Festival Theatre
MOMMIE AND THE MINISTER
High-camp B-movie gothic horror schlock-stravaganza COO.
Gerard Anthony has created a monster. The titular Mommie of this Hammer Horror homage is part drag queen. part Methodist preacher, part Bride of Frankenstein. Anthony's range runs from shrill unctuousness through pious browbeating all the way to sinister guttural Satan /ombie. He is the campest. most overblown leatuie of a play that's clearly aiming to be the campest. most overblown thing at the Fringe.
Mommie keeps her children. Edmund and Harriet l ovely. in the basement. there they have spent 20 years waiting to be Judged obedient and respectful enough to meet the mysterious Minister. The ineVitable cries of 'Too soon!‘ from the same people who hoover up expose alter expose on Josef Frit/l's secret basement family are only the beginning of their story. Guilty laughs. shocked gasps and outraged knuckle biting will follow every deliberately (and exhaustingly) overacted exclamation.
From the twins' obscene games (‘Find the Bean') to the predictably gory denouement. every aspect of the play is shamelessly calculated to shock and offend. like i s source material. the show is unafraid to be what it is: a barefaced challenge to the kind of society that bans ice cream van chimes for being too loud. or writes stiff letters to newspapers about shows like this. (Matt Boothmani I Underbelly, 0844 {3/15 8252. until 24 Aug (not I2), 10pm. 5‘5) 5‘1() (5840).
FREE OUTGOING
Struggle against the double standard 0000
India's conservative views on sex are placed under scrutiny in Anupama Chandrasekhar's culturally-tlamning drama. Free Outgoing. the show opens on a comical note when Malini.
74 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE /
a widow with two teenage children. shows off her homemade jewellery cleaner to an admiring colleague. Almost immediately. the plot descends into chaos as Malini discovers her studious daughtei Deepa has been filmed having sex with a boy at school. When the footage is leaked onto the net. Deepa becomes a national target for her supposed promiscuity.
A stage fitted out with modest furniture becomes an anxious waiting room as badgering media and baying mobs trap the tamin in their home. Deepa's mistake becomes the iieiglibourhood's problem as crowds block the colony's entrance and water lorries struggle to get in. Intermittent sounds of text-messaging. ringtones and televisions reinforce the idea of how difficult it is to escape from the media.
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Scottish audiences will be nothing compared to the impact it will make in India it it is ever performed there. (Theresa Munoz)
I Traverse Theatre. 228 1404, until 24 Aug (not If, 18), {$74—$76 (DO-£7 7).
LYNN FERGUSON - THE PLAN
Pure dead good 0000
Lynn Ferguson knows how to spin a good yarn. Her second theatrical offering at this year's Fringe is a mesmerising. character-based dark comedy in which Death kills time in her office. listening to the news and marking off the fatalities on her chalkboard while regaling the audience
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as ‘With one foot in the future and one in the past, you can't help but shit on the present.‘ She exposes. with exquisite detail. peeple’s innermost
Cliandrasekliars clever device of hiding Deepa in her room for the entire show allows us to concentrate on the other family members' travails. As lvlalini. Lolita Chakrabarti's transformation from self-assured single parent to a Victim of society's mores is impressive. Yet. throughout. you can't escape fiom the notion that any impression made by free Outgoing on
CIRCUS OZ: 30TH BIRTHDAY BASH
Acrobatics with an Aussie accent .000
Characters in colourful costumes exchange banter with the audience, the live band plays a constant stream of Gogol Bordello-like polka and one act involves a dramatic take on Frankenstein’s monster. This isn’t your average circus. Far more theatrical than trad big top and ringmaster affairs, Circus 02 still offers the requisite acrobatics, juggling, clowning and stunts but with added elements of performance and personality.
They’ve had a long time to get it right. Formed 30 years ago the troupe has always maintained an agenda of inclusivity, equality and political awareness. The performers create the show collaboratively and their political agenda has led them to perform in a refugee camp in the West Bank.
While the company has a distinguished pedigree, the hackneyed proverb that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks has never been proved so wrong. Hoops, bricks, poles, ropes, and lots of balls are combined with
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with tales of her favourite deaths. Ferguson morphs into different
characters with such ease you hardly notice the transitions. whether it be a bored husband or psychotic dentist with ‘bad thought syndrome' (the sudden desire to push someone from a moving bus. for instance). Ferguson captivates the audience throughout. offering sharp words of wisdom such
thoughts at their most vulnerable by creating sympathetic characters in recognisable situations. The piece forces the audience to question past decisions while creating an awareness of the fine line between sanity and insanity. (Greer Ogston)
I Gilded Balloon Teviot, 668 1633. until 25 Aug (not if, 78), 5.30pm. ElO—L‘I 7 (29—270).
extreme athleticism and strength to demonstrate circus skills par excellence, with a nod to Chinese circus styles after training with China’s Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe. The humour is all Aussie, though, with low- brow antics (and some ropey topical quips) meeting the high circus skills to straddle the music hall and the gymnastics arena.
Eschewing the use of animals, a robotic dog and some kangaroo costumes are the only concessions to this outdated practice. The dogbot is particularly effective, undermining the tropes of audience credulity with some well-aimed meta-humour.
The Australian straightforwardness also means that there is no blustering big talk and courting of applause: the tricks speak for themselves. What you see is what you get: a big, shiny, crowd-puller of a spectacle by a group that is at the top of its game, and occasionally at the top of a very long pole. (Suzanne Black)
I Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 25 Aug (not I I, I8 (‘3 19). 4.45pm (also Sat 12.20pm), [VS—£17.50 (EM—£75).