simple things. Again, this is a symptom of the style, but is that good enough?

The strongest element was by far the design. Sara Perk's set evoked a world of greys, whites and blacks, dull and unforgiving. But it also created whole worlds coming out of floors and walls - everything had an additional use and the holes in the stage (covered by elastic) were used to great effect. Such a clear and complete staging statement is rare on the Fringe, and it was a refreshing change. Jaydev Mistry's sound composition, while at times a little heavy handed, did provide a great deal of atmosphere and was generally very exactly rendered.

All in all Forgotten Things is a clear and coherent dramaturgical and narrational statement. But it just may not be one that many people are willing to listen to.

6 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Dome (King Dome) at 1.50pm.

- James Grogan

What happens if you watch a satire, the subject matter of which is tiresome and dull, the characters in which are single-track people with little going for them? What happens when you are confronted with a comment on a middle class pseudo-intellectual existence that is so ultimately vacuous that you can't quite bring yourself to care about the writer's point? In truth, not much happens, except that a dull pressure builds behind your eyes and you do start fantasising about firmly placing a pillow over the characters' faces.

It did not bode well on entering the theatre. The heat was intense. If you can imagine sitting around an open fire, in Singapore, at noon, on a particularly hot day, in a fleece, with your feet in hot water, you'll be close enough. The programmes were essential - not for finding out more on the play, but to circulate some air. Much applause to the actors for fighting through their tropical environment.

I do feel there probably is a better play in here than I saw. It is not a play about art (I think) but about dysfunctional relationships and the things we talk about when we have (over time) run out of things to say to good friends. As it was, the arguments about art became the centre-piece, removing any interest for those of us who have realised how empty such arguments are (you know, it really doesn't matter if one person is a postmodernist and another is a classicist). The characters were pretty straight forward and with not much depth or variety.  The blame must land on the shoulders of director Anthony Pinnick.

The story follows Mark (David Mouriguand) who takes exception to his friend Serge (Danny Fisher) buying a canvas with a white background and white diagonal lines - so, yes, a white canvas. Their neurotic friend Yvan (Benjamin Darlington) acts as the equivocator in the middle, never really taking sides and infuriating them both because of it. Sounds inconsequential? Funny that...

The performances were solid enough. Mouriguand was possibly a bit more one-dimensional than the others. I really could find nothing in Mark that makes him interesting or sympathetic. Without any desire to be anywhere near him I couldn't quite understand why the other two would stay in his company, which essentially took out the heart of the play. Fisher was quite straightforward, but had a certain smarmy charm that might evoke an invitation to a twice-yearly dinner party. Darlington was the strongest actor - handling the awkward physicality and often manic flip-floppery of Yvan with aplomb. A weaker actor would have become flappy and incoherent. Ultimately, though, it was hard to feel much sympathy for him either.

Between the heat, the snobbish, macho, supposedly cultural, neurotic nonsense and the wholly discardable characters I could just never really see the point. There is a good play here, but it is somehow lost, melting into the ether in the tropical heat of an Edinburgh evening.

At C Central (The Blue Room) at 10.10.

3 out of 10.

- James Grogan

Here is another show to file under "Aping Katie Mitchell's recent techniques, but my doesn't Katie do them so much better and for reasons of artistic merit and not due to a lack of imagination (oh, and it's about suicide and contemporary issues)?" You'll find it alongside Beachy Head at the Pleasance Dome. There isn't that much to say about this performance as it really was quite insubstantial. And by that I don't mean that it's subtle and understated, I mean it does not have much to say.

Essentially it links the suicides after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 to the rise in suicides since the recession. Indulging in faux poeticism and crudely broken narratives, it tells a few stories, but not very well.

While there were some elements of the script that were redeemable, it was loose and flabby, needed significant editing and revision. The performances were generally weak - unfocused and inexact. Some of the design ideas were good enough - the video work was vaguely interesting, but not directly linked enough to the action or plot to take on greater significance. The Mitchell-style live video recording and spraying water on Perspex were unimaginative, clunky and didn't really belong. Did I sense that they failed to really believe in it? Perhaps I was imagining things (you have to do something to stay awake).

