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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
Oi Over Here
Verdict: Comedy in school
London - Canal Café Theatre - 17 to 19 Nov 05 - 19:30 (20:20)
Oi Over Here is a character-based comedy sketch show set in a hugely dysfunctional school. Each of the actors takes on a variety of moronic characters who reappear during the show. Joe Bor and Richard Reid in particular stand out, rarely missing with their performances.
Joe Bor excels as an over-zealous and frighteningly believable PE teacher, intent on getting all the boys into the shower - 'a clean body is a clean mind'. He chases them mercilessly to the wash-rooms - 'Go, go, go. Don’t worry, I’m coming with you'.
Richard Reid has several memorable characters. His white middle-class schoolboy who wants to be a ghetto black kid in the safe sketch is absolutely spot-on.
Beth Medley and Fiona Hunter delight as pikey wannabe-lesbians. They ostentatiously grope each other until Beth Medley's character goes in for a snog and is rebuffed with a horrified 'Are you gay or somefing?' Fiona Hunter brilliantly plays an easily-recognisable drama teacher. She's terribly posh, eccentric, 'yah yah' - and almost completely reliant on hand-gestures to describe the sense of 'the drama' that her words can't reach.
But, for all the show's perks, there are obvious flaws.
Although many of the characters are well-observed, several are too similar - eg the 'black' kids and the geezer teacher. Everything feels a little safe, a little restrained. There's no pushing of the characters to see what will happen. Instead the show relies on the relative safety of easily-identifiable caricatures.
The '3 times funny' rule is stretched too far several times without a pay-off - such as the teacher who can’t greet her class without blurting a Tourette welcome.
Richard Reid explains that the concept for the show was originally for TV - both he and Joe Bor have TV and short-film backgrounds. This could explain a lot about the weaker parts of the show. Scene changes, done in total black-out with a vague voice-over, are over-long and clunky. More often than not, they are unnecessary on stage - but make much more sense in TV's sketch-to-sketch format. With such a small and sparse set in the theatre, most of the changes could be done by the actors - in character during the scenes - making the show much slicker and pacier. On TV, these particular sketches could be re-ordered to run more smoothly from one to another, and several scenes as written could benefit from close-ups to pick up the punch-lines.
It's difficult to direct, write and act in the same show. Although Joe Bor and Richard Reid pull it off in the main, simple things like scene order could have been picked up on by having an outside eye. Despite these problems, it's an entertaining show. Its weaknesses in the theatre could become assets on TV - in particular its acute observation of the minute.
Cast Credits: (alpha order): Joe Bor. Fiona Hunter. Beth Medley. Richard Reid. Tom Mothersdale could not appear.
Company Credits: Written and Directed by Joe Bor & Richard Reid. Company - Delish Productions.
END
(c) Eloise Emanuel 2005
reviewed Friday 18 November 05 / Canal Café
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
