Show Reviews: War Horse

I've seen this play twice in the past year: once in London and once in Edinburgh.   It's based on a Michael Morpurgo book about a horse called Joey.   Joey is raised and trained by a boy called Albert who is heartbroken when his father sells Joey to the army.   Albert joins up and goes to France to try and look for Joey.   Both the horse and the boy see horrible things, but eventually, miraculously, find each other again, though both are in bad shape.   Unlike a lot of other Micahel Morpurgo stories, this one has a happy ending.   What makes the play so special is that the horses in it are portrayed by the most incredible, complex, lifelike and beautiful puppets.   They take three people to operate them, and it's so well done that you forget that you're watching puppets at all.   I really enjoyed the singing in it as well.   It was bittersweet and beautiful.   It was interesting being able to compare the two performances too.   I thought I was going to enjoy the London show a lot more than the Edinburgh one because the London theatre was so much more intimate and I was much closer to the stage, which was also bigger, but actually it travelled surprisingly well.  Recommended.

Show Reviews: The 39 Steps

I saw this play a little while ago, and loved it!   It was so clever and funny.   It's based on the novel and Hitchcock film of the same title, about the ordinary man, who through a chance encounter, finds himself caught up in an espionage mystery.   What's so entertaining about this play is that's it's done with 4 actors, who play 130 roles between them!   The changes are very slick and well rehearsed and add to a lot of the comedy.   Without such a great cast, it would never have worked.   The sets are very simple, with the actors themselves making them convincing, for example everyone jiggling when they're sitting on benches to represent the train.   The Forth Bridge is just done with ladders and it looks great!   All in all, a very funny show, out on brilliantly, by great actors.  Well worth seeing.

More Fringe Shows

Time to review the other two Fringe shows I watched.   One of them was Panga, written by my friend Sam Siggs.   It had a very interesting concept.   It centres around a 20 something year old woman, Lucy, who's a bit of a mess, and her boyfriend.   One day her mother sends her a bunch of her old toys, and her cuddly panda, Panga (pronounced like that because she had adenoids) suddenly comes to life, as a full-sized talking, walking panda.   At first she's terrified, but very quickly warms to the idea of having her childhood playmate back.   The two of them spend their days playing wild games and getting incerasingly drunk.   The climax of the play comes when Panga tries to kill Lucy's boyfriend.   A fight ensues, and Panga gets his head cut off, whereupon he transforms back into a harmless cuddly toy.   I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this play.   It was staged very well, with plenty of little creative touches, and the acting was excellent.   As I've said before, I thought the concept was very interesting, and it was very funny, but I just feel like the play was missing a message of some kind.   A tangible effect Panga's visit had on Lucy.   Some sort of point to the play.   It just left me a bit confused really.   It was actually quite strongly reminiscent of the film Drop Dead Fred.   It had the same feeling of chaos and mischief and losing control.   Worth seeing, but not Sam's best.  

          



Finally, the Blanks, also known as The Worthless Peons, Ted's band from Scrubs.   They're an a capella band.   I enjoyed seeing them.   The singing was really good, and they did all their famous ones.   It was interesting to see that Sam (Ted) was by far the worst singer amongst them.   The other three were all really talented.   Perhaps I just don't have very much patience, because the filler between songs really pissed me off.   It was just so American and tacky, unfunny and unnecessary.   They also performed a Hallowe'en song, which was very funny, but just gave me the impression that their repertoire is pretty small.   All in all, an enjoyable show, but could have been better.