I also felt that they made the economic crisis of today and of '29 a middle class issue solely. Now, while going from being able to buy a five bed detached Georgian house to sleeping on a friend's couch or going from working in banking to holding down a 10-hour-a-day job in a pub might be a shock to the system and an extreme personal crisis, the real tragedy of recession is that those already struggling to make ends meet have to struggle that little bit harder. I found their focus on people who can take two gaps years and used to feel like masters of the universe without having a critical eye on them, was a mistake.

They are all recent graduates from Central School of Speech and Drama and one might hope that in the months and years to come they will develop a rigour that seems to have not been forthcoming in their training. Let us hope that this is a process of finding their way to a more confident and exact artistry.

1 out of 10.

At C Cubed (Main Space) at 7.10.

- James Grogan

How refreshing to find a performance that is unafraid to be difficult, unwilling to indulge you in laughter and struggles against its own confines to great effect. These young performers would put many professional companies here in Edinburgh to shame. While Quaternary (which, as I had expected, I was mispronouncing, think of centenary) is far from a perfect play, it is a strong statement by these compelling performers.

The story follows the five characters as they take a trip to Iceland and is based on Milton's Paradise Lost. They face a series of struggles against circumstance and each other, sometimes delving into a psychological demi-hell. It does all sound very teen angst, and there are moments when you feel they are indulging themselves, but usually the show avoid pretension entirely.

The performers - Faraz Aghaei, Theodore Chester, Angus Hodder, William Morland and Thomas Rebuffa - have a strong exactitude in their movements. They, at times, have a disarming honesty to their performances and even when the volume is turned up and it all gets rather frenetic, they still have control over themselves enough to keep it together. At times they talk about going on to university and one hopes that that experience will include further explorations of theatre and performance, and, indeed, that we may see them again at the Fringe and elsewhere.

Some issues with the show included the rather unnecessary projections of the title of the scene. We found out we were seeing the "Fall of Man", and "Hell". So clearly stating the purpose of what was otherwise a scene removed, appropriately, from its source material, was tiresome. I also think that using strobe lighting to depict a sort of psychological breakdown was a little obvious and went against the spirit of the piece.

The sound design, by Jamie Flockton, was very powerful and evocative and created another layer of subtle aural imagery which always complimented and never over-shone the performances. The lighting design (with the exception of the strobe) by Guy Emerson was also strong. The design elements - uncredited on the programme - were economical and always served their purpose well. There were buckets filled with water into which heads were dunked; ladders which were precariously balanced while a monologue was being performed; lots of stones that seemed to be a key motif throughout.

While the references of stated "influences", such as Forced Entertainment, were a little heavy handed and I suspect could have been done without, this exact, strong and brave performance, by strokes confessional and visceral, is a very strong statement.

7 out of 10.

At C Soco (Studio 3) at 5.35pm.

- James Grogan

Sometimes sickly sentimental, this show very sincerely wears its heart upon its sleeve. A few strong performances and some nice underlying ideas will not redeem this play about death, growing up and remembering. There are structural issues within the script that would be very hard for anyone to get around. The idea is that a man, Paul, is giving a speech at his father, Miller's, funeral. That form of oratory can be little besides sentimental and rose tinted. While that's fine when remembering with fondness a loved one, in theatre it can be a little tiring.

There are some nice ideas in Paul Ferguson's play. I like how a character can be captured in stories about their lives, how an act of rememberance is close to an act of recreation of a person gone. The production, too, had some nice touches - the character of the father being played by three of the four actors, several others being created for each scene. There was a sense of understanding how identities (remembered and actual) are fluid and can be reinterpreted in different ways.

The central plot devise seemed to be football matches - the father character being a big football fan. This seemed laboured and did not add much to the script, I felt. Plays with football (or scenes about football) need to really be about something else in order to be interesting. I fear that even an ardent football fan would find little of interest in the character's passion for football - though I can believe I'm wrong about that.

Overall, the play pointed out what it was doing far too much. Everything was as it seemed and everything was explained in too much detail. The stakes were not really high enough and the play seemed to creep to its conclusion. But ultimately, while it may indeed affirm some people's believe in the ultimate redemptive tragedy that is life, it was just a bit too sugar coated to take seriously.

