It’s an odd situation to be in, reviewing a show about theatre reviewers. It’s hard not to get a bit meta about it all. Perhaps this is only right though, because everything about The Reviewers itself is self-aware: the songs are nods to famous musicals and Adam Holland Well’s script is full of winks to the tradition of university theatre that this production is itself a part of.
Made up mainly of New Theatre members, past and present, this student production, however, is nothing like the “angsty” pseudo-political melodramas that the opening number makes fun of. It doesn’t even pretend to have a plot that makes sense, and instead just has a grand old time with dramatic songs, silly dance routines and some satisfyingly cutting repartee.
The Reviewers is set at the Edinburgh Fringe, relentlessly mocking the insular Fringe culture, performers and reviewers alike. It is ostensibly the story of the battle between a cruel but powerful theatre critic named Keira Cochrane, and an idealistic American rookie, known only as The Critic With No Name, who wants to steal her mantle so he can give everyone more positive, and arguably more objective, reviews. At one point the show poses an insightful question: what makes the newcomers’ positive reviews any more objective than the panning every show receives from Cochrane?
Lyle Fulton, who does a great job of walking that fine line between endearing enthusiasm and irritating idealism, plays the newcomer who shakes up the Fringe. Madeleine Hardy plays the bitter “Queen of the Mile,” Cochrane, and has some of the best lines of the show, which she delivers in a charming mockney accent. She also has two theatrical solo numbers that show off her voice, but the high point is the Dirty Harry-style showdown between the newcomer and one of Cochrane’s minions, in which smart phones take the place of pistols in a quick-draw over posting reviews online. Another song that worked well, sung in counterpoint, involves student actors humbly begging passers-by to take flyers for their terrible shows. This is a premise that will be even funnier in the context of the Fringe, when much of the audience will have recently experienced similarly desperate promoters on the streets of Edinburgh. Meanwhile, composer Elizabeth Charlesworth’s songs skilfully and deliberately rip-off musical theatre classics throughout the show; I counted references to Les Misérables and Oliver among others, as well as allusions to numerous famous films.
The show is undoubtedly an achievement for Charlesworth and Holland Productions, though of course it does have its flaws. The romantic subplot between the newbie critic and the leading lady he fancies, played elegantly by Aimee Gaudin, feels a bit forced. Even if the script does openly acknowledge that it is there for plot filler, and their awkward courtship is often funny, it could have been integrated more successfully into the main narrative.
That said, The Reviewers makes for a highly entertaining hour, and anyone heading up to the Fringe this August should take a look and support this new work from Nottingham (or at least take one of the flyers if you've offered one).
The Reviewers runs from Friday 1 – Saturday 23 August, 1.45pm, at Greenside Nicholson Square, Edinburgh.
New Theatre website
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