A solo show written by, and starring, Victoria Melody. She enters wearing, as she explains, an accurate recreation of a woolen musketeer's outfit from the 17th century. On a hot summer day. Suffering for her art!
Melody started off script, and seemed genuinely surprised, and very grateful, that so many people had turned up to see her final Fringe performance this year. But she soon got going into a fascinating tale.
Her response to life crises is to immerse herself into a new activity. In the past this has led her into pigeon fancying and beauty pageants. When divorce entered her life she became fascinated by the Diggers, the grass roots radical action group that sprang up in England in the mid 1600s. With no active Diggers society to join, she did what flet like the next best thing - English Civil War re-enactment groups. An activity she is totally unsuited to, but still gets herself involved.
The story switches to a deprived council estate in Brighton, where she gets involved in projects to improve the life of the community. They provide meals, a space to meet, advice and help in dealing with the autorities, and space where groups can get together. With some amazing personal stories lying behind these achievements.
The culminaion of the tale is the bringing together of these two worlds, and the surprising success that it brings.
Melody brings all this to life with her impressions of various important characters (some of them represeted on stick portraits), some imaginative props, and audience interaction through key jangling. It's lovely, funny, inofrmative and inspiring, and creates a seamless link btween the revolutionaries of more than four centuries ago, and modern community action groups.
Simply wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment