Yay! Stand-Up Comics is back. I missed it during the Camden Fringe due to the riots but now it’s back in an extended version – this time at The Etcetera Theatre.    

Stand-Up Comics is, in fact, a play or a theatrical sitcom set in a comic book shop and, like all the best sitcoms, it is centred around two or three main characters who are constantly bickering.

Liam works for Kris in his comic shop and they also try to create their own comics together or they did until Liam got “page fright” – writer’s block as it’s more commonly known – and found another artist to work with: pixie-winged Ashlynn, his dream woman.

Their friend Liz arrives after losing yet another of her preposterous jobs and the three of them continue to bicker while they see off stroppy customers, their friendly local gravedigger and delivery man and, finally, Ashlynn herself. Liam occasionally takes time to ponder on the meaning of life, the nature of comics, and to wonder if there is a superhero laundry or if Superman has to wash his tights in the sink: “who washes the space-gunk out of Green Lantern’s Spandex?”

Inevitably, somewhat begrudgingly, they realise that they need each other before heading off to the pub.

Stand-Up Comics is crammed with gags, in-jokes, smart one-liners and comic book references but you don’t need to know anything about comics to enjoy it. There are some moments of brilliance – Liz and Liam having a mock comic book fight as they argue with each other; the idea of the shop having survived a hipster infestation and Kris’s description of having Liz around as “like being trapped in Arkham with a bat villain”  

Larissa Kunstel-Tabet’s economical set design conveys the ambience of a comic shop with a few boxes of comics, a couple of printed boards and a prominently placed notice suggesting that customers wash their hands before handling the batman comics.

The cast are excellent; particularly writer/director Michael Eckett who plays Liam and Sandy Jarvis who plays the ditsy and irrepressibly perky Liz, gazing fondly at her toes because she thinks her nail polish attracts bees.

Stand-Up Comics was developed from a series of video shorts by The Sigil Club Company and it would be great to see the whole thing online now – come on, guys! Until then you can see it at The Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High Street above The Oxford Arms pub, until Sunday 27th November at 7:30pm every night except Sunday when it starts at 6:30pm. Tickets are a mere £7.50.

Rob Witcomb as Lorenzo

Griselda Gambaro is considered one of the most important Argentine and Latin American playwrights but her work is rarely performed in Britain. This situation is currently being remedied, however, as her play Siamese Twins, first performed in 1967, is receiving its UK premiere this September at the Theatro Technis in Camden. Silver Lining Theatre Company and Artes Escénicas Rayuela are presenting a joint production of the play from 6th to 25th of the month.

Gambaro’s themes of violence, passivity and the dynamics of power are no less relevant today than they were in 1967. Oppressors need the oppressed – those who are habituated to passivity – and the silent who are made complicit because of their silence.

The wide stage area at the Technis is strewn with paper and bales of newspapers. Lorenzo enters panting through double doors, having been running. He’s laughing: “I got away.” When his brother Ignacio arrives and knocks to be let in, Lorenzo won’t open the door and tells the audience, “He’s screwed.” There is more pleading followed by sounds of violence. Lorenzo has let Ignacio take the blame for throwing a stone he, himself, threw. Later, when the leering Smiley Man and incoherent Nasal Man turn up to question them about the incident, Lorenzo once again stitches Ignacio up, planting ‘evidence’.

Lorenzo and Ignacio are twins but they are not literally the ‘Siamese twins’ of the play’s title. Rather, they are figurative ‘Siamese twins’ – one is strong and one is weak playing out Gambaro’s dynamic of the power relationship to its bitter and inevitable end. Lorenzo refers to this metaphorical relationship when he says the “operation was a failure”. For one to be left in perfect condition, the other has to be ruined.  

As Lorenzo frames, betrays and torments his brother, Ignacio comes crawling back (sometimes quite literally) for more. His anger is futile and Lorenzo’s attempts to make up to him are meaningless and insincere.  

Gambaro has created a grotesque world where the guilty are made guilty by the mere fact of their having been punished – rightly or wrongly. Lorenzo, the true perpetrator, says, “Innocent people don’t get the shit kicked out of them.”

