Around The Fringes 2.

This is the second year that South Street has involved itself with three other Arts Centres in the area to present a combined evening of pre-Edinburgh Fringe entertainment and undoubtedly they will go on to a third year. The idea is that the audience arrive at one venue (say South Street), watch a show, board a bus on which they listen to a specially recorded second show as it travels to another venue somewhere else where the audience disembarks, watches a third show, and is driven home. Thus as an audience member you have the advantage of being party to three shows and two arts centres on one evening – in amongst all that there’s bound to be something that’s either up your alley or just your cup of tea.

Out of the four plays being performed at the four venues I managed to catch three, plus the specially commissioned audio piece on the bus, so I apologise in advance to anyone who wanted to read about Tim Crouch’s The Oak Tree performed by News From Nowhere.

I’ll begin instead with one of the three I caught – Madam I’m Adam from the Spike Theatre. The biggest clue as to what you’re entering into is contained in the palindrome of the title, rather than in the sense of it. The story is tangled, spiralled and intriguing; told in reverse order, but also told in circular ways. It concerns an arsonist who claims, under hypnotism, to be a time traveller and slowly his story is unwound. On the way all sorts of Victoriana is explored – the origin of Greenwich Mean Time and train timetables; the arcane workings of the Royal Society – and there is even time for a love story – because, after all, that’s what drives the world forwards (or backwards as occasionally is the case here).
The piece is beautifully played, with great comic verve, in an inventive set and the central scene, which is the only strictly palindromic passage was a joy to behold. Amongst the wisdom and comedy a few points jarred – the musical interlude seemed strangely like padding and the ending faltered a touch with an explanatory pendant to tell us what we’d seen, but since we’d seen it this seemed somewhat unnecessary.

Roses & Morphine, performed by Point Blank was a gorgeous piece to watch. In a set that is any bibliophile’s dream – rolling stacks of files and drawers, stacked with books, like a library (which is what it was) that was flexible and endless – walked The Librarian, a beautiful woman in an even more beautiful uniform – austere long black jacket, buttoned high up the neck, topped with a white ruff and a modest plain black headscarf.
The first line of the play, uttered as a narrative by The Librarian, immediately sets you in a world of Italo Calvino (If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller…) and as the piece unfolds, revealing the Library to be that where memories that are no longer wanted are stored, the spectre of Borges drifts overhead. Two young people stumble into the library and attempt with The Librarian’s help to reconcile their differing accounts of one particular memory.
Despite the deeply atmosphere soundscape and despite the set and the best efforts of the players the script never quite manages to fulfil its promise – the circles of truth and untruth of fiction and fact that are woven aren’t gripping enough, either as narrative or as metaphor, to lift of or to open your eyes to anything new; and when, towards the end, the whole piece is revealed to be allegorically involved with the Second Gulf War – lots of cowboy symbolism and mind-numbing overuse of the term ‘The Free World’ – it seems clunky in the extreme, as allegory always is. It’s a shame because there is great promise here that is trying to be cleverer than it can pull off.

Hot Pursuit, performed by Plested & Brown, takes us to the other end of the dramatic spectrum with a glorious romp of a comic murder mystery. The duo play a bumbling camp village Bobby and the hard-nosed rulebreaking CID officer on her last chance, who are thrown together when death arrives in Upper Lower Greater Middle Gobbleston. All sorts of hi-jinks and misunderstandings ensue, the murderer is eventually identified and everyone (except the dead people) live happily ever after.
What makes this such a worthwhile comedy is twofold: the script and the players. What makes it such a joy to watch is also twofold: the set and the players. Never has a set been so ingeniously designed; it was like watching an episode of Transformers but without any robots or cars. Bits folded out, up and over; things rolled down, rolled up, rolled around; scenery unfolded; drawers slid and doors opened to provide rooms and items never before seen. It really was rather clever.
Plested and Brown played with energy and chemistry and even when the crassest interruption by a lengthy mobile phone threatened to disrupt the sensitive scene they sidestepped it with delightful improvisatory promptness and charm.
Although there is nothing new about playing with the conventions of drama – in this case TV detective shows – when done well it can still amuse and that mixed in with some delightful songs and startling twists means this show should be aiming for some recognition when it arrives in Scotland. Oh, and anyone going along take a yellow raffle ticket number 33 with you and you may be in for a prize.

Between venues the on-bus entertainment was recorded by Perrier nominee Natalie Haynes who tells the story of Hansel & Gretel. This she does with wit, verve and intelligence in a style and voice not a million miles from Linda Smith – exploring the psychological realities of the characters, rather than twisting the tale around in that hackneyed post-modern manner so common a few years ago. It is a breath of fresh air in the world of fairytale, and from this one listen I find it easy to imagine seeing Haynes storytelling live, where there could be not only audience interaction but also the whole host of non-verbal signals to absorb, would be a treat worth saving up to see.

In conclusion the Around The Fringes programme is a not only a good thing in terms of value and opportunity for the audiences to experience Edinburgh in their home towns but also in terms of forging links between Arts Centres and coach companies, which can only ever be a good thing. Long may it continue.

A F Harrold (c) 2005