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Ewes, brain-eating and Proust’s sex life
This year’s Camden Fringe is bigger than ever. Simon Wroe previews the highlights
WAISTLINES, world debt, and the Camden Fringe. Whatever happens, it’s a safe bet these three things will expand year on year.
While the first two items on the list are unfortunate, the Fringe’s expansion ought to be celebrated.
This year the line-up of classic theatre, new writing, stand-up, sketch comedy, children’s entertainment and genre-defying shows is so huge – 399 performances of 118 different acts in less than one month – that the festival has had to extend its sphere of influence as far as the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm.
Eagerly anticipated shows at the fourth Camden Fringe include Three Shit Hot Shorts by the highly talented, wildly unusual playwright Dean Stalham, a “surrealistic exploration of the internal workings of a fractured mind” in Id, and a high-energy adaptation of the stories of the Brothers Grimm at the Roundhouse.
Tom Neumark is running as a Labour councillor for Camden Town but don’t judge him too harshly – he also moonlights as a stand-up comic. His live show at the Camden Head will ask the questions no one else dares to ask.
Familiar Camden Fringe faces returning this year include comics Robin Ince and Scott Capurro, sketch outfits Four Monks and a Nun and The Intimate Strangers, double-act Dave & Dave and poet Jude Simpson.
And The Get Over It Girls are performing an all female, glam-rock version of Macbeth.
Quirky versions of Shakespeare are all over the Fringe this year – Down-a is a butoh dance interpretation of Two Noble Kinsmen, Merriweather is a one-man show about Shakespeare’s 40-strong company, Edes Hus/Sweet Flesh presents the story of Romeo and Juliet, but with just Juliet, and Do Look Back in Anger ponders what Hamlet, Wuthering Heights’ Cathy and other literary figures do in their downtime.
Elsewhere there are seductive stories from the Arabian nights in Under the Arabian Moon, a former cult leader who may be a comedian in disguise (The Wisdom of Wozzan), a brain-eating quiz and a gifted Latino medium.
The darker side of Marcel Proust’s sex life gets explored in Monsieur Proust and his Stripper, while Senza Lamento (Without Lament) is a piece of physical theatre about an encounter between two images of the same person.
Radio 4’s Faultless and Torrance play all four of the three musketeers, Simon Amstell encourages audiences to do nothing and celebrated playwright Caryl Churchill has re-written her 1997 play This Is A Chair for 2009 to include modern phenomena like Twitter, blogs and hopefully also Susan Boyle.
Sacha Baron Cohen’s former school Ecole Philippe Gaulier has not one but two entries at the festival this year: a dark version of Sinbad at the Roundhouse and the tragicomedy Mascha and Vascha at the Camden People’s Theatre.
Meanwhile, younger audiences can enjoy You Beautiful Ewe, a comedy of sheep and misunderstanding for the under-sevens.
And finally, comedian Tony Law offers us his Illogical Edinburgh Festival Avoidance stand-up.
Judging by the talent on show in Camden this August, it doesn’t seem that illogical to avoid Edinburgh this year after all.
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