Gwen MacKeith’s new translation of Gambaro’s play is vibrant and authoritative. Mara Lockowandt and Jorge Perez Falconi direct with assurance and are ably assisted by Set Designer, Sylwia Dobkowska and Lighting Designer, Karen Quigley. A harsh dystopian world is created onstage and the slow motion sequences of Ignacio being beaten by the sinister Smiley Man and Nasal Man are particularly impressive.

The cast are excellent with Rob Witcomb stand-out as Lorenzo and Jay Worthy genuinely terrifying as the Smiley Man. 

This is a rare chance to see an important play and I can’t recommend this production enough. Go and see it. It is playing at the Theatro Technis, 26 Crowndale Road, Mornington Crescent till the 25th September, Tuesdays to Sundays at 7:30pm, with a matinee on Saturdays at 2:30pm. Tickets are reasonably priced at £12 with concessions at £10.

In Life, Amy De Bhrun tells the story of Grainne, a young woman who leaves small town Ireland to come to London in search of the Sex and the City lifestyle – or at least something more than the lifestyle of her parents.

Through poetry and monologue; song and mime she relates the story of Grainne’s three years in the capital.  We experience her search for love and her toxic relationships. She describes her realisation that she has become a needy ‘lady-monster’ rather than one of the ‘goddesses’ she dreamed of.

She works in a bank while she is afraid to showcase her own songs at ‘open mic’ nights and gradually, filled with bitterness and believing “my life was harder than anybody else’s”, she sinks into depression.

Dressed in a red and black ‘split personality’ costume to mirror her ‘other self’, as well as the significance of the ladybird, De Bhrun skilfully jumps between different aspects of Grainne’s character to tell her story while still engaging with the audience. Her clear voice rings out as she sings, ‘If I’, (with lyrics by Bairbre Munnis) while she contemplates her future.

It is only when a ladybird lands on her, crawling to the end of her outstretched hand before flying effortlessly away, that she realises her fate is in her own hands: “Jump to your freedom and the net will appear.”

Staging and props are kept to a minimum – but good use is made of a red step stool which transforms into whatever is needed and the stage fills with crumpled paper as Amy tries to write a song. Lighting is sympathetic and direction is fluid. The members of Solas: Director Helena Browne and Producer/Stage Manager, Libby Edwards, have been working together for years and it shows in the professionalism of this otherwise simple production.

Life played at the Roundhouse: Studio Theatre on the 8th and the 9th August, 2011 and also enjoyed a successful run in Dublin just before The Camden Fringe.

Having had a successful premiere and preview at The Camden Fringe in August, Alternative will return to The Etcetera Theatre for a six-day run in September, from the 13th to the 18th.

I spoke to writer, producer and founder of Trunkman Productions, Trent Burton, after the previews to ask about the play’s background, its reception and what it means to him. As this is the third Trent Burton and Trunkman production at the Fringe in as many years, I asked him: what’s the attraction?

Trent felt that The Camden Fringe provided a cheaper and better alternative than Edinburgh. Both his previous productions (Rob Is, in 2009 and The Twenty Minute Policy, in 2010) went well and he wanted to do something in this year’s festival – the opportunity to preview the play during the Fringe, before its run in September, was too good to miss. I asked if there were any changes planned for the full run.

“The show in September will be a bit different – we’ll iron out a few issues and tweak it a bit.” I asked what would change and he confirmed that the play would likely be about ten minutes shorter and better technically – there’d be more ‘specialist’ lighting for instance.

Trent’s wife Melinda Burton directed Alternative, and, as this was second year in a row she had done so, I asked was he now happy to entrust direction to her or did he envisage directing one of his own plays again? Was there in fact a great deal of collaboration between the two or did he just let her get on with it?

“Melinda is the theatre director. She’s acted – she understands actors and theatre a whole lot better than I can.” But it helps that “she knows where I’m coming from”.

As a play, Alternative grew out of Trent’s own experiences with a recent illness. Searching the internet for information on his newly diagnosed stomach condition, he was amazed at the number of sites making extravagant claims on behalf of homeopathy, in particular. This led him not only to writing the play but to working with an organisation called the Nightingale Collaboration which exists to “challenge questionable claims made by healthcare practitioners”.

 I asked Trent did he think that the issues raised in Alternative could overshadow the fact that it stands on its own as a comedy and is, in fact, a very funny play. He said that he hoped not, although the potential was there. “We’re not forcing people to make decisions…I hope people can see past that and enjoy the play.” Likewise, the Nightingale Collaboration are not confrontational: their intention, as with Trent’s, is to inform. “I hope it doesn’t come across as an attack. Our first aim is to entertain, then educate”.