5 out of 10.

At C Soco (Studio 3) at 2.55pm.

- James Grogan

Absolute nonsense. Complete and utter instantly forgettable nonsense. Worst show of my festival so far. It got worse and worse as it went on. On every level and in every aspect (except one, see below) this show was simply terrible. Bad songs were poorly sung. The acting was wooden and the dialogue atrocious. The jokes were most definitely second rate - so obvious and forced as to render the whole thing a bit of a train wreck. I sympathised with the dozen or so people who walked out. Today's show was full (such a contrast to the genuinely worthwhile shows reviewed earlier today, Matinee and Finklestein's Castle) but on the strength of this, such a situation will not continue for long.

It didn't start off so badly. Some of the jokes to open up had an playful and bawdy physicality and there's nothing wrong about cock jokes and men being embarrassed by being in compromising positions with other men (and in the 1940's context that works also) but it is no doubt cheap. And from cheap and vaguely twitterful it went to cheap and just dull. Puns and word play are all well and good and when they work well they can be hilarious. When they are made to fit the situation or the situation made to fit the word play (even worse) they are essentially worthless.

The plot. Five grave digging brothers are called up to France just before the Dunkirk evacuation in the second world war. One of them is in love with a librarian. The ministry of defence is incompetent. The French drink a lot and have lots of sex. They are left behind in France. They dig and find themselves in hell. Hell is run by German prostitutes (who used to be French prostitutes) and Nazis (that's clever, isn't it?). They go to heaven. They go back to earth. All of this happens for no reason. If you have any sense you won't have read this paragraph.

The songs were pretty boring. Neither witty nor musically sophisticated, they really added little or nothing. The title song was so forgettable the performers themselves seemed to give up half way. On that note, the singing was either off key, out of tune or entirely indecipherable. The mumbling and fumbling the way through the dull lines was understandable, but no more enjoyable.

At some point the plot took a ridiculous and entirely unnecessary surreal twist (having paddled in surrealism for a short while). After this, there was really no hope. We went, literally, to hell and back, and to be perfectly honest, I felt no stronger for the experience. It was a complete waste of time for everyone involved.

The only saving grace of the show was the set design. Both functionally adept and aesthetically strong, it gave the whole performance at least some credibility. In turns imaginative and innovative, it displayed the hard corrugated regularity of the war. One bright spark, at least.

The sooner everyone realises that this performance has nothing to offer, the sooner we can all move on with our lives.

1 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two) at 4pm.

- James Grogan

Matthew Sharp, that most versatile and accomplished of performers, has created a beautifully observed and multi-layered performance. Slipping skilfully between different character, Sharp takes up on a surreal journey through a whole alternate mythology. The poor turn out for this mid-afternoon show was a real shame and I feel a bigger audience would have been able to engage with Sharp's ever changing narrative more effectively. It would also have found more of the jokes that were present but not always recognised. Credit is surely due to Peter M Wyer, who directed this piece - it is undoubtedly stronger for having a steady hand on the outside to advise and shape the performance.

We join Sharp as he travels to Finkelstein's Castle, a voyage epic enough in its own right. The plot involves lots of weird and wonderful character - all of whom had little details to add to the general madness. Careering between parties lacking toothpaste, a dungeon, a magic toilet and lost cities, you'd expect to get a little lost. But Sharp deftly brings us through, sometimes moving faster that we can follow, but always giving us something we can catch up with. While complex it is never obtuse or overly convoluted.

It was not a perfect show, however. One felt Sharp could show off his (substantial) singing voice and cello playing more. This reviewer is a sucker for a well played cello and more is always welcome. Also the microphone was catching on something (stubble, perhaps), creating a clicking sound that was a bit distracting. To some extent I would also question amplifying the voice at all - it seemed unnecessary and sometimes a bit irritating. Perhaps it was to do with the numbers in, but it all felt too turned up to 11. There were also moments when words or whole lines were lost (thankfully not very many) and that was also a real shame.

