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Three In The Darkness

UNEXPECTED     PLAY     WOMEN     NEWBIES     LOCAL     IMPROV

     There is an award, I learned this year, for Comic Originality, which bares the infamous name of Malcolm Hardee, a comedian who in life drove tractors into neighbouring performances who he thought to be too loud, and in death continues to encourage 'alternative' comedy and 'cunning stunts' similar to his own. The award is not given to run-of-the-mill stand-ups. No Michael McIntyres here, no family-friendly stuff and no knock-knock jokes either. We've already discussed the darkness in comedians in Mark Olver's Dancing About Architecture, and in acts like these it gets onto the stage. The line between dark humour and just plain darkness is so fine as to be almost imperceptible, so these acts can be forgiven for teetering over to the other side every now and then...

Casual Violence: A Kick In The Teeth
     Winner of the Hardee Comic Originality award last year, Casual Violence are back as a group for another year of the Festival, where selling their brand of dark comedy can be challenging. Surreal and nightmarish, these sketches introduce us to characters constantly beaten up by events, be it the homicidal children's toy or the fearful Human Defence League who have seemingly never grown out of an obsession with aliens. And then there is the Poppyman. A charity collector who takes his job a little too far, and might just carry on into my dreams if I'm not careful. All this is still successful, still comedic, by use of simple slapstick and the idea of Schadenfreude, as well as worlds so bizarre and ridiculous that the horrible things that occur in them are removed, abstract from our own, and therefore acceptable as comedy. In this way, it is at odds with...

Exterminating Angel- An Improvisation
     Taking its name from one of the moodier bible passages, this 'black comedy' play is re-devised every night by its actors, making their play around the general theme utterly naturalistic and recognisable. There are no lines to forget or fumble, very few cues to work from, and, chillingly, no escape. The abstraction of other theatre is muted somewhat by this method of improvisation, making this feel like we are observing a real dinner party between five friends. Things take a strange turn when we realise that, for one reason or another, no one can leave. A play about not acting, just mulling things over and never doing anything about them, this has been described as 'anti-theatre' by its director, and its status as comedy is questionable, too. As for Casual Violence, marketing a purely dark piece at the largely family-friendly Fringe would be a tricky thing to do, but really the only comedy comes from the odd glib comment common of any dinner party. The overall effect, though, is deft and striking, the acting brilliant, the ideas behind the piece, which doubtless carry over to every freshly-improvised show, are devastatingly real.

Killing Time
     Anything which addresses the end of the world should have a decent dose of reassurance and, of course, plenty of humour. Watching two teenage boys, then, should have the potential for this. With the universe collapsing around them, the two sit on a hill and while away their last few minutes in conversation, but it's clear this isn't their first meeting from the very start. One of the most interesting relationships I've seen on stage for a long time writes itself out in what is left unsaid and undone, in the questions unanswered. Young talent from the Edinburgh University Theatre Company makes them convincingly brash and timid in equal parts, and their indecision in how to spend their last hour alive begs the question of us. Lovely staging involved the end of the world shown by a single lightbulb switching off, plunging into darkness the two now smiling boys and their resting place for the rest of time. Dark, certainly, comic, often, perhaps not quite as uplifting as we might like, but, as with anything, it was good while it lasted.

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