Had there been any backlash? Trent mentioned that there had been some negative response to the play from homeopaths but, on the other hand, he had had some “nice letters” from homeopaths who had come along to see the play. And although Alternative comes down firmly on the side of medical science, the flaws of GPs are not glossed over.    

The issues are certainly contentious: Trent and I agreed to differ on the subject of just how bad GPs can be (and how often) but as someone who has a lot of time for several (but by no means all) types of ‘alternative’ therapies, and who has seen the play, I can see both sides of the argument. In the end everyone has their own opinion – and if they don’t before seeing the play, they will at least be better informed by the end of it.

In the final analysis, Alternative is a comedy drama influenced by the writer’s take on issues surrounding alternative medicine – those who object to it on this basis and feel that a play should not concern itself with such issues are missing the point. Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Alternative opens at The Etcetera Theatre, above the Oxford Arms pub, 65 Camden High Street, on Tuesday 13th September and runs to the 17th at 7.00pm every evening until Sunday 18^th when it starts at 6.30pm.  

Looking back, one of the more interesting shows offered up by this year’s Camden Fringe was Beings by In Between Butoh, a company based mainly in Italy.

The story of the Cenci family, in 1500s Italy, has echoed down the centuries, inspiring by turns Percy Bysshe Shelley, Stendhal and Antonin Artaud.  In Beings, which was performed at the Sheephaven Bay from the 18th – 20th August, In Between Butoh have created their own interpretation of this story of incest and murder; of revolt and “the inevitability of evil” through butoh, the Japanese form of dance or performance art that allows the body – not the mind – to control movement. As such, butoh, is largely unrehearsed and uses distorting and hyper-controlled movements to express that which is normally hidden.

Entering the performance space, we notice a ‘being’ cocooned or trapped in crackling cellophane on the small stage while another figure, almost naked, huddles in the opposite corner. Frank Heierli sits to one side sawing at a cello but no sound is heard at first. Flavia Ghisalberti is the imprisoned figure onstage who extends and retracts one limb and then another in futile attempts to escape her cocoon as Ezio Tangini slowly strains and writhes his way across the room in a nightmarish tangle of limbs.

Somehow he impels himself onto the stage. Flavia’s enmeshed body begins to thrash in the cellophane as he draws closer and the sounds from the cello become ever more disturbing. Eventually, with almost imperceptible movements, they meet and she withdraws. Gradually Ezio is pushed offstage when, in a moment of what feels like shocking violence after all the restraint, Flavia begins to jump up and down as if to drive him into the earth. The two bodies fall off the side of the stage and we are invited to view them lying  together in a heap against the wall.

Flavia Ghisalberti, Ezio Tangini and Frank Heierli have created a work that is both strange and disturbing in equal measures: it is impossible not to be affected.

Sitting on the stage after the performance, all three engage with the audience seeking to explain their work while emphasising that it is not something they consciously work at. There is a great deal of improvisation and they do not choreograph.

Flavia explained that the cellophane is not only an effective prop; it is light and easy to carry and while it is possible to say that the back room at the Sheephaven Bay wasn’t an ideal venue for Beings, the enforced intimacy contributed to a more intense atmosphere without the normal separation of audience and performers. 

This is not the first Camden Fringe for In Between Butoh and hopefully they will be back – this is what fringe is all about. In the meantime, you can check out their website. If you get the chance to experience a butoh performance, do take it – I intend to.

Darts Wives, also known as DWAGS, are the new WAGS, apparently, as well as the subject of a new show by Lauretta Gavin and Sharon Gavin. Playing at the Etcetera Theatre, Darts Wives sold out for its three-day run at the end of this year’s Camden Fringe.

The two Gavins play Gin and Jen, radio presenters with the tagline, “Real women…real issues…in the real world.” They’re not “loose women”, and promise not to talk about toilet seats or periods. Instead they are joined in the studio by a group of DWAGs. There is Angel who stalked Tel ‘The Bullet’ Murphy, for so long he gave in and married her. Then there is Lorraine, married to Eddie the Panther; Faye, married to Cowboy Miller and Trina, married to Vinnie the Viper. An “interesting fact” about Vinnie is that he is able to buy his wife’s bras by popping them on his head to gauge the size.

