RAPPORT FRINGE ... MARGINAAL VERSLAG ... FRINGE BERICHT
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drinks Monday 1 September 08 Edinburgh Reunion in London
Topping And Butch Hit Leicester Square 26-27 September 08
Noel Fielding in VOODOO HEDGEHOG
Verdict: Feral fantasia under a kindly moon
Edinburgh - Pleasance Above - August 02
There's a sinister chunk of The Rolling Stones 'Midnight Rambler' over the PA as
the audience - soon to be furry fornicators - assembles. Over the dark
stage hangs a silent moon.
There's a quick blend into Pink Floyd, and Noel Fielding slinks on stage.
It's an apt musical and atmospheric setting for a man who looks like the
glam-rock cross of Marc Bolan and David Bowie - hair by Ray Davies - and an
unspecified mixture of woodland creatures. 'I'm 25% human', he explains,
but the revelations of this fabulous (literally)
evening suggest this may be an overstatement.
Fielding warms the audience with an engaging line in non-fornicatory
invitation: 'I'll lie on top of you (sir), but in a good way. Not in a sexual
way. Like two soldiers.' Fish-monitor as a child, he retains a love of
'... fishcakes. Cakes that fish make', and angel fish - whose vanity he
ruthlessly exposes. Crawling under his younger brother's bed to terrify him
by pretending he's a monster, he finds a monster actually there.
In revenge, he visits the monster's house - in Milton Keynes - to repay the
compliment, only to discover that monsters sleep on futons.
The Man in the Moon wakes up. He's a moving face projected onto
the moon above the stage, and as Fielding's characters slide to the feral,
a reassuringly human presence. He remembers the moon-landing from a personal
perspecive: 'A man landed on me. I went to make him a cup of tea, but he'd gone.
He never come back.' Fielding's moon has an unexpected accent, a little Spanish,
a little Greek, and a confiding manner: after all, he's seen everything.
Quite what happens under the moonlight is now revealed, as the lights dim to
speckles of starlight, the moon brightens, and Fielding transforms
into Sir Ruvial Bush - Lord of The Marsh, part-man, part-deer (with antlers),
and Ram's Legs. (When crawling past womens' windows, these become Lamb's Legs,
he explains, to avoid peeping). The audience become the creatures of the
forest, and tonight's the annual orgy. Anal too, if the big bad wolf arrives.
The Zebras and tapirs are coupling even before Sir Ruvial's blown the starting-
whistle, and Mr Ocelot's tied up the White Squid. Everyone's having a lovely
time - when Uncle Mario arrives. He's a friendly wolf (he claims),
no, not the Shadow-Bummer. Why, he doesn't even capture people's shadows, not
even in the shadow-sack clutched in his blue-flashing paws.
Here's the glorious world of Noel Fielding (surely Nicholas Parson's least
likely chat-show guest, but so it happened...), presenting a set of thoroughly
alarming but endearing characters. It's a unique world, locked solidly onto
those dreams of childhood that life as an adult never disperses. And explaining
definitively that puzzling second line in Teddy Bear's Picnic: '...you're in for
a big surprise.'
END
John Park
reviewed Friday 16 August 02 / The Pleasance
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
