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THEATRE Loco County Lonesome

**** A meaty tale of butcher boys

This is a joy to watch, thanks to some snappy writing from Pat McCabe and staggering, slick performances from Pat McGrath and Sean Cairns. The two actors play Amos and Vince, maudlin butchers trapped in the limbo of a closed meat processing plant. As they wistfully re-enact the chop and cut of their trade, waiting for a meaty Godot of a delivery that never comes, the sad story of the factory closure slowly unfolds. The story is a 505 fairy-tale, centred on Paco, a small-town rebel fresh out of prison for cattle rustling, the dim-witted and slutty boss’s daughter Della, and her tyrannical tycoon of a father who treats the locals in his employ like serfs in a personal fiefdom. The tale really comes alive in the telling, though. McGrath and Cairns play

the hapless butchers at breakneck speed. as they slip seamlessly between the characters that populate the memories of the pair, bursting into gutsy, bellowing renditions of Country and Western standards when

emotions run high.

0n the downside, the show is a more than a touch overlong. and the plot unravels at a measured pace, with some pretty predictable twists, in contrast to the frenzied

COMEDY PREVIEW Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award

Check out tomorrow’s comedy stars

The Open Mic Award is the largest comedy talent search in Europe and is open to anyone over the age of sixteen. The festival show will be the result of 400 heats held in comedy clubs nationwide, with 1000 entries finally becoming 10.

’lt’s a real craft fair of comedy,’ says 1999 winner Danny Bhoy, who will be returning to the festival this year with his own show. Previous victors Dan Antopolski ('brilliant’ according to the unusually generous Bhoy), Lee Mack, Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding have all gone on to work in TV (Gas, The 71, O’C/ock Show), so it’s obviously not‘a trophy without honour. The winner

theatre comedy dance music books

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No hatchet job: Pat McGrath and Sean Cairns bring home the bacon

interplay between the imagined cast of village eccentrics. This is a minor gripe, however. The laughs come thick and fast throughout, thanks in the main to the surreal sight of two portly middle-aged men in butcher’s aprons bringing

star-crossed teenage lovers to life. (Jack Mottram)

receives a £2000 prize and, most importantly, a host of worldwide bookings.

funny bag of up-and-coming humourists, hosted by star of C4’s Dotcomedy, Chris Addison. Always judged by an unusual mixture of comedians, journos and white collar

Coogan and Jenny Eclair wielding the power. (Paul Dale)

Final (Fringe) Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, 22 Aug, 2pm, £8.50 (£7.50).

For those in front of the mic it’s a great

industry types, last year's final saw Steve

I The Daily Telegraph Open Mic Award

THEATRE

A Crazy Little Thing Called Love Wayne and Garth got there first. They realised the comic potential in

Somebody To Love *ttt

Dances of L'niversal Peace

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I Loco County Lonesome (Fringe) Black Box Theatre, Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 28 Aug, 2.50pm, £9/£ 70 (£8/f9).

the music of that most theatrical of drama queens, Freddie Mercury, when they headbanged their way through 'Bohemian Rhapsody’. Blow Up Theatre have gone one stage further and built an entire show around the work of Queen. Using masks, mime and their own vast talent, the company tell the tragic tale of a love triangle between two best friends and the woman they both love. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad but always hugely watchable, the only low point is an ill-judged scene about suicide. But the un-Hollywood ending leaves them with their credibility firmly intact. (Kelly Apter) I Somebody To Love (Fringe) Blow

Up Theatre, Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, until 28 Aug (not 22) 7.40pm, f 7/f 8 (f 6/f 7).

THEATRE The Sea ***

Wilde tempestuous black comedy Very loosely based on The Tempest, Edward Bond’s The Sea is a black comedy with more than a touch of Wilde about it. After a storm at sea during which his companion is killed, Willy is thrown headlong into the madness of a small coastal village. From the tyrannical matriarch Mrs Rafi to Hatch the draper who’s convinced aliens are about to invade, all the inhabitants are just the wrong side of sanity. Only Willy and Rose, the fiancee of the dead man, seem normal, and consequently establish a connection. The witty script is well acted, though at 90 minutes the production is slightly overlong. (Kirsty Knaggs)

I The Sea (Fringe) Warwick University Drama Society C too (Venue 4) 225 5105, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 Aug, 1.30pm, £5.50 (£4.50).

THEATRE

Push *‘k‘k‘k

Struggle in the face of adversity

At the heart of this play is the ubiquitous ’self-expression will cure all evils' mantra prevalent in a great deal of American culture. Nevertheless, in Joy Hooper's adaptation of Push, a novel by Sapphire, this almost becomes believable. Her portrayal of a poor, black teenager in 805 Harlem with a list of problems that excludes drug addiction but seems to include just about everything else, is delivered with unnerving directness. Clarice ('only people I hate call me Clarice’) Precious Jones’ life is indescribany bad. Thrown out of school, impregnated for the second time by her own father, hated by her mother for ’stealing her husband’, things look bad for the sixteen-year-old, but her underlying intelligence and spirit combine to rescue her from too bleak a fate. (Betty Offerman)

I Push (Fringe) Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Gilded Balloon (Venue 38) until 26 Aug (not 77, 79, 27, 23, 25 Aug) 7pm, £7.50 (£6.50).

28 THE U8T FESTIVAL GUIDE 17—24 Aug 2000