The second week of the Brighton Fringe sees a mix of mini breakfast plays, irreverent folk music and some conceptual colour-coded comedy.
The Big Bite-Size Breakfast
Theatre Royal, Friday 10th May 2013
Initially, the concept of breakfast served alongside a slice of drama may seem slightly odd. However, Bite-Size’s bold and creative pieces make its ‘Big Breakfast’ event flow as if sugared pastries and the stage had always gone hand-in-hand. Its ‘Fresh Fruit’ menu featured a perfect selection of five excellent short plays, varying from a hilarious farce about a sexually frustrated groom and his bride’s disobedient zip to an anxious tightrope walker’s monologue. There’s no reason not to expect the ‘Desires’ and ‘Interpretations’ showcases to be just as tasty. Even if you’re still hungry for more after all three shows, there are also plays and workshops for children in half term to satisfy the appetite. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast may be a strange idea, but it’s one that definitely works. It’s far more interesting than drinking your morning coffee in Starbucks and will quench your thirst for the theatre too. (AJM)
Rob Auton: The Yellow Show
The Warren, Saturday 11th May 2013
“Yellow, and yelcome” announces Rob Auton (pictured) as his show, entirely about the colour yellow, begins. In actual fact, the show began at least five minutes previously with him awkwardly decorating the room with a multitude of yellow objects, handing yellow ribbon to someone in the front row and gesturing for them to pass it along until the entire crowd was wrapped in yellow and returning to the sound booth countless amounts of times to ensure ‘Yellow Submarine’ continued to irritatingly loop. Does this sound odd enough to you yet? Well, the following hour consisted of conversations between two envious sponges that are sick of seeing their old friend Spongebob popping up everywhere they look, poetry about shopping for pineapples, grapefruit and Marmite (for the lid) and the most epic way anybody has ever made a Berocca. All viewed through his homemade Yelevision glasses. Charming and incredibly bright. (CB)
The Moors
The Brunswick, Sunday 12th May 2013
With their irreverent approach to traditional European, Latin and North African sounds, Sussex musicians The Moors don’t pretend to present an authentic heritage trip. Part of the broad creative community of Hastings Old Town (bassist Ken Edwards also runs long-established modern poetry press Reality Street), the five-piece band combine two millennia of influences with folk-rock elements lead by a mix of Jenny Benwell’s fiddle and Elaine Edwards’ hastily exchanged accordion, flute and soprano sax. There’s a respectful older crowd of jazz and folk fans out for The Moors’ Fringe return tonight, tapping their legs along to a lively selection of familiar and original klezmer, gypsy and Cuban tunes. Inevitably, as the drinks go down a handful of energetic punters start twisting down the front, joined as the evening unravels by some even more merry intruders from the other bar. They’ve got the right idea: this is scholarly party music. (SH)
The Abyssinians
Komedia, Tuesday 14th May 2013
Veteran roots reggae group The Abyssinians have been singing Rastafarian hymns from their Jamaican home since 1969, founder members Bernard Collins and Donald Manning joined since the 80s by fellow vocalist David Morrison. At first we fear we won’t see much of them tonight, as their five-piece band start up with an MC and guest singer. Fifteen minutes in, an elderly trio of gentlemen shuffle on stage to join them, but this low key entrance is a tease. As soon as they start singing it’s clear The Abyssinians have a lot more fitness and energy in them than those of us half their age. Collins and Manning take turns to lead the harmonising, their devotional songs sometimes shifting into ancient Amharic. It’s less a sermon, more a celebration, and if the finer points are missed by the boozier element of the crowd, the music unites them all. (SH)
Eat A Queer Foetus 4 Jesus
The Quadrant, Tuesday 14th May 2013
As the title suggests, this show was hardly ever going to be in especially good taste. Unfortunately, we are still in two minds as to whether it was actually any good or not. Fair enough, there were a fistful of laugh-out-loud moments and Richard Coughlan is a very charismatic storyteller, but do we really need any more jokes about Catholic priests touching kids, Michael Jackson being neither black nor white or Nick Griffin being a Nazi? This is where our post-show confusion lies, because whilst these jokes were sometimes incredibly predictable and wholly unnecessary, they still had us and the rest of the crowd roaring with laughter. Coughlan works the room well and clearly isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers as he touches on subjects such as abortion and paedophilia. But I guess that’s what you come to expect from the kind of guy that takes methamphetamine for an entire week before shitting himself in Tesco. (CB)
Words by Amy Jo McLellan, Chris Biggs and Stuart Huggett
Read more SOURCE Fringe reviews: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
