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list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL THEATRE
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ON THE BEACH Quiet and thoughtful monologue reflecting on the British seaside ●●●●●
This love letter to the British seaside from John Osborne, creator of previous Fringe success John Peel’s Shed, is an hour of spoken word theatre meditating on the romantic and sometimes melancholy relationship we have with our beaches.
Accompanied by bursts of seaside music and projections (waves, boats and black-and-white footage of pleasure beach rollercoasters, ice cream cones and glam girls in 1950s swimsuits), the monologue leads us along Weymouth’s seafront during a very British heatwave, peppered with family cricket matches, love notes scrawled into the sand and shops selling footballs in string bags. ‘Some people choose churches to have these
big thoughts,’ says Osborne, but beaches are also places of memorial and contemplation, sites of plaques commemorating loved ones who liked to sit and watch the tides. This thoughtful reflection on summer is not powerful theatre, but it might make you think differently about times in your life when you’ve felt pebbly sand under your toes, run screaming into freezing water or had your dad tell you to ‘stop ruining this holiday for everyone’. We’ve all been there. (Charlotte Runcie) ■ Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 26 Aug (not 12), 3pm, £7.50–£11 (£6–£10).
AUSTEN’S WOMEN Bringing Jane Austen’s heroines to life ●●●●● MAKING NEWS Decent take on BBC news ●●●●●
A one-woman show bringing to life Jane Austen’s heroines might sound like heritage theatre of the most staid kind. It should therefore be a truth universally acknowledged that Austen’s Women turns out considerably livelier than anyone might expect, largely due to a stellar turn from Rebecca Vaughan, reprising her own 2009 show under the direction of Guy Masterton. It’s a measure of the affection that festival
audiences have for the author that a packed house could be heard to audibly gasp as Vaughan announced each of the names of the thirteen characters she brought to the stage. Recent films and adaptations of Austen have treated the writer as some kind of Mills and Boon romanticist, but, like Edith Wharton, her intent is frequently a satirical attack on social graces. Vaughan extracts plenty of comedy from the likes of Mansfield Park’s Mrs Norris, or Emma’s Mrs Bates, while also embodying the more conventional virtues of Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice.
The result is a lively greatest hits package for Austen fans, and a useful introduction for new admirers. (Eddie Harrison) ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, until 25 Aug (not 12, 13, 19), 11.40am, £12–£13 (£11–£12).
To say it’s been a bad year for the BBC is to note that Edinburgh gets a bit busy over the festival. So the inspiration for Making News couldn’t be clearer. That it was penned by the scribes behind Coalition, last year’s smart take on the government, sets expectations higher still for a satire full of steam and savvy. For the most part, after a slow start, Making News
delivers. Suki Webster plays follower-of–the-rules and newly appointed Acting Head of News, who discovers that the BBC’s Director General has been funding a bonkers cult from the public purse. Cue a string of jibes about being packed off to the ‘salt mines of Salford’, the Beeb’s ever-changing homepage, Radio 4 ‘going rogue’ and ‘him that won’t be spoken of’ (an unnamed Savile), while touching on what becomes of a news organisation ultimately forced to report on its own failings.
Webster comes into her own as she flails between taking on the establishment or toeing the company line, while some decent support from Sara Pascoe, Dan Starkey, Hal Cruttenden and Phil Jupitus, as Director General, helps elevate a script that, while funny, doesn’t always quite hit the heady stride the subject matter promises. (Anna Millar) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 25 Aug (not 12), 1pm, £12–£15 (£11–£14).
NIRBHAYA Challenging and inspiring drama about gender-based violence ●●●●●
At the start of Yael Farber’s unflinching account of last year’s horrific rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, five women come on stage each with one hand held aloft. Alongside one male actor they re-enact the vicious attack of last December and also tell their own stories of sexual abuse. Those raised hands – repeated again at the end of the performance – signify their desire to speak out, to be included as one of a silent number of women who’ve suffered gender-based violence.
To tell the story of Nirbhaya (translated as ‘fearless one’, the name given to the victim before her identity was confirmed) the cast simplistically, yet effectively evoke the atmosphere of Delhi, through jostling bodies and the buzz of electricity wires. In particular the inside of the city’s buses is recreated as a hostile place of groping hands and invading body parts.
But Nirbhaya’s story isn’t the only one here and seeing these women recall their own experiences, of child abuse, gang rape and attempted murder, is just as harrowing. Farber is true to the material, eschewing sentimentality and making no concessions for the audience’s comfort. By sharing these stories, Farber reflects something of the
real-life reaction to Nirbhaya’s murder, which triggered protests across India as women stood up and took to the streets, refusing to stay silent about the abuse they had been through. More than this though, Nirbhaya challenges a bigger, more universal issue concerning sexual violence: that of the shame and secrecy that surrounds it and so often allows it to go unchallenged. Yael Farber’s intelligent, defiant and uncompromising production says simply, ‘this is happening and it can’t be ignored’. (Gail Tolley) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 26 Aug (not 12, 19), 4pm, £14–£16 (£13–£15).
8–15 Aug 2013 THE LIST FESTIVAL 77
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