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ROMCOM AND BEYOND BLINK Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 20–Sat 22 Feb DISASTER COMEDY THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG King’s Theatre, Glasgow, Mon 10–Sat 15 Mar
Phil Porter’s love story Blink has already charmed London and Edinburgh audiences. Far from a simple stage version of the ‘meet-cute’ comedy, Blink fashions romance from the difficulty and isolation of both urban life and the characters’ idiosyncratic upbringings. Throwing in a sly comment on virtual romance, Porter’s script charms and disturbs – often at the same time.
‘I wanted to write something small and funny – and a bit different,’ Porter says. ‘I was interested in creating a strange mismatch: the story feels like a psychological thriller, about following someone and using technology: and if I layer a love story over that it could make an interesting mixture.’
Featuring two ‘sheltered’ characters finding their way in the big city, Blink subverts the stereotypes of its genre. ‘It is influenced by romantic comedy – if you know people have a set of expectations, at every point, you can decide to confound them, to try and do something a bit darker and more complicated,’ Porter explains.
Poised between the innocence of the couple and the sinister encroachment of online surveillance, Blink grapples with love and alienation in a sharp, contemporary and witty manner. (Gareth K Vile)
In 2013, Mischief Theatre’s The Play That Goes Wrong opened at London’s Old Red Lion to just 12 people. A year later, it played to an audience of over 1100 and now embarks on an extensive UK tour. Co-written by company members Jonathan
Sayer, Henry Lewis and Henry Shields, this comedy is about a university drama society that stages a murder mystery, only to find that nothing goes according to plan. Influenced by Lecoq clowning and silent comedies, and with two hit West End runs and a sell-out stint at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, it’s been an overwhelming success with audiences. ‘The idea of being mortifiedly embarrassed in
front of a huge number of people is something that everyone can relate to,’ says Sayer, ‘so the jokes land quickly and the play resonates. I think everyone has had that feeling where they want the ground to open up and swallow them, so they get on side with the characters in the play.’ And with The Nativity Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong in their catalogue too, Mischief Theatre may have a franchise on their hands. ‘Right now,’ says Sayer, ‘I’m just focused on the one we are doing and making sure it’s as good as it possibly can be.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman)
FRINGE FIRST RETURNS DARK VANILLA JUNGLE Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 27 Feb– Sat 1 Mar
Philip Ridley is a polymath artist: a filmmaker, scriptwriter, artist and novelist. The casting of Gemma Whelan in his Dark Vanilla Jungle brought in another multi-talented performer: when Whelan is not acting on stage, she has been variously a stand-up comic and an action hero in Game of Thrones.
‘It’s such a brilliantly written piece,’ says Whelan. ‘And being a solo, there is so much in it to create. It’s frightening, but very rewarding.’ Though she does add that Ridley’s characteristic dark tone – here presented in a monologue that explores the loss of innocence – didn’t disturb her. ‘I really enjoyed it,’ she laughs. ‘It’s quite nice to go to those really dark places: you don’t get the permission to be that brave and fearless onstage.’ Whelan’s performance was singled out for praise
during the show’s Fringe run, and she movingly brings to life the trials of a woman caught up in a world of sexual exploitation, violence and horror. Ridley’s vision – which has been worked out through his films, most famously The Krays – is relentless and bleak, and Whelan infuses it with a compassion that refuses to flinch at the ugliness. (Gareth K Vile)
REVIVAL PRIVATE LIVES Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 8 Mar
Regularly revived, most recently through the Chichester Festival and the Gielgud Theatre in London, Noel Coward’s Private Lives becomes particularly resonant when it returns to Edinburgh. After all, it was in this city’s King’s Theatre in August 1930 that the comedy – about a pair of divorcees reunited when they both inadvertently honeymoon with their new partners in a French hotel – received its world premiere, with Coward himself and Laurence Olivier in the leading male roles.
‘Without doubt Coward and (actor) Gertrude Lawrence, who had a fantastic personal and professional relationship, would have tried out and amended the script on audiences on the road,’ says the director of this version, Martin Duncan, former artistic director of Nottingham Playhouse and co-artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre. ‘So some of their experiences with the Edinburgh audiences will have been absorbed into the final script. It feels so right to bring it back to the city.’ Duncan himself is returning to the city, and to the Royal Lyceum in particular, after bringing his take on the musical Man of La Mancha here in 2007. ‘Private Lives is at once entertaining, relevant, hilarious and
touching – the perfect play,’ he says of his desire to come back to Coward now. ‘It tells us that human relationships are uncontrollable and endlessly refreshing, with the characters in the play choosing stable, safe partners to erase their hedonistic pasts but ending up in a deeper, wilder drama than ever before. It’s a rollercoaster of a play: funny, absurd, excruciating, trivial and tragic at the same time. But it’s also about the ups and downs of relationships: the characters fall in love, fall out of love, quarrel, fight and drink like fish. So I guess there’s something for everyone.’ (David Pollock)
20 Feb–20 Mar 2014 THE LIST 89
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