Dynamic duo doolally for the idea of Dolly
is not so much a party as a wake, for a man who lived a life full of ordinary joys, failures and betrayals, and is now no longer “with us”.
In Party Game, bluemouth have created a show that suffers from a strange mismatch between the energy and skill involved in its creation and presentation, and the limitations of what it finally has to say.
It involves the powerful music and dance that is bluemouth’s trademark, some lovely elegiac writing about memories of Stephen’s life, and a level of invention, around the involvement of the audience in the event, that makes for a continuously enjoyable and sometimes touching 100-minute experience.
Yet death is common, and coming to terms with bereavement one of life’s ordinary tasks; and for all the rich human quality of this show, it leaves a final sense of searching for something new to say on the subject, and not quite succeeding in its quest. JOYCE MCMILLAN Summerhall (Venue 26) JJJJ It’s a moot point whether Louise Mothersole and Rebecca Biscuit of Sh!t Theatre actually like Dolly Parton in the sense of being fans of her music. That is, they claim to adore her records, but the evidence of Dollywould suggests something a little different.
What they love – and they love it to giggly, fangirl excess – is the idea of Dolly, the ludicrous, larger-than-life image. They are captivated not just by the big hair and the rhinestones, but by the theme park, the merchandise and the lookalikes. It’s a fascina- tion, half ironic, half for real, with the public image as well as with the gossipy is-she/ isn’t-she rumours of her private life.
The music underpins it all, of course, but it is as much excuse as driving force. They love Dolly, the phenomenon.
And punk post-modernists that they are, Mothersole and Biscuit are not content to look Dolly straight in the eye with anything like a conventional tribute show; their belief that Dollywould would be their mainstream crossover hit can only ever have been half-hearted.
Rather, despite splashing out their Arts Council funds on a trip to the United States in search of the icon, they continually look sideways – to the University of Tennessee’s Forensic Anthropology Center unit (commonly known as the Body Farm) that borders on Dollywood, and where corpses are left to rot, to the Roslin Institute where Dolly the sheep was created and named in honour of the singer’s most prominent features.
What emerges from the
0 Superfans Mothersole and Biscuit cross-cultural chaos is a refracted reflection on body image, mammary glands, cloning and copycats. It’s about mass-market commerciality versus private-life intimacy. If it lacks the singleminded everyone have to be called Charlie? A ghost story needs to slow down occasionally for the attempted chills to land.
Apart from one clever transition involving a newspaper, this failed to surprise. More often, I was stifling a giggle at the constant pushing on and offstage of women on staircases, or the roaming stone arches perhaps meant to indicate where we are in some Cluedo-style floorplan. The declamatory delivery of the supporting players handling the exposition was more amusing than dramatically useful. The main actors are fine, but no one got enough stage time to impress.
The costumes are decent, and the soundscape – when not loudly informing us that THAT IS A SCARY BIT, HONEST – impressive, but that’s not reason enough to recommend.
All in all, the only thing Cranholme Abbey is haunted by is cheese. MARTIN GRAY purpose of last year’s hit Letters to Windsor House, it has an even wilder, more wayward spirit, funny, messy and unpredictable. MARK FISHER Just the Tonic at The Caves (Venue 88) JJ Tom has obviously watched too many Emo Phillips videos at an impressionable age.
He has some lovely self-deprecating one-liners and some nice fresh comedy snow gets his footprints but “that’s kind of all I’ve got of the show at the moment” is not how to end an Edinburgh hour.
The fragile persona he has onstage is slightly undermined by his introduction of Heckle Tom as a part of the show. This results in two minutes of his staring at the floor and our feeling uncomfortable.
Either fiendishly clever subversion or just two minutes he didn’t need to write. I think there is a smart comic in there. I wish he’d come out. KATE COPSTICK