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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Pop Comedy
Verdict: Gleefully disordered household
London - Canal Café Theatre - March 03
Pop Comedy is a gleeful probe into a highly disordered household - three characters linked by a quirky plot in an hour of light comic drama.
Jamie (Jamie Anderson) likes to knit and take drugs, sometimes involving theft. Marianne (Marianne Levy) wants Dan (Dan Wright) to fall in love with her. Will he? Can he? Will Jamie find release from addiction hell, and more importantly, produce a decent piece of finished knitwear?
We encounter Jamie being encouraged by a witch (Marianne Levy) to 'slay the dragon of your fears'. He's entrusted with a ring of power, but must never put it on ('You will look gay'). Back in the flat he, Marianne and Dan play a strange board-game that's come from the attic. It produces unpleasant predicaments and a lot of bad karma (and serves as a useful plot device to cue unusual sketches).
Scenes are intercut with some sparkling voice-overs and broadcasts from BBC Radio ('I'm a middle-class confused loveable ethnic woman'). There's the universal domestic problem of pizza delivery. There's an odd spy-school into which Marianne longs to be inducted. There's a crazed America hillbilly family.
Pop Comedy comes with a mission to entertain. It's funny, well-scripted and there are fine performances from the gifted cast.
Credits: (cast, alpha order): Jamie Anderson, Marianne Levy, Dan Wright. Written and directed by Marianne Levy.
END
John Park
reviewed Sunday 23 March 03
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
