Specie

Pleasance Dome

Jul 31-Aug 12, 14-26

12.10pm-1.10pm

£6

           Despite picking it personally from the Mumble selection, I had mixed feelings about the latest offering from Fat Git Theatre,  A show about a future where men and women could swap sexes at will? Would I be in for an overly worthy diatribe about gender politics? A question I’m sure I wasn’t the first to ask and could possibly have put much of the audience, particularly the male half, off. But no, maybe it was about time my inherent misogyny got a little ticking off. And besides, I was kind of attracted to the sci-fi element. What I got was none of this and instead a highly moving and sweet comment on faith and identity.

The play opens in a group session for people trying to come to terms with their fluctuating gender. It’s a little bit hammy and the impromptu dance routines give it a slightly pompous feel but stick with it and the show delicately opens up like a new flower, or possibly a newly formed vagina. New ageism gets a healthy kick in the teeth and at one point I thought it might veer into the controversial but not insensible notion that we should all just learn to be comfortable in our own skins. But in the end an all together more subtle and spiritual message shone through. I don’t know whether it was the hangover from the night before but I even felt myself well up a touch in the closing minutes. And I didn’t even cry at the Royal baby.

I can’t finish the review without mentioning the live bassist and guitarist who are kind of like additional actors, and at one point, even props. Who give the show a light funky score made up of arrangements of various underground pop hits. Walk on the Wild Side is obviously featured.

To sum up I ask you to be brave, don’t be put off by the apparent worthiness, and embrace this delight of metaphysical pondering.

Reviewer – Steve Vickers

THE BALLAD OF THE BURNING STAR

Pleasance Dome

31st-26th July

17.15

£10.50-£12.50

It is the nature of the Fringe, that its chief exponents are often at the edge of artistic evolution. Take the Ballad of the Burning Star, for instance, the creation of Theatre Ad Infinitum’s Nir Paldi. He looked pretty damn hot in drag, a cabaret queen with a serious story to tell. His subject was Israel & the struggle of its collective social conscience over being at both times the persecuted & the persecutors. As he half chants his ballad, five young dancer-actresses float & skip about him like nymphs at a Bacchanalian feast. Prancing & dancing around the stage, there is a certain synchronicity in the physical movement of the troupe that is at times more than stunning.

Every nuance of movement bounces in time to the heart-beat pulse of the musical aside, provided by a young talented one-man-band called ‘Camp David.‘ I was reminded of Shakesperian actors as I watched them, memorizing reams of obscure Elizabethan verse, but in this context the lines became dance moves, unleashed at an often breath-taking speed. This absolute thrill of a show expresses the deep-seated essence of modern Israel through a magical medium, & for those wanting something more cutting-edge this year, it would be a worthy choice.

Reviewer – Damo Bullen