Still, there was a great physicality on show and this really is a performance that deserves to be called virtuoso. Venturing into the audience and one point, Sharp showed his ability to react in the moment, leaping from seat back to seat back, lying on audience's laps and clinging to them dearly. It appeared his lighting operator couldn't quite keep up. Furthermore, the inner story of Sharp's adventure to Finkelstein's Castle and the knowing contextual narrative that created the satirical elements both worked in conjunction with one another and that duality drew the play to a much more accomplished level.

It is just a shame that more people are not seeing this real top quality performance.

At Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two) at 2.35pm.

8 out of 10

-    James Grogan.

With supreme physicality, sharp humour and a keen eye for satirical homage, Matinee is a very strong performance by this Israeli troupe (Yitshak Laor, Yael Maftsir, Dani Brusovani, Daniel Kischinovsky and Yinon Shazo, directed by Tzvika Fishzon). In an early slot at the King Dome, the audience was only half empty, which is partly explained by the difficulty in knowing where this show would fit best. It has next to no dialogue and is sketch based, which will put some (or many) theatre fans off from the outset. It is at the right time for family shows and while many of the children and their parents did it, there are some scenes and jokes that are risqué and that will inevitably put some parents off (and possibly confuse some children).

Really, one feels as though it was more suited to a late showing, after a few drinks perhaps. Coffee and juice were the only liquids going in. Still, it was a good performance - very clear physical humour that meant they did not rely on text. Indeed, there was minimal speech and what was there was economical and pointed. No one could accuse this troupe of over-writing. In one memorable scene a female performer starred as a bar, complete with bar tap. The supreme commitment to the shapes and movement was a testament to the immense to the immense skill of these performers.

There were four sketches - a Superman take off, a Pink Panther send up, a Karate Kid semi-epic and a thriller (as in the Michael Jackson) horror pastiche. Arguably they could have done without a fourth sketch as the first three did wring out most of the surprises that were coming. You could feel an expectation that it was about to end within the audience, and a slight sense of frustration that it did not. While the form was very entertaining, once you have laughed at the very exact physicality and bawdy jokes then there's not much more to get out of it.

Throughout, they satirized cultural stereotypes as represented in film. While each sketch had a singular reference point within a single well-known film, they were also more expansive, playing with what we know about each genre. More importantly, it played with what we understand from western cinema. The kung fu (Karate Kid) sketch was clearly dealing with rather hackneyed ideas of "Oriental" characters. They could possibly, be accused of pandering to those stereotypes. Propagating them, even. I do think - or hope - that they were looking at such clichéd representations with a satirical eye, rather than a sympathetic one.

Overall this is an honest and very well executed performance, without pretension or selfishness. It provided simple enjoyment to a mixed audience. It is just a pity its not getting the attention it deserves.

7 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Dome (King Dome) at 12noon.

-    James Grogan

This brave attempted adaptation of Franz Kakfa's classic infuriated and impressed in equal measure. It was too much and not enough. It tried, in some ways, to break with the site-specific conventions that companies such as Punchdrunk have settled into. On the other hand it demonstrated why those conventions have been developed.

The audience, having been herded around the cavernous C Venue complex, is led up the "secret" stair-case, with paint peeling and wires extruding from walls. The scene is set. A mime with white face takes each audience member by the hand, instructing those of us with glasses to remove them and we are led inside, blindfolded, moved to a particular place in a room (the size of which was impossible to gauge). Occasionally lights were pointed into our eyes. We could see through the blind fold to some extent - enough that we would not have walked into anything. This was the first thing that was not enough. While the semi-see-through blind fold allowed us to engage more in the movement of lights and figures, they also allowed us freedom to basically do what we wanted. Except when one did move to venture around the space, we were stopped, physically moved to another place and pointed a certain way. This was completely unnecessary and the constant attempts to make us look in a particular direction or stand in a particular place were very frustrating. How can you justify such a unified presentation when you have removed every hint of traditional staging? It's bringing the mind-set of the proscenium arch into an old warehouse - what's the point?

