Rats to riches

I have to help with the get-in and get-out every day, as Martin's shoulder prevents him lifting anything heavy.  At the end of every show, I take the water trough downstairs and pour it into the flower beds outside the Dome.

On Saturday I gave a dead rat a bath.

Today, we had a great review in the Scotsman, and sold the most tickets we ever have, ending up selling out.  The box office staff were so pleased for us, they wrote us on the board twice.

Better than dead rats.

Press

We've had three more press mentions worth mentioning. Firstly, an interview on fringereview. I sound like a bit of a wally.

Next, we're part of a behind the scenes photo story in the Guardian.

Finally, an amazing review in the Scotsman.

Flood

Edinburgh's treating us pretty well so far.  Our audiences are fine - averaging in the low twenties, but now the early days of comps are over, those are twenty paying guests.  We're still waiting on further reviews to come out, but in the meantime we're one of the few shows with reviews stuck to our flyers and that seems to make a difference.  A large part of our audience this afternoon were people I'd talked to earlier in the day.  

That said, I was unable to get to the Dome yesterday because of an intense downpour which

caused a huge puddle beneath the underpass. Here a man with a moustache is trapped on the other side:

For a play about two brothers in a flood, we've suffered more than enough flooding.  The last day of rehearsals in Dulwich was interrupted by a burst water main which meant that Martin and Maureen had to ford the south circular to get to work.

Up here

I've been meaning to write the last few days, but it's been pretty busy up here, getting the show in, rehearsing and the frantic efforts sorting out everything from sound effects to publicity.  But we got a review today.  Here it is.  There's always time to boast.

****

Dad’s Money is a deeply poignant and sparklingly witty depiction of the reunion of two estranged brothers after their father’s funeral. The hinted existence of a store of money which each brother believes to be his by rights is the catalyst for an argument which unites them even as it drives them apart.

The production starts promptly, dreamy guitar music fading, leaving only the sound of distant running water. We watch as Tom Napper and his brother Joe argue violently – an argument nominally about their father’s money but one that digs into far deeper frustrations rooted in Joe’s abandonment of Tom and their father, and, even further back, in Tom’s bullying of his brother when they were children.

The plot is simple – two brothers trapped in cellar, rising floodwaters – but it is in the way the minutiae of their relationship is revealed that this play really sparkles.  Consistently impressive is the way the production sounds. The sound of water is ever-present but never overwhelming. Sound effects are sparse, but perfectly judged, and Gavin Osborne’s specially-composed music gives the production a melancholy, unworldly feel. The staging, too, is well judged, never getting in the way of the action or distracting the eye, but aptly complementing the performance. I was struck by the way the production, through slight modifications in arrangement of a few props and changes in the actors’ body language, made it natural to visualize the slowly rising water.

JJ Wright and Martin Miller have outstanding chemistry as the two siblings, and at whatever ebb their interaction is at, whether they are fighting, comforting, or trying to outwit each other, there is not one moment which seemed forced or false.

I was somewhat confused, however, by their promotional literature. The leaflet seems to sell the show as pure comedy, and I was expecting a raunchy, tasteless, post-Six-Feet-Under funereal grab-the-money farce. The show is indeed funny; in fact, it is very funny indeed in places; but I was astonished by how much more emotionally mature this production is than its literature seems to promise.

As a piece of theatre, it is very difficult to fault. Wittily and maturely written and performed with real flair and spark, this is a real gem of a fringe show.

- Fringereview.co.uk -