LOLA: A Flamenco Love Story, EICC, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

A Spanish widow leaves Franco's Spain for London, seeking a job which will allow her to send money back to her poor parents and children.  She gets a job as a cleaner, is miserable, desperate, and then finds love.  That's about it for a plot, simply conveyed with screen subtitles over the Spanish narration.

But this isn't really about the story, less so than an opera might be.  This is the vehicle for dance and music, prinairly flamenco style, but with modern touches.  The dancing is impressive, especially the male lead.  The music is good, and the use of flute for solos was a nice touch.  The singing is traditional flamenco style, well done, but an acquired taste.

It did get repetitive at times, and I'm not sure diehard flamenco fans would be impressed by the 'flamenco lite' approach.  But overall it was entertaining enough to avoid boredom, and had several highlights in the dance..

Looking For Me Friend : The Music of Victoria Wood

Fronted by experienced cabaret act Paulus, and supported on piano and the odd quip by Michael Roulston, the show features, as promised by the title, a wide range of the late Ms Wood's songs, both famous and more obscure.  Because, as Paulus tells us from the start, it takes two men to do the job of one woman.  There's nothing wrong with the voice or the playing, and they clearly enjoy and revere the material.

Woven around the numbers is Paulus' tale of growing up with Wood as an important influence in his life, and then career, even though they never met.  He clearly sees himself as something of a superfan, with considerable knowledge of the national treasure.  So it's a very personal show, and Roulston an enjoyable dry collaborator. There's no denying that it is often entertaining.

But the show stumbles on two counts, one of which I doubt anyone could overcome.  Paulus is very self consciously camp, and the arch home counties persona doesn't always sit well with Victoria's bluff north of England sense of humour.  And even grates at times, feeling OTT in realtion to the memories of the woman herself.  Which also applies to my second quibble.  The lyrics and melodies stand by themselves, but watching this show reminds any Wood fan of just how much came from her own delivery, and how hard it is to replicate.  There was always a sense of something being lost, missing.

Entertaining, but disappointing.

The Last Cabaret on Earth (A Play, a Pie and a PInt), Traverse

Sam is a cabaret performer, now stuck, for his final hours, in an airport hotel, a long way from the love of his life.  There are others there too, so he puts on a show, for what else is there to do?  As frequent announcements make clear, the sun is about to explode, the world as they know it is about to come to an end.  Time for…. entertainment?  Reflection?  Love?  What to do with your final breaths?  As he says, the bucket list crowd must be exhausted.

A strong solo performance from Marc Mackinnon.  Perfectly camp, a charismatic performer, slightly larger than life.  A decent enough singer, and charming pianist. His accompaniment to Let It Be was truly beautiful - sparse, minimalist, with simple additions of what was required to enhance the melody and lyric.

But.  Regular readers will know I am no fan of musicals.  Too much song and dance, not enough story.  And so it is here.  An intriguing premise wasted on classic songs.  Every time it felt like there was something of real interest building, off he'd go to the piano.  Opportunities spurned.

Yes, it did mention how trivial how much of our lives seem in the light (!) of such an event.  That material belongings mean little, nor cleaning or acquiring, when the reality of life bites.  But it never felt like it would be going deep enough.  Here was a chance to ponder what really matters to people, lost to song after song.  

However well done (and there was some clever use of props on an well planned set) this was a frustrating experience, as I sat there willing it to be better than it was - the better it could and should have been.

My Doric Diary (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

 It's Hogmanay 2010, and Daisy turns 17 tomorrow.  Tonight she wants to go and welcome in her big day at a party, in the glamourous surroundings of the Fraserburgh Liesure Centre.  And if she's not being allowed to go, can an unexpected discovery in the wardrobe do anything to help?

