Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
3 stars
There's a moment in Peepolykus' new show when a medium calling on the
creator of Sherlock Holmes attempts to enter the room through the
window. As the supposed arbiter of the spirit world clambers through
the opening, he slips on the ledge, almost coming a cropper on the
street below. The fact that the performer playing the spiritual con-man
is clearly on his knees hanging on to a window at ground level doesn't
prevent at least one first night audience member from gasping audibly
at his apparent near miss with gravity.
This incident speaks volumes about this comic meditation on truth and
artifice in which suspension of disbelief is subject as much as form.
It's framed around a faux lecture by PhD candidate Jennifer McGeary,
who, along with a couple of actors she's hired to illustrate her spiel,
takes a step back in time to meet Dr Doyle himself. The fact that her
hired help bear a suspicious resemblance to Peepolykus main-stays
Javier Marzan and John Nicholson is itself a double bluff in an
extended bag of tricks that features Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini and
the Cottingley fairies.
Orla O'Loughlin's Traverse Company production in association with
Peepolykus is a knowingly seasonal parlour room entertainment that
looks at a need to believe in ghosts, whether they're real or not. At
over two hours there's probably too much of it, and it could actually
do with beinh somewhat less formal. There are nevertheless some slick
sleights of hand at play here, with Marzan, Nicholson and Gabriel
Quigley as Jennifer having a magic time in a show in which seeing isn't
always believing.
The Herald, December 11th 2012
ends
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