One of the great things about the festival in Edinburgh is the vast variety of choices and styles that are available. Sure, there are plenty of safe acts from tried-and-tested companies, but there are also performers and companies out there who are taking risks.
Take At the Sans Hotel (***), one of the most challenging works I’ve ever seen. I saw it five days ago and I still cannot explain it. The performer spends the entire time onstage, interacting with the audience, confessing to past acts, conducting polls and lecturing on topics through slide shows and chalkboard presentations while occasionally apologising for how horrible everything is, and it all seems utterly pointless. The audience are completely alienated, and to report the truth at least one-third of the audience I sat with walked out.
But then there is one specific moment where the penny drops and all of the sudden it clicks, and it quickly becomes apparent that the production is actually flawlessly constructed and that the performer is pulling from a much deeper pool.
I could explain more and even give background information that I have since learned, but I feel that goes against the grain of the production. Let me just say that if you are willing to spend an hour with a challenging work that goes against everything you believe theatre is, take the plunge. I left thinking that I may have wasted my time, but the production still haunts me and I have since grown to admire it.
Another play that I find almost as difficult to explain is Tonight Sandy Grierson will Lecture, Dance and Box (***). This seems odd as the production pretty much follows what the title states it will do, and yet there is more at work here as Sandy speaks about an encounter he recently had in a club in Portugal with his mysterious 120-year-old great-grandfather.
As a play/lecture, it doesn’t work. I’m fine with nonsense being thrown at me, but this is a production that doesn’t quite commit itself to the rather outlandish setup, so the ending doesn’t seem as incredible as it could have.
However, Sandy Grierson is arguably one of the finest performers working in Scotland, and his work here is mesmorising. He is asked to do quite a lot, both onstage and off, and he is completely captivating in everything he does. For him, the production is worth catching.
Confession: I was a bit turned off by Snails and Ketchup (***) purely because of its name. However, I am glad I turned around on this because Ramesh Meyyappan is brilliant in what he does. For one hour, he jumps, swings from ropes and embodies multiple characters to hilarious and heartbreaking effect. Meyyappan is highly watchable and a wonder with the way he is able to move.
But as a production it is hit-and-miss. It feels a little bit…incomplete. For every beat that works there’s another that flounders, and without reading the supplied synopsis one is utterly lost. With a bit more polish, this could be a riveting performance, but as it stands it’s a mixture of the weak and the great, but by god is the great brilliant.
Cumbernauld Theatre make their inaugural entry into the festival with the devised production Viewless (****). A theatrical look at witness protection, the play is stuck in an absurdist wonderland of hellish bureaucracy and follows two stories: that of two officers looking for a missing file and the subject of that file as he goes through ‘the system’.
Perhaps the production’s weakness is how well these two stories thread together into a smooth ending. It isn’t necessarily a happy conclusion, but it is too neat for such an absurdist tapestry and the chaos that ensues.
However, it gets the vast majority of it right. Director Ed Robson and his company of three have crafted a theatrical triumph that is funny, scary and hugely inventive. It has a design concept that is far more complicated than it first appears, and it even features a hilarious cameo by that stalwart of Scottish theatre, David MacLennan. It just might be Robson’s finest production, and it is certainly one of the strongest new productions on the Fringe.
At the Sans Hotel performs at the Assembly Hall at 1920, Tonight Sandy Grierson Will Lecture, Dance and Box performs at Assembly George Square at 1950, Snails and Ketchup performs at New Town Theatre at 1700 and Viewless performs at Hill Street theatre at 1830. Check for performance dates and details.