Edinburgh Fringe musicals reviews: Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Musical With Puppets! + more

Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Musical With Puppets! | Matthew Turner

Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Musical With Puppets! ★★★

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) until 26 August

What better way to take the Kafkaesque out of Kafka than a musical theatre comedy, which might also help more people enjoy Kafka, which is, perhaps, also a bit Kafkaesque?

It’s a funny concept from the wild imaginations of Matt Chiorini and Travis Newton, that both relies on and laughs at its own easy rhymes and jolly charm.

Blake Du Bois, plus puppet, plays Kafka and Gregor with gritted teeth and wide-eyed appeal. He’s an extremely likeable lead who, along with the rest of the rollicking cast, plus off-stage live music, span out an idea that is stretched to fill a show but delivered with aplomb.  

Pairing the story of Gregor’s transformation into a beetle with Kafka’s personal struggles and largely unrecognised (in his lifetime) writing, it lightly parodies existentialist angst and juxtaposes this with the modern-day media in a way that those who enjoy upbeat show tunes will enjoy, whether or not they get the in-jokes.

Kafka and puppets: something for everyone perhaps, but you may well be looking for more from one or the other. Nevertheless, by the time “the metamorphosis is complete”, the universal appeal of Kafka’s desire to communicate has been lovingly conveyed by a company as enthralled by him as, by the end, are the audience. 

Sally Stott 

You & It: The Musical ★★

Assembly Checkpoint (Venue 322) until 25 August

This whimsical Korean musical sets humanity with all its flaws against technology in all its homogeneity. You can guess how that’s going to work out.

We meet happy young couple Mina and Gyujin, their relationship celebrated in a succession of vanilla ballads and heavy-handed metaphors. She’s arts and crafts, he’s tech and metalwork, which comes in handy when their marital bliss is shattered by a devastating accident.

Mina returns home a different woman and starts to mess with their shared memories and the tussle between organic and digital escalates, the music becomes more overwrought and the performances shriekier until eventually computer says no.

Fiona Shepherd

Non-Player Character: Live Virtual Reality Musical ★★★

Imaginex at YOTEL Edinburgh in association with Zoo (Venue 572) until 26 August

There’s no faulting the ambition of this daring piece of musical theatre by actor, creator and director Brendan Bradley, a multimedia work which fills a large room in Queen Street’s Yotel hotel (the hotel chain are listed as associate producers and are also accommodating the performers, which is an interesting Fringe model).

On four walls around the seated audience, a simple, Minecraftesque Virtual Reality environment is projected. On the stage, four performers wear VR headsets and await commands from a fifth, Bradley. Alongside them is musician Maurice Soque Jr, creating a live score from behind a bank of instruments.

The audience is introduced to the rock-like ‘hero’ of the game, who is quickly destroyed by a smoke monster, leaving Bradley’s timid NPC (‘Non-Player Character’, a videogame character controlled by the computer and not a human player) to try and resurrect him.

At least, that seemed like the task – the narrative could have been clearer. Non-Player Character shows off both a developing technology which appears to be in the process of refinement and some entertaining, gaming-themed songs by Bradley and Soque Jr which remind of Justin Timberlake, but the four guest players are another key ingredient.

On the night of review, the cast of Solve It Squad at Assembly George Square Studios overcame a glitchy opening with some sparkily improvised comic dialogue which made the whole thing a lot of fun.

David Pollock

Crispr! The Musical ★★★

C aquila (Venue 21) until 25 August

CRISPR, for anyone not up to speed on recent developments in biomedical engineering, is a complex gene-editing tool that can alter DNA, and thereby fundamentally change an organism’s functioning – think of drought-resistant crops, for example, or malaria-resistant mosquitoes.

No PhDs are required, however, for New York-based Surf Rock Media’s riotously silly, frantic farce of a musical that sees three duos of scientists – goodies, baddies and right-on utilitarians – battling for academic recognition, and also over whether CRISPR should be used for good or (financially extremely lucrative) ill.

From GM zombie apocalypses to super-soya beans, Surf Rock writers/actors/singers Lina Zikas and Duane Stanford throw everything they can at this cartoonish, pantomime-style show – including a few daring gags about the opioid crisis that hit their mark nicely.

In their DIY set of cardboard microscopes and UV cabinets, they’re tireless, larger-than-life performers with some seriously good moves and big voices across rap and song, and their sheer conviction keeps you connected no matter how deranged the on-stage antics get.

CRISPR! The Musical could probably do with a few more moments of repose amid the anarchic energy, but anyone expecting anything approaching a level-headed consideration of the implications of gene editing should probably go and read a book. For some joyfully nerdy, mad-scientist fun, though, it’s a winner.

David Kettle

Reject Me, Already ★★★

Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16 ) until 24 August

If you’re looking for an unapologetically sentimental, romantic, feed-good musical, you could do far worse than this sweet and slickly put-together creation by Paul Richard Keegan, brought to the stage by Connecticut’s Sacred Heart University Repertory Theatre Company.

Casey and Cameron meet by chance after enduring miserable separate dates – but will they ever get together, and stay together?

Keegan’s tale of on-off lovers, plus a small supporting cast, might be far from weighty or complex, but his characters are likeable and effectively sketched in, and, most importantly, his musical numbers mine jazz and big band for memorable tunes and some enjoyably complex arrangements.

Best of all is the sheer verve and ambition of the Sacred Heart team’s production, with video establishing shots, ever-changing sets and some very fine singing.

Who you end up with in the lead roles, though, is up to you: choose your star-crossed lovers from the six performers in a show of hands at the very start - a process that seems conceived more to keep the company on its toes (imagine learning all those lines) than offering many dramatic insights.

It might be slight (or the basis for something more ambitious, maybe), but Reject Me, Already has a big heart.

David Kettle

Child of Sunday ★★★

Hoots @ the Apex (Venue 108) until 26 August

This solo piece of singing and storytelling by Elisa Riddington is Christian in the way that Bob Dylan – who’s song Gotta Serve Somebody she performs at the top of the show – was once overtly Christian in his songwriting. It’s a show about finding it easier to believe in God than it is to believe in the motivations of the people who profess to follow the supreme being.

Wearing a smart dress as though she were attending Sunday service, Riddington outlines her own upbringing in the smalltown coastal Australian Pentecostal church where her father was pastor, and where everyone knew each other’s business.

She discusses ceremonial aspects like the flags used in Pentecostal prayer, and more intimate details about the way her church welcomed local lost souls, before alighting on her family’s own difficult journey as their church is taken over by an international chain and they’re shunned by their own community.

This story is told with warmth and tenderness, as well as beautifully-sung versions of pop hits – including Tears for Fears’ Mad World and 4 Non-Blondes’ What’s Up – which are easily adapted to a tale of religious questioning.

Yet that’s the main thing the work falls down on; while Riddington is clear about her faith in humanity being tested, she doesn’t address either way if there was any impact on her own religious belief.

David Pollock