FESTIVAL THEATRE | Reviews
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ALAN CUMMING SINGS SAPPY SONGS The actor / raconteur brings Club Cumming to the EIF ●●●●●
Alan Cumming is inarguably one of our most successful exports. Tonight, the actor and singer, who is equally at home in America as Edinburgh thanks to his successful recent role as Eli Gold in The Good Wife, transforms the Hub into Club Cumming, his cabaret bar. His no-bullshit radar and charisma is what makes him such an endearing, cheeky presence. ‘I like fun, but it needs to be structured’, he deadpans, before launching into a perfectly formed set with cellist Eleanor Norton, pianist / musical director Lance Horne and drummer Stuart Semple. His voice is beautiful, folk-inflected and soaring. When Cumming out-divas the divas (Miley, Katy Perry, Gaga, Adele, even a soupçon of Avril Lavigne) he’s like an inversion of Fringe cabaret darling Camille O’ Sullivan, who reclaims pop songs by men. His homage to Stephen Sondheim – ‘my Grand Theft Sondheim’, he quips, referencing the composer’s tendency to ‘recycle’ musical motifs – is strikingly mischievous. There’s even a high-stepping campy 50s pastiche written for a condom commercial.
But it’s not all uproarious – he talks movingly and candidly of recent family revelations that his father was not who he claimed to be and of how his ‘risk-taking’ grandfather died. A dedication to his late father on an emotionally taut cover of Rufus Wainwright's ‘Dinner at Eight’ leaves him visibly tearful, and his stunning version of Michael Marra’s ‘Mother Glasgow’ is as intimate as a diary entry.
Unsurprisingly, for the man who won a Tony for playing the
Emcee in Cabaret, it’s the dark side which is most seductive. His roaring take on Brecht / Weill’s ‘How Do Humans Live?’ is the clear highlight, seeping like a stab wound. He may be more Viktor and Rolf than Victor and Barry these days
– but what a hell of a journey. Glorious, glamorous and wickedly subversive. (Lorna Irvine) ■ The Hub, 473 2000, until 27 Aug (not 14 &15, 22), £30.
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THIS EVIL THING A moving and dynamic retelling of a hidden story from the last century ●●●●●
There were 16,000 conscientious objectors who opposed having to fight in WWI. This one-man show, written and performed by award-winning Fringe actor Michael Mears, tells the tale of one of these brave ‘conchies’. In this urgent and physical performance, Mears plays tribute to Bert Brocklesby – a schoolteacher who refused to bear arms and was silenced, starved and almost shot. Mears convincingly intersperses historical re-enactment with his own self-questioning, even asking what he would have done had he been born at the time. In the cold face of war, Mears thinks he might not have been so brave. But his play is his own daring ode to the 16,000.
Mears himself is exhilarating to watch. He hares
across the stage, convincingly being about four different men at once. And the play is rooted in Mears’ own life. Photos of his father and grandfather are on the sideboard, both of whom served in the World Wars. This is a rich and personal modernisation of a lesser-told tale. (Alex Bloodworth) ■ New Town Theatre, 220 0143, until 28 Aug (not 16, 23), noon, £11–£13 (£9–£11).
84 THE LIST FESTIVAL 11–18 Aug 2016
FOSSILS Captivating lo-fi tale of love and mystery ●●●●● GREATER BELFAST This music-theatre mash-up hits home ●●●●●
The playful humour and emotional sincerity of 2014’s quirky debut, the mermaid romance Lorraine & Alan, already showed that Farnham-based Bucket Club stood out from the crowd of emerging Fringe theatre companies. Their follow-up Fossils is an even stronger offering, the story of uptight evolutionary biologist Vanessa’s search for her missing father, and a hallucinatory trip up north to find out whether there’s really a big monster in a certain Scottish loch. The excellent three-strong cast multi-task superbly
between roles, as well as creating a live Sufjan Stevens-ish soundscape from voices, harmonium, violin and theremin-like electronics. Helen Vinten has an intense focus as repressed Vanessa, and Adam Farrell is a natural comedy performer as her PhD student and sidekick Dominic, even if David Ridley’s Miles feels a bit under-developed. But it’s director Nel Crouch and designer Rebecca
Wood’s inventive, lo-fi staging that really steals the show, using the simplest of means to create a magical, melancholy world. Fossils’ enigmatic closing scenes might feel rather abrupt, but it’s a captivating, poignant reflection on love, longing and the importance of mystery in all our lives. (David Kettle) ■ Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 29 Aug (not 17), 2.40pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10).
An ode to his home city, Matt Regan’s Greater Belfast is an exciting, lyrically inventive piece of gig-based theatre. Accompanied by the Cairn String Quartet, Regan spits lines that cover Belfast icons such as Seamus Heaney, the Undertones, Titanic and, almost obliquely, the other T word, which he never says but whose ghost is ever-present.
It’s bewitching stuff from the skilled Glasgow- based performer, who’s best known for his work under alias Little King. Regan’s words, the music and Simon Hayes’ exceptional lighting design create an engrossing atmosphere. But this intensity is disrupted by Greater Belfast’s uneven pace. The gaps between Regan’s lyrical segments feel overlong, and it has the effect of taking you outside the powerful realm of his words. Still, it’s an accomplished show from a performer who knows how to hit home with perfectly crafted lines.
You’ll probably get more from it if you’re familiar with Belfast – a line about the way the city shimmers on a summer’s day as flags catch the light is particularly on point – but even if not, you’ll still appreciate the inventiveness of this fine show. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ Traverse, 228 1404, until 28 Aug (not 15, 22), times vary, £18.50 (£13.50).