Festive Twonkey business
Gilded Ballloon Teviot (Venue 14) JJJJ Henry Naylor’s trilogy about conflict in the Middle East may have been completed last year, with the heart-stopping solo drama Angel about the Kurdish female fighters of northern Syria, but in his latest show he returns to Syria, and how we in the West view conflict and disaster through lenses provided for us by Western cameramen and photographers.
So in the city of Homs, in Syria, a young woman we know only as Nameless is growing up without a father, after he became one of the many victims of the Assad regime. By the time of the anti-assad uprising of 2011, she is in her twenties, a passionate artist expressing her rage at the regime through brilliant graffiti sprayed at night on to the walls of the increasingly devastated city.
Meanwhile, in the West, a young photographer called Simon Nightingale is gradually climbing the greasy pole of media fame, thanks to a series of encounters with a famous veteran war correspondent – until he undertakes one final war-related assignment that brings him face to face with Nameless, at a moment that will define whether she lives or dies, and whether he remains a mere watching eye, or becomes a fully-fledged human being.
The device Naylor uses in this play is a fairly obvious one, in terms of exploring the questionable and often downright exploitative interface between the comfortable West, and those whose misery we watch on screen. Yet the quality of Naylor’s writing is so vivid, and the show’s twin performances by Avital Lvova and Graham O’mara so intense and perfectly-pitched, that Naylor’s one-hour play seems to contain a whole passionate political disaster movie for our times, full of images delivered entirely through the theatrical spoken word, yet so clear that they live on in our minds, as if we – like Nameless and Simon – had been present to witness them. JOYCE MCMILLAN Heroes @ Dragonfly (Venue 414) JJJJ As I listen to a song asking the intriguing question “What’s In My Marmalade?” while watching two Spandex Tree Hoppers being dangled by the Flying Tailor over our heads, I have a moment of clarity. We have made it out of the hallucinogenic jungle, met Sue Selfish the Christmas Pudding petent police officer with a troubled past who finds it difficult to show her emotions: the kind of character who wouldn’t be out of place in a BBC drama that thinks it’s being innovative for casting a women in a lead role. However, writer-performer Nicola Wren’s nameless lead, which she plays with beautiful understatement and empathy, is also likable and down-to-earth, pragmatic and capable – a true-to-life kind of heroine. When her sergeant gives her an appraisal, the only feedback she gets is to “be herself ” more.
Produced by Dugout Theatre, the piece has the stripped-back feel that comes with a one-woman show and less of the raucous, highoctane energy that the popular Fringe company’s fanbase may have come to expect – although they seem happy enough to swap shrieking with laughter for shedding the odd tear. Spider, swayed along to the catchy title song Christmas in the Jungle, aquiesced in the chloroforming of an elf and enjoyed a Transylvanian Finger Fantasy – which doesn’t even touch the sides of this crazy, wonderful show, by a crazy, wonderful performer – and I realise that the show is actually a concept album.
This fumble in the jungle is particularly strong musically and if the opening number, Santa Claus Is Eating Human Flesh, does not become a Christmas No.1, I will be very
Because beneath the careerfocused pragmatism of our narrator is an inability to get over past tragedy. As she retraces the steps of her childhood across London, the piece also turns into a touching, if sometimes nostalgiafilled, celebration of sibling relationships and how compassion and empathy – often derided for being “sappy” or “soft” – are both real skills and a vital part of policing. SALLY STOTT thespace @ Jury’s Inn (Venue 260) JJ There’s something charming and distinctive about a three-hander which explores the sex lives of the elderly through a brassy prostitute, a mild-mannered female escort and the man who upset. Twonkey has listened to criticisms of his lack of narrative thread. So this time he has brought one along. It wraps around him and a woman in the front row yanks the end if she thinks he is digressing from the plot too much.
Fans will be thrilled that all the favourites have made it into the jungle, even the wheel of psychic knickers, but Twonkey’s febrile imagination is unstoppable and this show is packed with magnificent new madness. unites them, yet this piece by the Mucking Fuddles is fairly amateur-dramatic in tone, and reminds one of a worthy daytime soap opera as much as the irreverent comedy it would like to be. DAVID POLLOCK Paradise in The Vault (Venue 29) JJJ Holly-rose Clegg is a cool, charismatic young actor who, if the world works properly, is going to be really successful. If Marilyn Monroe met Mike Leigh on a photo shoot for Vogue, it might capture something of what watching her on stage is like. In Anne Penketh’s witty, well-observed one-woman show, inspired by her satirical novel Food Fight, Clegg flits between a trendy, young vegan teenage activist, Mimi, Who but Twonkey could imagine making “a soft monkey Nicola Sturgeon and fill her with almonds”?
And among the surreality, never forget to listen out for Twonkey’s little chunks of observational comedy, his glorious asides and mutterings as things go wrong and this year, a bit of genuinely naughty talk. However well you think your Fringe is going, it will be better for a bit of Twonking. KATE COPSTICK and her Primrose Hill-dwelling mother, Susie, with a flick of a razor-sharp haircut.
While the story of corporate greed in the sugar industry is heightened, with its Guilty Secret chocolates literally hiding a guilty secret, it’s one that’s based on reality. But it’s Mimi’s relationship with her over-trusting mother that’s where the heart of the piece lies – and captures a privileged young person trying to escape but also being supported by her family in a way that avoids a more predictable class critique.
The “sugar baby” of the title works in multiple ways, with Mimi also starting a dysfunctional relationship with an older man, albeit one in which she feels satisfyingly un-victimised. This is a smart little satire from a powerful all-female team, which may not always be subtle but is defiantly sweet. SALLY STOTT Assembly Checkpoint (Venue 322) JJJ First rule of the Fringe (or, indeed, life): never mess with a woman who can do a handstand across your lap while maintaining perfect pitch. And if she asks you to pull the party popper embedded in the heel of her shoe, just do it. Because if Anastasia doesn’t get you, her fierce backing band of punky Amazons will.
Anya Anastasia is an Australian singer/pianist/comedian/acrobat – yeah, one of them – with a soaring soprano and a predator’s lust for romance. Anyone in her line of vision could become “one of my one true loves”. “Armageddon laid?” she demands as she shakes her strategically placed maracas on Apocalypso Party.
During a Latino ukulele number, she chats up a couple of potentials from the audience, projecting wildly on to her possible lovers before selecting her ultimate bashful young quarry, gleefully offered up like a sacrificial lamb by members of his party.
Rogue Romantic is the show for lovers of cocktailbased double entendres. Along the way, Anastasia plays the purring, posing Bond diva, the domineering date, the desperate stalker, exploding a few love clichés through the medium of popular comic song before realising the greatest love of all, as Whitney could have told her, is playing solo. FIONA SHEPHERD Quaker Meeting House (Venue 40) JJ On the one hand, Kaleidoscope Theatre’s familyfriendly fairy tale mash-up is commendable for being as well-intentioned as they come, providing an exciting opportunity for children with Down’s Syndrome to tread the boards and raising money for charity in the process. On the other, the story is muddled and repetitive to an extent that has adult audience members openly leafing through the programme mid-show, while kids fidget impatiently. NIKI BOYLE