A quick round-up of the reviews for last week’s premiere of Aeneas Faversham Forever. First, the Edinburgh Evening News:
RETURNING to Edinburgh after a successful stint on Radio 7, The Penny Dreadfuls triumphantly premiered their new show to a sold-out, hysterical house. Now a trio, the team decided to revisit the site of their inception to reinvent themselves, abandoning the sketch-show format in favour of a full blown play. [...] While it might seem churlish to award only four stars to such a funny piece, there’s no question that it should walk effortlessly away with the full five when it returns for a full Fringe run.
Nice. I think the word is “gushing.” Next up, The Journal:
Gone are the rapid sequences of sketches which made up their previous shows. In their place is an hour-long comedy play set in Victorian London which tells the story of nefarious villain Lucius Frost as he tries to resurrect the Dark Lord Oysters McGee from beneath Tower Bridge, and the efforts of disgraced Scotland Yard officer McAllister and children’s author Rufus Hambleden as they try to confound him.
And then there’s The Stage:
Making a real virtue of their set-free production, this is still very much sketch territory where the basic, slightly formal costumes are accessorised with what ever lies to hand to help distinguish the dozen or so different characters. Great use is made of Neil Hobbs’ simple yet effective lighting design to create place – from locked cupboard to midnight graveyard – while Hobbs’ soundtrack adds another layer of comedy.
The company’s improvisation roots show through in their strong on-stage rapport and willingness to drive each other to corpsing. While there is not typecasting among the trio, David Reed provides a strong leading man, Humphrey Ker a truly sinister evil villain and Thom Tuck moves vividly and easily from what ever extreme is demanded of him.
Great fun with plenty of room for expansion and further adventures.
Thanks to everyone who came out to either gig- the show is in great form for such an early stage in the year, though I’m not sure you’ll recognise it when we hit the Fringe. Why?
Shadow puppetry.
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