Worst of the Fringe: Shows to avoid on last weekend
Two men trapped in the drudgery of a soul-crushing corporate office wrestle (literally) for the company’s love.
What we said: “Both Broderick Chow and Tom Wells are such likeable performers, and Chow in particular has such a natural way with words when speaking to the audience, that it’s a travesty this show fails so spectacularly. Instead of teasing apart the stories of two people locked into life-draining corporate office jobs, they spend almlst the entire hour wrestling with each other.”
Rating: *
Until 26 August, today 1.15pm
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Hide AdA musical that presupposes that your twenties are generally a bad time in your life.
What we said: “What dreadful miserabilist wrote this musical? I resent being subjected to an incoherently hashed together set of hackneyed, fake-poignant tunes about a decade which, by this show’s odd logic, we supposedly spend “waiting for something big to happen but it never does”. Worse still by a cast who confusingly look like they can’t be long out of their teens.”
Rating: *
Until 25 August, today 3.05pm
A blind date in a hospital ward that claims to be a dark comedy and an insight into our society, but is in fact neither.
What we said: “A seriously ill woman sits, unconscious, on a drip, while her daughter takes the opportunity to use the hospital as an unlikely setting for a date with a man who likes quoting physics. Some drug dealers/organ harvesters dressed as Santa Claus arrive, violence ensues, and implausibility prevails in what is apparently an “insight into the future of our uncertain, postmodern society”.
Rating: *
Until 24 August, today 5.05pm
An attempt at political satire that falls flat thanks to erratically-drawn characters.
What we said: “While on a trip to Brussels, a schoolgirl Labour Party supporter hires a male prostitute and takes him back to her hotel, seemingly solely for the purpose of delivering a monologue about an internship. There’s a clumsy attempt at a sex scene on top of a plate of chicken, chips and mayonnaise and a contrived confrontation with a political rival - all of which is funny, but only because it’s so incongruous.”
Rating: *
Until 27 August, today 4.45pm
Contemporary dance set to a live vocal and electronic score that claims to explore group behaviour but fails to say anything about it.
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Hide AdWhat we said: “Say Something wouldn’t be half so torturous if you felt that the performers really did have something to say. All that the performers in h2dance are doing is crawling along the floor and singing the same notes ad nauseam. At one point, they pass round a microphone looking for three words to describe how we feel. Had it come to me, they would have been “make it stop”.”
Rating: *
Until 26 August, Saturday 2pm
Adaptation of Georg Büchner’s classic satire that would benefit from a more experienced cast and a director with a firmer hand.
What we said: “The brochure reads: “Two families force their children to marry after losing a bet in Las Vegas. What could go wrong?” Well, pretty much everything. I blame the person who wrote this adaptation of Georg Büchner’s satirical classic, for their screwed-up notion of “crazy” is merely a chaotic mess.”
Rating: *
Until 27 August, today 5.45pm
A site-specific production inviting you to explore the real and imagined world of a strip club, having already decided what you think of them.
What we said: “Gob Shop aims for a natural, playful feel but comes across as sloppy, and is guilty of making arrogant presumptions about how lowly its audience must regard strip club workers and patrons as being. [The] lapdance for a caricature pervert scene is lame, the drinking game/dress up routine pointless, and the fourth-wall-penetrating cast “confessionals” horribly contrived.”
Rating: *
Until 26 August, today 4.30pm
Violent drama revolving around knock-off leather sofas aims for edgy but is overblown.
What we said: “Martyn Horner-Glister is excellent as the criminal boss, but has clearly lost his way to the Royal Shakespeare Company and wandered into this overacted student drama. Writer/director Dean Graham’s script is difficult to take seriously when it’s delivered so melodramatically with equally in-ya-face music and lighting.”
Rating: *
Until 27 August, today 10.25pm
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Hide AdNew Scottish musical in which two old high school friends play RockBand, which has no bearing on anything else that happens.
What we said: “This show has nothing to do with The Beatles, save for some wonkily sung songs, and little to do with The Beatles RockBand video game either. Two puerile gay/sex-joke-spouting male protagonists play the game at the start and the end, but the secrets prove instead to be hidden in an asinine storyline about two former schoolfriends torn apart by a girl and some exam cheating. If that all sounds clumsy and confusing, you’re spot on.”
Rating: *
Until 26 August, today 3.50pm
A writer makes a deal with a demon as a result of which his fictional characters come to life and subsequently plot to murder him, although not soon enough.
What we said: “A hack writer makes a deal with a demon in this woeful, badly acted production. He conjures up a bunch of ghastly characters - some so poor that it is hard to work out what they are - and the demon brings them to life. Unsurprisingly they retaliate with a plot to murder him and take control of their own destinies. If only they hadn’t spent so much time debating their own hollow existences and just got on with the dastardly deed, it would have been a merciful release all round.”
Rating: *
Until 25 August, today 7.35pm
Absolutely Agitated Acupuncturist Returns To Find It; Laughing Horse @ Meadow Bar (venue 264|Absolutely Agitated Acupuncturist Returns To Find It}
Storytelling by well-intentioned acupuncturist who should probably give up on the stage and stick to the treatment room.
What we said: “‘It’ is a bloke called Sean, who irrepressible singing acupuncturist Olivia Rhee met last year at the festival when they both had tickets to the musical Godspell. Through her trademark combination of wobbly show tunes and woolly anecdotes, she tells us that she no longer wants to become famous - probably just as well - in favour of settling down.”
Rating: *
Until 26 August, Saturday 1pm
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Hide AdCut! is a play about a play, exploring the mundane mishaps likely to befall any theatre production.
What we said: “This production is virtually a template for the point-free and virtually impossible to redeem Fringe drama production. A range of mismatched characters audition for a play. Slight mishaps ensue, probably with less dramatic import than those encountered during the making of this show, or any other on the Fringe, and we’re left with the impression that theatre is slightly complicated and often not entirely worth it.”
Rating: *
Until 25 August, Saturday 2.05pm
Melvyn Bragg’s notoriously drunken 1985 South Bank Show interview with Francis Bacon sung in an operatic style to discordant piano score.
What we said: “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. 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.”
Rating: *
Until 27 August, today 6pm
Two boys talk about anything and everything to keep themselves preoccupied in the face of the end of the world, and the resulting banality is not anything other people need to hear.
What we said: “‘Did I tell you about my penis?’ is the first line in this bizarre, yet essentially banal hour of chit-chat between two boys...apparently facing “the collapse of the universe”. What this is and why it’s happening is never sufficiently explained. Instead, we get to listen to the pair’s painfully dull ponderings...the most unconvincing gay relationship ever fails to achieve the touching finale the writer is aiming for.”
Rating: *
Until 25 August, Saturday 11am