Now, before I go on I should recognise that when we are dealing with Kafka we are dealing with experiences that we cannot control, being moved for reasons we don't understand and being processed through systems that have no relevance to us; the experiential aspect of the show is dramaturgically sound and doesn't need justifying. But when dealing with experiences, it is hard not to separate the meaning of the experiences and what reaction they created in you - those reactions (generally involving animosity towards the ensemble) did not, I think, benefit the process of engaging with the performance. The difference between observing and being implicated by proximity, touch or action in a play is immense and at times exhilarating; other times it serves to frustrate and antagonise. I truly believe that audiences are intuitive and don't need to be guided - especially when there are lots of cushions around the walls.

The performances are very distinctive. The highly physicalised characterisation of everyone besides Josef K, provided a clear denotation of the function, status and drives of a given character. This stylistic choice works, although at times it does reduce what could be at least somewhat more complex representations. The ordering of the audience actually reduced the sight lines almost entirely half the time. At times there was a sense that the production did everything it could to stop you seeing clearly - fill the room with haze, shine lights in people's eyes and make sure there are twenty audience members between you and the action. If I was being cynical I would almost say it was to hide the occasional absence of interesting performance. At times I felt that there were just too many "one-workshop" ideas, that the performances had not developed in a way that allowed for more complexity.

What I would also add is that the commitment to the audience interaction was less than it could have been. At one point someone gripped my arm and so we remained for a minute or so. About 10 seconds in the grip was loosened and suddenly whatever connection we had was lost. Later, I witnessed a performed who, face-to-face with an audience member for some time, corpsed in a way that must have broken something that could have been an intimate moment.

However, there is much to say in the show's favour. The set pieces had some physical wonderment within them, which almost justified being shunted out of the way. The scenography was strong and provided a clear aesthetic. I would have appreciated being able to explore the space more to investigate some of the nooks and cranies - as, at times, they appeared slightly more interesting than what I couldn't see in front of me.

Anyway, this show is a probable sure-fire hit. It had much to say in its defence. It did, I feel, fail to score the experience for the audience to its advantage.

6 out of 10.

- James Grogan

Both a shower and a grower, this play takes a pitch perfect view of two performers, and sports people, who cannot accept that the world has changed around them. While the title might be instantly forgettable (I have yet to hear some one say the whole thing without having to check first), the show itself (playing to a decent but hardly stellar audience at the King Dome) is top class. A really subtle examination of the relationship between two ice dancers after all the ice has melted.

We meet Heap and Pebble, the sole competitors in an ice dancing competition four years after the last of the ice in the world disappeared. It does not take a massive amount of mental power to work out that this is a commentary on global climate change (a phrase which is thankfully only used once throughout). It works least well when dealing more directly with the political and contemporary issues surrounding the context of the two characters - at those moments it does not indulge in political lecturing but there is a stinted sense to the flow, a little self conscious, perhaps.

When it really takes off is when we see the individual story of the two central characters. Dealing with going from being the world's greatest ice dancers to a world with no ice and the different stresses it places on them, we see a (platonic) couple slowly wearing itself down. Many passages happen in silence and are often underplayed. While both performances are strong, it is Pebble (Valentina Ceschi) who has the real subtlety of character who unfurl the inner narrative. Heap (Thomas Eccleshare) has a particular talent in audience engagement and while at times the audience participation was a little awkward, that awkwardness was used to further the plot and create another layer of doubt and desperation. It really did work.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the play is to turn from moments of great comedy to moments of stillness and to bring the audience along at every moment. While I did not find it as laugh-out-loud funny as many of the audience, I do believe that we all bought into the more reflective passages.

The only hollow notes for me were the seeming satire of the sport. Whether you take ice dancing very seriously or think its just a bit of pretty fluff, it is an easy sport to satirise and I felt that this performance cheapened itself ever so slightly by indulging in that. That was clearly not what the play was about and thankfully took a noticeably less prominent place. It is hard to know what makes a great Fringe show, but one suspects it can have something to do with inspiring thought with one hand and laughter with the other. There is no doubt that this play does that.

8 out of 10.

At the Pleasance Dome (King Dome) at 7.10pm.

