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**** (4 stars)

“A Gripping Piece of Theatre”

Another brilliant two-hander at Roxy Boxy, a container just outside Roxy itself.  A tribute to the exellence of the show came from an overheard comment afterwards – “you were gripped even though you could clearly hear the people outside: it simply didn’t matter…

It certainly was no effort at all to concentrate on Prophets.    Jack McGregor has written a gripping exploration of belief and its dark side, set on a fictional island in Polynesia, St John [not to be confused with the very real St John in the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean!].

A young woman has arrived on the island after a very long and complicated journey.  She is tired, and not particularly interested in the attempt at a friendly welcome offered by Kiwi-accented Joe.  She’s a paleoclimatologist, doesn’t respond positively to his comments about the weather – she’s not a meteorologist – and isn’t interested in joining him later for a beer in his accommodation just up the hill: all she wants is to rest.

Joe has seemed rather uneasy – his friendly overtures somehow ring false.   We begin to have concerns, too, as we witness the attempts our heroine, whose name I failed to write down, to find out about the history of the settlement of St John.  Documents are sealed off under the Official Secrets Act.  National security has strategies to protect the island.  But what about its inhabitants?  They are all descendants of the crew of a ship that landed on the island and promptly burned it, because they were never going to leave…

We learn a bit more about Joe and his visitor.  Joe was born on the island, went to work in New Zealand, but then came back to the island under rather mysterious circumstances.  She grew up in a small fishing community in Scotland but now lives and works in Glasgow.  She asks a lot of questions – increasingly about the new sections she finds in a bible in her accommodation, which talk about the Prophet and the miracles he works.   They were written by God, Joe tells her.

Joe’s elliptical utterances about the temple, the services held there, the things he’s seen, all intrigue her.  She has phone conversations with her partner back in Scotland in which she reveals her conviction that all is not well on the island: he tries to convince her that she’s imagining things and should leave well alone… 

Will she?  Is it all real, or a figment of her imagination, triggered by her own past history?

Prophets is a gripping piece of theatre, superbly acted by Rebecca Wilkie and man of many talents Xander Cowan, who plays everyone else, switching accents and persona with great ease.  In an age where the cult of personality is pervasive, the play raises questions about belief, imagination, control and manipulation, truth and reality…

Yet another brilliant play from an upcoming Scottish writer – is there no end to Scotland’s emerging talent?

It’ll be another sell-out: hurry, get your tickets before they’re all gone!

Prophets, The Fringe, Assembly Roxy (Roxy Boxy) Venue 139, Runs Until 31^st August for more information go to: Prophets | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

**** (4 stars)

“a brilliant exploration”

A young woman enters the stage and climbs into an all-enveloping bear costume.  Jake is dead, and she’s not handling it well.  She and Jake saw the costume in a – well, she didn’t call it a junk shop – and wondered whether it would ever be bought.  She’s got it now – the shop owner said Just take it, I’ve been trying to get rid of it for years…. No, she didn’t wash it, yes, it’s dusty and no, this isn’t normal for her and she’s not okay…

It looks as if this is going to be yet another “I’m grieving for my lost beloved, angry at the loss, my life will never be the same and somehow I’ll get through this and become a better, stronger person” sort of show.

It’s not.

Jake’s dead, but he keeps making his presence felt, and not just in the flashbacks which reveal his and Bear Girl’s history.  He comes across as some sort of demigod who raises his wife’s life out of the ordinary and fills it with magic and laughter – but was he?  Did he?  Really?? 

Rachel De Fontes gives a consummate performance as a grieving widow who can’t keep herself together and whose anger at her loss bursts out in the rage of an angry bear – bears don’t think: they do.  We are led to believe that this anger is ‘simply’ because she’s lost the love of her life, but as the show progresses we and Bear Girl come to understand things very differently – the rage she can’t even admit to herself is for something else entirely.

Jimmy Kavanagh is brilliant as Bear Girl’s Best Friend, Andy, who’s doing his utmost to be supportive but is reaching the end of his tether.  Jimmy is even more brilliant as Jake and the other ordinary and extraordinary characters in this narrative, switching accent and body language in a millisecond and remaining credible throughout.

