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V THEATRE TEMPORARY GIRI.
Lisa Kotin draws on her days as an office temp to create this series of vignettes about office life and office characters — the workaholic. the food fanatic, the power-crazed and the woman whom technology left behind. It‘s a lively show interspersed with home- rnovie style footage for variation. but Temporary Girl is little more than an imaginative treatment of a fairly thin idea. Kotin‘s level of observation isn’t bad, but I couldn’t help thinking how much sharper French and Saunders would have
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. been with the same kind
of material. The audience seemed happy, but a ten- rninute sketch might have had the same impact. (Mark Fisher)
I Temporary GIII (Fringe) Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428. until 4 Sept. 2pm, £7/£8 (£6/£7).
V THEATRE
THIS OTHER EDEII
The shenanigans and peccadilloes of the Eden String Quartet. four musicians with chronic personality problems. are the subject of this grating comedy. The four are less characters, more caricatures: one bitchy, sugary, ruthlessly ambitious neurotic; one
FESTIVAL
pansy veggie in past-life therapy; one sullen. bitter- and-twisted and one relentless. wiseocracking practical joker. Unpleasantness is the trait they all have in common. In fact, the first three are so obnoxious that when the fourth, slightly less so. did his worst, I found myselflaughing. But the odd good line did not save the show. (Catherine Fellows)
I This Other Eden (Fringe) Gilded Balloon Theatre (Venue 38) 226 2151,13 Aug—4 Sept. 2pm. £6.50 (£5.50).
V THEATRE BORDERLIHE
Hanif ‘My Beautiful Launderette‘ Kureishi‘s Borderline examines the problems and intolerance facing the Pakistani community in London. Young Amina has to balance her mother's desire to return to Pakistan with her ageing father‘s adherence to tradition — and the English justice system — while creating a role for herself within her own generation.
The play itself is a
strong political discussion of conflicting attitudes. However, this young amateur cast never got to grips with it at the opening performance. Nisha Kapur played Amina well, but improvement will not come until Athanasios Mandis learns, and learns to deliver, his lines. (Thom Dibdin)
I Barium!!! (Fringe) Absolute Banana Theatre Company. C Theatre (Venue 19) 225 5l05. 11—26 Aug (Mon. Wed, Thurs. Sat only), 2.45pm. £5 (£3).
DIARY or A MAnMAu
Bearing an uncanny resemblance to The Cure‘s Robert Smith, Graham Duff performs Gogol’s madman as a pompous loony with backcombed hair and a hurt, fussy delivery. Despite a largely deskbound staging (natural enough given the epistolary nature of the original), Duff handles the solo show with some comfort, pulling off the odd gag that often gets
swallowed in over- scrupulous performances. The multiple character script produces no problems either — allowing Duff to leave the desk occasionally and roam relatively freely across the stage. Still. Gogol is Fringe standby stuff, and this is a competent rather than inspirational example. (Andrew Pulver)
l Diary of a Madman (Fringe) Graham Duff. Stepping Stones (Venue 51) 225 6520, 13—30 Aug. |.30pm, £5.50 (£4.50).
V THEATRE SANS TEETH
Eroding the dividing line between theatre and real- life has always been a favourite pastime of actors. Few go to the lengths of playing themselves though, and fewer still would bare their souls in the manner of Sadie Hamilton in Sans Teeth.
The audience is aware that Hamilton is playing herself from the outset; during the monologue she gives her name several times over the phone. Here we are momentarily
’ transported into the comfortable world of fiction (after all there’s no one on the other end of the line). But Hamilton's collaboration with writer Ian Bailey then jolts us back into ajarring reality; the reality of a desperater mixed-up, mostly out-of- work actress.
The closing, harrowing scene epitomises the play as a whole; disturbing yet strangely compulsive theatre. (Philip Parr)
I Sans Teeth (Fringe) Accidental Productions,
, Marco’s (Venue 98) 228 9116, until 4 Sept. 1.30pm. £4.50 (£3.50).
Sans Teeth: Apologies for incorrect tine given
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RED SH | FTpresents
Spomored by [ill SAWNW W0
ORIGINALE
Death . in Venice
The stage premiere of Thomas Mann's novel
Assembly Rooms, |.30pm 03| 226 2428
“Red Shift have
pulled oflr a world coup”
-G|asgow Herald
32 The List 20—26 August 1993