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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Somewhat Confused
Verdict: Dry, fast-paced comedy
London - Canal Café - 12-18 Dec 04 - 19:30 (Sun 19:00)
Somewhat Confused is an inappropriate name for a series of sketches that are extremely clearly and concisely written. They pose post-modernist-type questions about life and art, or life through art. They reflect the hotchpotch eclectic way of today’s life in an array of issues, quickly delivered - dating, infidelity, pining for real love, snobbishness in art, the triviality of TV and celebrity.
The Canal Café is cosy and attracts an intelligent-looking crowd of 20-something Hugh Grant-ish types. The show’s professional delivery keeps them involved. Writer/director Ian Wedd - who also performs - has a fast-paced dryness to his writing. A dark and intense man with clarity of diction to die for, he opens the first sketch as a tacky talk-show host.
It’s a competition to win a degree. The three contestants are well defined: a pushy know-it-all girl, an under-confident lad, and a blonde bit of fluff. It’s well-acted, and could easily have looked hammy. The host asks banal questions and treats the contestants accordingly - touching-up the blonde, pandering to the know-all. He dismisses the lad with ‘You’re not thick, just from the North’.
It’s an attitude that runs through the show’s writing: the mickey-taking of the middle classes, and that particular ignorance that comes with snobbishness – an essentially English brand of self-deprecating humour.
The dating and infidelity sketches reverse expectations, with lines like ‘I am head over heals with indifference with your wife’, ‘15 years of friendship and a web of truth’. It’s well put together, and the actors hold up the writing throughout - especially the two girls (Fiona Battisby, Rhona Scott-Black) with their punchy and slick performances.
Sketches are interspersed with video of a sad, lonely girl waiting outside a supermarket for the man of her dreams to materialize.
There’s a sharp item pitting a pretentious art gallery owner against an innocent buyer, which shows the depth of Ian Wedd’s writing. The uptight owner can’t believe the girl has only £500 to spend on ‘art’. The 3 characters dance round her in a frenzy of taunting, repeating ‘Only five hundred pounds’. It’s reminiscent of the dance of death in Lord Of The Flies, where bullied Piggy gets killed. As the final sketch, it’s a strong ending to an entertaining piece of writing.