Want to hear Whitney Houston lyrics sung in Doric?  Experience time travel?  See the dead come back to life?  As Daisy tells us, anything can happen in the theatre, and here it does.  There's nods to Judy Garland and Charles Dickens and other elements of popular culture.  Written by Katie Barnett and James Siggens, Barnett herself plays Daisy, and all the other parts, with Siggens and Gavin Whitworth providing musical and vocal accompaniment.  It's not always easy to catch all the lyrics, but Barnett has a good singing voice and is an engaging and energetic performer.  The script is witty, moves along at a strong pace, and the songs are kept short and snappy.  There's even a bit of a moral in the ending.

Funny, frothy, sentimental, a bit of a tearjerker, and always entertaining, My Doric Diary brings out the smiles and if there's little of real substance to the piece, that's entirely forgivable in a performance that's so much fun.  A worthy ending to this season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint.

Cabaret, Festival Theatre

A few hours before the city welcomes in 1931, American writer Cliff Bradshaw (Charles Haggerty)  arrives in Berlin seeking accommodation and the peace to write his novel.  He quickly finds himself drawn into the notoriously decadent nightlife and sharing a room in the boarding house of Fraulein Schneider (Anita Harris) with English cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Kara Lily Hayworth).  Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Club, where the Emcee (John Partridge) dominates a risque show, masking political commentary behind a front of brazen eroticism.  Add in a sub plot about Frau Schneider's relationship with fruit and veg man Herr Schultz (James Paterson), and a new 'friend' of Bradshaw who gets him involved in some shady activities, and you have the bare bones of what storyline there is.

Musicals are largely about froth, and this is no exception.  When you take away the singing and dancing there isn't a lot of plot left to get your teeth into.  The first half had little else, and the second included a long solo from Harris that felt interminable.  But the final number before the interval hinted at better things to come - a clever, sinister and well staged version of Tomorrow Belongs to Me, led by Partridge,  showing the dark undercurrent of Naziism.  That was brought home more strongly in the second half as the implications of Schultz's Jewishness is made violently apparent.

Froth all right, but froth with some bubbles of substance.

Local Hero, Lyceum

I went into this show with some trepidation.  When one of your all time favourite movies is being moved to the stage it's natural to feel some concern that precious memories will be trampled upon.  And when the chosen genre for this rejigging is the musical, a form I've always found it hard to like, the worries grow.  Reassuringly the creative collaboration behind this offering included the brains behind the original, Bill Forsyth and Mark Knopfler, guided by the theatrical genius that is Davie Greig.  Would they, could they, let me down?

My biggest objection to musicals is their penchant for concentrating on the song and dance elements at the expense of everything that makes theatre worthwhile - plot, characterisation, drama, telling a story the audience needs to hear.  And the opening number, A Barrel of Crude, threatened to sink all my hopes in one go.  It was slick, well choreographed, visual and vacuous.  It was also the last time I felt that way.

The show sticks largely to the plot of the film, with a few changes to suit the stage, but with the iconic telephone box still to the fore.  If you haven't seen the film (why ever not - do so immediately!) it's the story of an American oil company representative, Mac (Damian Humbley) sent to buy up a village in the north of Scotland because the bay it sits on has been identified as the best site for a new onshore processing plant.  The locals, fronted by solicitor/hotelier Gordon (Matthew Pidgeon) are keen to sell up and make their fortunes, but voices are raised over the ethical aspects of the business and Happer (Simon Rouse), flies in to resolve matters, with unexpected results for all.

The original is funny, human, life enhancing.  Greig's script retains all those elements and adds in musicality and movement in ways that feel organic to the production.  After that pretty dire opening number the songs all contribute in adding to plot and/or character.  Maybe Viktor the Russian belting out Lone Star State was an exception, but one that was such a fond memory in the original that to leave it out would have been a kick in the face to fans!

Most intriguing were the changes made to the storyline to adapt to life on the small stage.  Stella (Katrina Bryan), Gordon's wife, plays a much more prominent role here than in film, becoming the primary conscience of the community and of the story.  And of Mac himself, as his professional role is increasingly compromised by his personal feelings. 

The end result is a triumph, faithful to the soul of the original, a visual and emotional treat in itself.  It will have, and deserve, a life of it's own alongside it's renowned progenitor.