Review: The Francis Bacon Opera, C too (Venue 4)

By Malcolm Jack
Published on 23/08/2012 15:38

If YOU’RE trying to convince a Fringe-sceptic friend that the festival really isn’t rife with silly, pretentious nonsense masquerading as experimental theatre, probably best not take them to this.

*

Melvyn Bragg’s notorious booze-washed interview with artist Francis Bacon on The South Bank Show in 1985 is sung in an operatic style to a discordant piano score. The two vocalists/actors play convincing drunks, but that’s as much compliment as I can muster for a tiresomely patience-testing show that, if it fancies itself as an ingeniously witty satire of the sometimes rank pomposity of the art scene, proves somewhat self-parodying.

Malcolm Jack

Until 27 August. Today 6pm.