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A picnic-basket of delights
PHYSICAL THEATRE PREVIEW
Les Bubb
The cool face of mime explodes onto the Fringe
Despite the odds, Les Bubb (his real name) has managed to carve out a successful career in the mysterious world that is mime. As well as performing at festivals all over the world, he’s well known to younger viewers as the star of BBC kids' TV show Hubbub. Currently in its fifth series, the programme is a surreal dose of slapstick comedy with a wide fanbase. But recognition in his homeland isn't always forthcoming. ‘When people say "what do you do for a living?", depending on the country I’m in I either say "performer", "entertainer", "actor" or "clown mime",' says Bubb. 'Because if you say you’re a mime artist in Britain, people say "oh white face, gloves and annoying people on the Royal Mile”. We have pretty fixed ideas of what mime is in this country.’ For him, one of the many reasons for this popular perception is clear, ’Kenny Everett. He did a good job of parodying mime in the 805 and sadly, but quite comically, he kind of nailed home the idea that a mime artist is someone who wears pale make up and a hat with a flower sticking out of it.‘ Bubb is
undeservedly tarred with this particular brush, being a proponent of the more modern style of clowning and mime rather than a Marcel Marceau clone. The vast difference between the two schools of thought is immediately apparent in Bubb’s Fringe show Make Your Brain Go Pop. Here we find his bumbling, bespectacled and besuited alter ego fusing visual gags, music and physical comedy with bizarre sound effects and speech. ’I create illusions by playing with the laws of physics,’ explains Bubb. ‘It’s a kind of magic; you trick people's brains into seeing something that isn’t really there. I suppose the comedy comes from the brain being
THEATRE PREVIEW
Sister Wonderwoman
Linda Carter thrust back into the limelight
Les Bubb: bumbling, bespectacled and besuited
surprised.’
’People would want their money back if there was no costume,’ says Josie Ryan, writer and star of Sister Wonderwoman. The wardrobe department at the RSAMD has been hard at work creating the outfit many a little girl dreamed of wearing. Was it Ryan’s admiration of the character that led her to create this play? ’When everyone else was pretending to be her, I was practising,’ she says. ’I wanted something fun, retro and a bit silly, but I also wanted someone really recognisable. Wonderwoman was the obvious choice because she’s one of the few superheroes that hasn’t really been picked up on.’
The play is half fact, half fiction and sets out to expose the lives and loves of Linda Carter. ’I did as much research as I could,’ says Ryan, ’but the rest of it is just made up to illustrate the point. She was so famous, and then
It was after leaving the artistic constraints of the Welsh College of Music and Drama that Bubb embarked on a career in mime. Sharing a house with a group of multi-skilled friends, he learnt how to juggle, fire breath and ride a unicycle. They also introduced him to the world of mime, which he then studied extensively in London and Paris. But, in spite of the effort he's put into mastering his art, Bubb doesn't take himself too seriously. ’l’m just like a big kid with a toy, and the best toy I’ve got is this, my body.’ (Dawn Kofie)
For details see Hit/ist, right.
she just sort of disappeared. We were looking at that kind of fame and then it got a bit more drawn out, as in what would it be like to be her sister?’ A fictional sister was born, and Ryan weaves the stories of their two contrasting lives together in a one- woman performance, directed by John Binnie. So, does Ryan think Wonderwoman was a good role model for all those little girls? 'I saw an episode recently, and she doesn’t actively do stuff — she just helps out. It’s really cheesy, but it was still groundbreaking. It was as much as a woman could have done back then.’ (Louisa Pearson)
53 Sister Wonderwoman (Fringe) Josephine Ryan, Harry Younger Hall (Venue 13) 07050 767320, 20, 23, 26 Aug, 8.30pm; 27, 24 Aug, 7pm; 22, 25 Aug, 7pm, £5 ([3). Preview 77 Aug, 7.45pm, £3 (£7).
this lunchtime Loco County Lonesome
The laughs come thick and fast in Pat McCabe's tale of two unemployed butchers reminiscing about old times. See review. Loco County Lonesome (Fringe) Black Box Theatre, Assembly Rooms, 226 2428, until 28 Aug, 2.50pm, £9/f 70 (£8/f9).
Somebody To Love
i ‘ ' 2" ',r
Queen have never sounded so good. Three mask-wearing mime artists tear at the heartstrings in this poignant love triangle set to some of Freddie’s greatest hits. See review. Somebody To Love (Fringe) Blow Up Theatre, Pleasance, 556 6550, until 28 Aug (not 22) 7.40pm, £7/f8 (£6/f 7).
White Men With VVeapons
Greig Coetzee’s hard-hitting satire about the men left floundering in the post-Apartheid South African army. See review. White Men With Weapons (Fringe) Greig Coetzee, Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, until 28 Aug (not 22) 2pm, £7.50/£8. 50 (f6.50/£7.50).
Les Bubb
See preview, left. Les Bubb (Fringe) Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, 27—27 Aug, 2.30pm, £9 (f 7).
Push
Joy Hooper gives a stunning performance as the abused Harlem teenager in this adaptation of Sapphire’s novel. See review. Push (Fringe) Pennsylvania Centre Stage, Gilded Balloon (Venue 38) until 26 Aug (not 77, 79, 27, 23, 25) 7pm, £7.50 (£6.50).
Poisoning Pigeons In The Park
Fitting tribute to the barbed lyrics and jolly tunes of 19605 musical satirist, Tom Lehrer. See review. Poisoning Pigeons In The Park (Fringe) Gilded Balloon (Venue 38) 226 2 75 7, until 28 Aug,
7pm, f 7 (f6).
17—24 Aug 2000 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 27