Faye says the DWAGs are all really close but can they remain so in the run-up to The Finals when there are rumours of dropped sponsorship deals, rows about prize money,  competitiveness about who gets ‘papped’ most and somebody’s husband has started ‘sexting’.

Lauretta and Sharon Gavin play Gin and Jen as well as Faye and Lorraine. Philippa Sarll and Tonya Kerins play Trina and Angel plus Tel and Vinnie. All are excellent – bawdy in the extreme and obviously enjoying themselves very much. The audience enjoyed it too – one woman so much that she snorted her drink and sprayed it all over people in the front two rows. The mark of a good fringe show!

Angela Wilson directs and keeps things moving briskly with the assistance of Daragh Dunwoody who provides sound and lighting.

An interesting fact – though perhaps not as interesting as the one about Vinnie’s lingerie buying abilities, is that Lauretta and Sharon spent a year researching the show, including hanging around with a real-life DWAG and haunting darts tournaments.

Darts Wives is a very funny show and the good news is that there is another opportunity to see it next month – not in Camden but further along the Regent’s Canal in Little Venice, on the 22nd, 27th and 28th September at the Canal Cafe, Delamere Terrace, W2 6ND.

Book at canalcafetheatre.com or ring 020 7289 6054.

Ron Hart’s last unproduced play, Country Girl, received its premiere at the Roundhouse on August 8th 2011 as part of the Camden Fringe. The play was finally staged by Carmel Arts and son, Daniel Hart, who wrote the music for the play as well as directing. The play also starred Daniel’s wife, Sigalit, as the eponymous country girl. So a real family affair then and a labour of love, as Daniel himself explained before the performance in the packed Roundhouse Studio.

Crackly Edwardian gramophone music sets the scene as scullery maid, Lizzie, enters her circumscribed basement world and tells us that she’s a country girl at heart and doesn’t like the dust of London where she has been sent, at age 14, after her mother’s death. She tells us how her mother – also in service and aged 14 – gave birth to her on the kitchen table at the start of the new century. Unusually, she was allowed to keep her baby and Lizzie has inherited her world but stands at the threshold of a new one.

Now it is New Year, 1914: “They say there’s goin’ to be a war. That’ll be excitin’…” but the war will bring change to Lizzie’s life in ways she cannot begin to comprehend at the start of 1914. In one sense, Lizzie’s story could be interpreted as a metaphor for the changing relationship and balance of power between the classes as a result of WWI. “There’s a war on – people got to clean their own boots.” But Lizzie poignantly clings to one pair of boots in particular and the end of the play finds her still in the basement but it is her choice now.        

Country Girl combines a range of song, music and verse to subtly provide texture and feeling – a backdrop which allows the illiterate and uneducated Lizzie to fill in the gaps in her emotional life that she doesn’t have words to describe. It is sensitively done and its success is a mark of how close to his father’s material Daniel Hart has become.

Sigilit Hart is radiant yet vulnerable as Lizzie: a suitably touching heroine; missing her mother, looking for a father and above all looking for somewhere to belong. The play is simply but effectively staged – a few pieces of furniture and a bottle of beer convey all that is needed.  

The premiere had a rapturous reception at the Roundhouse but a live performance is only the first stage for Country Girl. There are plans to adapt it for radio, theatre in education, animation and children’s audio books but, hopefully, it will appear again on stage sometime soon.

A man sits on stage listening to music as the audience pack into the back room of the Sheephaven Bay. After the door closes, a woman opens it and enters from the pub, letting the noise in with her.

For a moment it seems as if she’s a late-comer but then she spots the man and apologises for bursting in on him. She is Leila, escaping, not from the football in a Camden pub, but from a birthday party full of “broker boys” and co-workers in a New York bar. She is a bit drunk and reluctant to leave her new haven.

Kyle puts on a track by Neil Young as the two discuss their lives in general and birthday parties in particular. It emerges that it is also Leila’s birthday but nobody cares. Or has she found herself a real ‘heart of gold’ in the back room?

The setting of the Sheephaven suits this play perfectly and Sharon Wllems’ direction makes full use of the small space but the characters don’t live up to expectations: Kyle is a little dull and Leila is a bit whiney. It’s a shame because the premise is a good one.   

