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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Dummer
Verdict: My bottom's grown tired of your hand
London - Canal Café - Mar/Apr 03
Dummer is a short theatrical gem - 30 minutes of poignant and tense and funny drama - about a passé ventriloquist and his strong-minded dummy.
A door opens, flooding light onto a stage arranged as the seedy backroom of a third-rate theatre. Welcome to the dressing room of pork-pie-hatted dummer (ventriloquist) Roy Parker Junior (James Riches), carrying a suitcase.
Inside - soon before us with petite feet - is dummy Little Johnnie (Adam Riches). He wears a green blazer and school cap, his cheeks rouged with a clown's lipsticked highlights. He has, it's immediately clear, a tongue of his own.
Little Johnnie belonged to Roy's dad, Roy Senior, and the great days of the circuit - both long dead. All that's left are the scrapings of the showbiz barrel-bottom, the humiliation of performing to a handful who don't care. There's a shock in store.
Roy can't believe his lips. The dummy's leaving. 'Have you been seeing another hand?' No, Johnnie's disallusioned. 'We're past it, Roy. Cherny Conservative Club? Shambles. Woman in the third row came to our show to die.'
Roy's ready for optimism. What about his other dummy, Socrates The Sock? Johnnie's adamant - it's over. '49 years ago, your dad bent me over double and drilled me your hand-hole. Me and your dad - that was total ventriloquism.' Roy Junior's never quite fitted the enclosure.
Quite what happens next is revealed in this taut and wittily-written story - and it's a complete story. One blissful line follows another, as the two conspirators reveal everything about themselves, their shared (fairly perverted) secrets - and their dreams for the future. Ah yes, dummies have dreams.
Adam Riches delivers a remarkable performance as Little Johnnie. Using the apparently limited repertoire of what he manages to convince us - effortlessly - is a timber face, he creates a dummy of wooden flesh with human heart - and razor tongue.
James Riches conjures the seediness of downfall in a wrenching evocation of loneliness. It's sharpened by his character's heart-breaking pursuit of a bright side that's non-existent. There's considerable humour, too, in his splendid portrayal.
There's fine, dramatic lighting in Dummer, planned by the cast and Jake Wiltshire, and delivered with Jake Wiltshire's customary brio.
Danny Kaye's 1954 film Knock On Wood, occasionally perhaps shown on TV, is rooted in the psychology of ventriloquist and dummy, and may make an interesting comparison. Dummer is however, unique - a fast-flowing piece of excellence
Credits: Adam Riches (Little Johnnie - Dummy). James Riches (Roy Parker Junior - Ventriloquist). Writer - James Riches. Company - No Trousers. Technical light and sound - Jacob Wiltshire.
END
John Park
reviewed 4 April 03 / Canal Café Theatre
related topic - Knock On Wood (1954) International Movie Database (IMDB) (enter title in IMDB search engine if link defective)
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