Emery Schaffer’s play, directed superbly by Kate Stamoulis, never lets the dramatic tension flag.  It’s a brilliant exploration of grief, loneliness, frustration, thwarted ambition, love, friendship, and the kindness of strangers.  It’s also a powerful warning against allowing one’s self to be eclipsed and devalued while accepting other people at their face value and jumping into deep water without checking for hidden dangers…

Bear Girl is sure to be a sellout: hurry and get your ticket now!

Bear Girl, The Fringe, Assembly Roxy (Roxy Boxy) Venue 130 Runs until 31^st August for more information and tickets go to: BearGirl | Edinburgh Festival Fringe

**** (4 stars)

“a sparkling show! “

Another amazing show, with massive respect and credit to Madame herself for creating an energising and energetic participatory show from a motley collection of parents and smallish children who were mainly extremely reluctant to get involved…

As some of my readers will know, I have a background in opera, and am firmly of the opinion that it can and should be enjoyed by anyone and everyone – it’s not snobby elitist stuff but full of emotions that everyone will recognise and identify with.   Madame Chandelier obviously thinks the same, and has set out to produce a show which I hope will speak to both adults and children this August, and create new generations of opera fanatics!

I have to confess to being hampered in my appreciation of this show by a complete ignorance of gaming and gaming consoles – sad, I know, but there you are.  Maybe in another lifetime I’ll be able to become completely addicted and spend my entire life staring at a screen as I work my way through the heaven-knows-how-many levels of a game to reach the ultimate reward?  This means that the game jargon completely passed me by…

But.

I DO know my opera, and particularly my operatic heroines – and these we had in plenty!

Madame Chandelier is herself obsessed with opera – this is why she’s named her daughter Pamina, the heroine from Mozart’s Magic Flute.  Problem is, Pamina’s spending way too much time playing Guitar Hero instead of practising her actual guitar…. And what she doesn’t realise is that the evil Queen of the Night is sucking children into her game, feeding off their blue light energy, and ultimately trapping them in the game for ever.

Help! What is Madame C to do????

Call upon operatic heroines, of course

Brunnhilde, one of Wagner’s Valkyries, comes flying in to assist Madame C, singing a list of instructions.  Find the wizard; enter the game; collect a load of useful stuff; fight and defeat the Queen and sieze the means of getting safely home.

Simples, yes?

Well… it would help if the audience were willing to participate… Blessedly, although the children were stricken with shyness, their adults proved more willing to join in, and slowly at first but with increasing enthusiasm they assisted Madame C in her quest, with the help of more operatic heroines. They had to contend with constant interference from the Queen of the Night, who was determined to save the children from their parents and allow them as much screen time as they wanted – why not, when their grownups were spending all their time with their own screens…???

We had started with Mozart and had a wee bit of Wagner.  Now we visited Bizet and then settled determinedly with Puccini – three fabulous heroines in Carmen, Tosca, and Madam Butterfly.  Potted versions of their stories were woven into the action – but Madame C was determined that, with a bit of help from the audience, their fates could be changed – Carmen would not be stabbed by Don José, Tosca would not have to jump from the battlements of Castel’ Sant Angelo, and Butterfly would have a happy ending – and Madame C herself would collect everything she needed to complete her quest and rescue Pamina.

Did this happen?  Well, gentle reader, I’m not going to tell you – you have to come and find out for yourself….

What I will say is that Madame Chandelier’s heroic efforts to galvanise her audience into action-packed participation were not in vain, and by the final curtain, everyone was on their feet, dancing in celebration and having a great party.

Wonderful invention, witty costumes, a staggering display of star-catching while playing the piano accordion, lots of jokes for both adults and kids, and a canter through a surprising amount of opera [and a brief can-can too] together make a really enjoyable way to introduce even the most sceptical to the delights of opera.  If it also induces people of all ages to spend less time on a screen and more in a theatre, this can only be a good thing!

Thank you, Madame Chandelier, for a sparkling show!

Madame Chandelier’s Grand Theft Opera, Pleasance Courtyard (The Green) Venue 33, Runs until 16^th August for more information and tickets go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/madame-chandelier-s-grand-theft-opera