Birthday has its final night at 7.15pm, Sunday 28th August at the Sheephaven Bay, 2-3 Mornington Street.

In The Lesson, the second of Atelier’s Ionesco double bill at The Etcetera Theatre, the impossibility of communication is further explored as a professor becomes murderously insane under the influence of philology, the study of language and linguistics.

This dark comedy opens with Edith Piaf singing Padam, Padam as a doorbell rings and a maid bustles about preparing a room for the new pupil who is at the door. She calls the professor who is apologetic and polite to his new pupil at first although, before long, he starts to pepper his conversation with innuendos. Maria the maid tries to warn him against the study of arithmetic and particularly of philology and her cryptic utterances cast a further shadow on what is still a good-humoured and comic exchange between master and pupil.

They get off to a good start with the subject of addition but subtraction is more difficult. The pupil does not grasp abstract concepts well and her increasing incomprehension as the master moves into the vexed area of philology goads him into excesses of enraged gibberish. The more he strives for meaning, the more meaningless his words become. Her giggles die away and she starts to complain of a toothache and then of pains all over as the professor produces a knife and the inevitable occurs. Having warned the professor in the first place, it is Maria the maid who clears up for him and who opens the door to the next new pupil as the whole thing begins again.

Deborah Ellis is excellent as the initially perky pupil, displaying real comic flair as she giggles with buoyant good humour at the start then begins to sink under the weight of her confusion when the professor becomes more aggressive and domineering. Corin Stuart portrays the professor with unhinged energy, becoming louder and more manic in his movements until he is prancing around the stage shouting “knife, knifey, knife…” Alison Sandford plays the maid as grimly pragmatic and without compassion. The performances blend seamlessly and the whole is tightly directed again by Vasile Nedelcu.   

The Lesson (at 6pm) follows The Chairs (at 4.30) and runs for two more days, 27th and 28th August at The Etcetera Theatre. This is an ideal opportunity to see the two plays together.  Atelier Community Theatre have created two excellent productions – both plays complement each other and are linked thematically, highlighting Ionesco’s belief that “communication was impossible”.    

An old man – a caretaker or general factotum – peers out over the sea as his wife reminds him of all the things he could have been in life but wasn’t. “You’re so clever, you could have been…a general… attorney general… quarter-master general…if you’d just had a bit of ambition in life.”

He breaks from re-hashing the same old stories he has told her every night for 75 years, to tell her that he has invited guests that evening to hear his message. In the past he has quarrelled with people and nursed old grievances – this is his last chance to reveal his message to all mankind. But as he finds it difficult to express himself, he has hired a professional orator to speak for him.

The pace picks up as invisible guests begin to arrive and are seated on the many chairs the old woman is frantically laying out on the stage. Everyone has been invited: the Pope and popinjays, mental specialists and their mental patients, even the Emperor shows up. The two mingle with their invisible guests exposing more frustrations and regrets until the old man makes a speech explaining all his sufferings and setbacks and how no-one took any notice of him even though he could have saved mankind.

Finally the orator (not invisible!) arrives and the old man and woman take their leave for a watery grave, apparently committing suicide. The orator sets up his lap-top to face audiences both invisible and actual then he does not speak but leaves. The lap-top emits a torrent of grunts and groans peppered with words in French. It is a brilliant modern twist on Ionesco’s ending which simply has a ‘mute’ orator unable to convey the old man’s message.        

David Brett and Alison Sandford brilliantly convey the two old people – dependant on, but also chiding, each other continually; locked together in a repetitive cycle broken only on this one night, their last. Corin Stuart is suitably enigmatic as the orator – hired for the one function he cannot carry out.  

Vasile Nedelcu’s direction brings out the poignancy of the human story as well as the recurring themes of Ionesco’s work. He both updates the play and emphasises its timeless quality by combining details such as the old-fashioned costumes of the characters and the modern technology of the orator’s apple mac. Using the ultimate symbol of modern mass-communication in a play about the impossibility of communication is a bold move.

The Chairs runs for two more days, 27th and 28th August at 4.30pm at The Etcetera Theatre and should really be seen along with The Lesson which follows at 6pm. Atelier Community Theatre have created two excellent productions – both plays complement each other and are linked thematically, highlighting Ionesco’s belief that “communication was impossible”.