- James Grogan

Deliciously presented and resplendently visual, The Gannet lives in a hyper-reality where everything is more vivid than real life. Based on the story of Hansel and Grettle, we follow the siblings from the dull and dreary city - populated entirely by men (so Grettle is dressed as a boy) - to the wild of the forest. At its best, The Gannet rediscovers the fairy tale for a contemporary culture. There are times where it over explains itself, and occasionally the performances lack a certain confidence, but overall Fat Content (Anna Beecher, Danny Holme and Rachel Lincoln, who all perform in the devised piece) have created a show that improves as it goes and provides something other that the regular Fringe offering.

The oppressed city is contrasted with the hedonism of nature and the fairy tale becomes a parable for finding yourself and becoming yourself. The set design is playfully inventive and the company take pleasure in the games they can play with shadows, lights and sight lines. The visuals are complemented by the expansive sound design, though occasionally the latter becomes a bit too present, verging for some moments on the distracting.

The greatest flaw in the work is the attempt to present a full mythology for this parallel world.  All fantasy works must fulfil their own logic, but that logic needs to be below the surface, not pointed out or explained. Occasionally the script indulged this desire to explain and the play did suffer for it. Furthermore, anyone who likes a simple story well told might feel as though they were being sold a dud - this is more visually experiential than narrationally complex. One suspects this is a Marmite show.

Still, it is always a pleasure to see a young company making work that is distinct and unapologetic. At the beginning of the play it is very unclear whether it would have comic elements at all and as the laughs did start to be unfurled they neither felt forced nor imposed for the sake of populism. The music and singing, supported by Beecher on the cello, that most evocative of instruments, added to the sense of the performers really enjoying the form, but without ever indulging in it.  If anything, one feels Fat Content need to more confidently state their style and could afford even stronger gestures in the direction they are clearly passionate about.

7.5 out of 10

At the Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome) 4pm.

- James Grogan

While there were some genuinely belly-ish laughs, this show wasn't quite pitched to best effect. It had many things going for it but never quite nailed the shifting tonality suggested by so-called dark comedies to pull it off.

We follow a crazed librarian determined to have a genius child at whatever cost. She devises a plan to steal the sperm of a famous adventurer. We find the standard twists and turns in the plotting, some of which are pretty predictable. The pacing gets a bit woolly from time to time as we move back and forward from flashbacks to present day and then flashing forward. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it takes a certain smooth hand to make it work. Here, it is all a little hackneyed and contrived, thinking it is possibly more sophisticated than the reality.

The acting was, all round, energised but unfocused. Leah Milner, Ed Cobbold, Phil McDonnell, Fiona Boylan and Simon Perkins clearly make a good ensemble and there was a trust visible between them, but the exactitude they needed was definitely missing. With some lines mumbled and others fluffed, we just couldn't find all the jokes that were there. While there were many good comic set pieces and some fun ad-libs, overall the performances were a little underwhelming. The imprecision of the delivery was not helped by the occasionally overly self-aware comic set up.

Having said that, the set design was economical and inventive, used to good effect. The projection work was also very well done, much more subtle and pleasing than much multi-media work one is inflicted with.

The script (by director David Byrne) has a lot going for it. Much of it is funny and there is definite substance, but there false and forced notes. Turning from comedy to something darker is always tricky, but this didn't quite make it work. It would have helped to not rely in totality on satirical characterisations, but the show was, ultimately, not built on strong enough foundations to make it work either way.

The eugenics debates contained within would have survived better as subtext and attempts at what appeared to be edification were unnecessary. The need to have a contemporary peg on which to hang the story was illusory.

Overall there is much to say for this work, but one feels that ultimately it is less clever than it thinks it is. Always a fatal mistake.

5 out of 10

At the Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome) at 2.40pm.

- James Grogan

Composed of comic songs with a little contrived theatricality, this performance doesn't know where it belongs. Not enough thought has gone into the characterisational details, the narrative progression or the interactions between the different figures on stage. It is all there, it is just a bit too clunky and obvious to be more than twitteringly humorous. The character of Sue is not complex enough to sustain more than faux-absurdism and strained attempts to shock.

Don't get me wrong, if you've had a few drinks and don't want to have much to think about much after a long day festivaling, you might be on to something with this show. It is fun and at times very funny - it just never takes flight.

The music is rather good, but often key words or whole lines are lost in mumbles, ruining the flow of the comedy. The variety of convincing accents and voices were well executed and the most precise element present - which did give it some hope.

We see some glimpses of scenes from the life of the boy named Sue, but not with enough coherence to make it really work. There's no through line and so much is left unconsidered. Flight of the Concords and Tim Minchin are the obvious reference points for work like this, but there is so much more clarity in what those acts are trying to achieve that the product feels so much more complete. This, on the other hand was a little half-baked.

5 out of 10.

At Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two) at 9.45pm.

- James Grogan

As Edinburgh gears up (or grinds to a halt) for the month of August as the Festivals descend, observatory at the National Art Service is here to offer views and reviews on performances of all shades. Seeing as the Fringe is well under way, it's high time we started reviewing some shows. First up, Beachy Head by Analogue Productions.

It is a shame when a production puts too much energy on the slick transition, rather than the genuine interaction. Beachy Head encapsulated the choice theatre companies have to make about where they put their resources. That is always a difficult choice to make, but important none-the-less. To disregard the possibility of the simple beauty possible by the best performances, Beachy Head will be no more than a visual curiosity, a well made but ultimately vacuous examination of suicide.

The storyline consists of the aftermath of a particular suicide at Beachy Head - a Stephen Mitchell (Sam Taylor) who takes his own life one stormy (of course) evening. We meet his wife, Amy Mitchell (Emma Jowett), distraught by her husbands untimely death. We meet Joe and Matt (Lewis Hetherington and Daniel Tobin respectively) who are documentary film makers who, having captured Stephen's fall during the filming of another documentary, become intrigued (obsessed?) about his case. They see themselves in him - sharing, handily enough, the same age and start to get embroiled in the grief of Amy. In the course of the documentary we also meet Dr Rachel Sampson, who conducts autopsies on the bodies of many of the Beachy Head suicides.

The story is straightforward enough and relatively well told. The script, by Dan Robellato, Emma Jowett and Lewis Hetherington, relies far too much on expositional dialogue to move itself forward. Some characters usefully need to have things explained to them, which is useful for us, I suppose, if a little tedious. The doctor character provides lots of useful facts and opinions about the difference between a body and a person, between a brain and a mind. The characters of the documentary makers are presumably meant to allow us to have interpreters of the drama, which seems reductive and not particularly much else. There were some limp attempts at humour - the only one that worked relied on recorded sound and neither performance nor script, funnily enough. I always wonder about a play with three writers. Wonder isn't necessarily the word, to be honest.

You can see that the directors, Liam Jarvis and Hannah Barker have taken a few leafs out of Katie Mitchell's recent work - they use the conceit of live filming to create another visual layer, mixing the live with the projected. Unfortunately what they did not manage to get to grips with was the power of Mitchell's work: making the audience see different, look differently. The reliance on CGI-style effects felt forced and unnecessary. It reminded us of the fakery we were seeing, rather than the other-truth that could have been created. The potential of multi-media work is immense and performances like this do a disservice to the possibilities of it.

The set design - partly done by Jarvis the director, with Laura Hopkins - is undoubtedly very put together and plays lots of fun and visually striking tricks. The scene changes all flow beautifully and some of the innovative ways of setting, resetting and framing the stage are all worthwhile. But that will never take from the fact that if you put an unfinished painting in a beautiful frame it will still not be great art. One can only imagine that the honesty and detail of performance was sacrificed in favour of bits of set that can move. The only performance of note was by Sam Taylor as the man who jumped off the cliff. While still not fulfilling the true potential of the role he ably handles a tricky passage of text before the faithful action. With a more considered and comprehensive direction he and his fellow actors might have had a chance.

For a show that poses some interesting questions and has some interesting ideas and a set more Fringe shows would kill for, they have just never managed to make the product coalesce into more than well choreographed scene changes. Which is, after all, just not good enough. This show may well do very well in this Fringe, but there is more that this could have been and that unfulfilled potential left me generally unmoved.

4 out of 10.

At the King Dome in the Pleasance Dome throughout August.

- James Grogan