Michael Cox reviews Sonics in Dumm, Kim Noble: You're Not Alone and Songs from Orwell Farm.
One of the double-edged swords of the Fringe is the sheer amount of productions that infiltrate Edinburgh for three weeks. Audiences are spoiled for choice, so to stand out from the crowd you have to be extra special.
Which is what makes Sonics in Duum (***) so frustrating—there is terrific skill onstage, but it is lacking the ‘wow’ factor that a production needs to be ahead of other companies.
This doesn’t mean that Duum is a weak production. Its company of six acrobats are actually quite wonderful in their skills, and there are some really strong performance pieces on show. Even audiences jaded from circus skills will surely marvel at some of the acts, and its use of design (especially its use of handheld colour lights) and music are impressive.
So, where does it fall down? Unfortunately, it is in the narrative arch that has been created for Duum. The story, about a mythical wonderland, makes little sense. Even worse, the pre-recorded monologues that an odd alien creature delivers throughout are nothing short of ridiculous, droning embarrassing passages that are cringe-worthy at best.
It’s a shame that the narrative, a simple device used merely to thread everything into an hour’s entertainment, gets in the way of the main event. It’s not better showmanship that the Italian-based Sonics needs: it’s a half-decent playwright.
The Fringe is dotted with plenty of one-person shows, most doing many outrageous things to get noticed. Kim Noble: You’re Not Alone (***) seems hell-bent on upsetting as many audience members as possible. A warning handed out by ushers claiming the production has material some might find ‘offensive and upsetting’ isn’t mincing words: images of dead animals, profanity-laced texts and sexually explicit videos are peppered throughout.
Noble’s name might at first seem ironic in all the shenanigans he gets up to, both on stage and in recordings he plays. But beyond the explicit material is a rather melancholic message about loneliness and attempts to connect with people. It isn’t completely successful, but it does succeed in getting under the skin at times while raising some genuine laughs, making it a rather ‘noble’ theatrical experiment into the abyss.
Adaptations are quite common throughout the Fringe, especially of classic novels. What makes Songs from Orwell Farm (****) step into the limelight is its sheer energy and the rather excellent music. Wyckham Porteous, who has written the music and lyrics, has taken Orwell’s Animal Farm and, with Cargill Sanderson, created a 50-minute concert filled with soaring songs.
The material appears to be in development, with the press performance reportedly being the first time the company played the music outside the rehearsal room. This makes the performance given all the more impressive. There were a few hiccups on the night, with repetitive slide and video images seeming out of step and feedback a constant annoyance.
But what music! Maybe Songs from Orwell Farm is meant to end up being a concept album, a rock concert or, perhaps, even a musical theatre piece. Whatever shape it ends up taking, this is something special, a diamond in the rough that deserves a radiant life well beyond this year’s Fringe.
Sonics in Dumm was at Gilded Balloon, but its run is complete. Kim Noble: You’re Not Alone is at the Traverse and Songs from Orwell Farm is at Summerhall until August 24.
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