Writer and performer Michael McEvoy's Niccolo Machiavelli, dressed in old-fashioned white linen pyjamas, starts the show by bursting on stage asking: 'Why have you brought me here? What have I done? What do you want with me?'

The premise is that Machiavelli is about to be tried, and although the show begins tenuously, it turns out to be a fascinating piece of theatre.

The script, however, is at its weakest when it attempts to justify its impossible concept - that Machiavelli is brought back from the dead with a full and comprehensive knowledge of the last 500 years of history.

However, once these unconvincing attempts are replaced with Machiavelli's memories, considerations and dissections of 15th century Italian politics, what seemed unsure and unsubstantiated becomes dynamic and well crafted.

Michael McEvoy manages to combine a lovely characterisation with interesting vignettes from Machiavelli's political and family life, and comprehensively crams a huge amount of history and information into the show.

As Michael McEvoy acts his way through Machiavelli's life, it transpires that he is offering a defence.

Imagining that the author and politician would be unhappy with the modern adjective of his name, Michael McEvoy describes the political climate under the Medici family, the uprising that overthrew them and then the significance of their return.

In particular, he demonstrates that Machiavelli wrote The Prince to please Lorenzo Medici, to whom the book is dedicated, and that its purpose was to prove his potential to the family and regain him the government position that he had lost.

Michael McEvoy succeeds in adding a new dimension to a man who is only remembered through severe philosophies such as 'the end justifies the means'.

In performance, Not in My Name! is transfixing due to the wonderful acting of Michael McEvoy, slick and quick to slip into multiple roles, and with a sonorous theatrical voice that is rare quality at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

He thunders through the first act of the play and, although the final fifteen minutes are more didactic than entertaining, just manages to refrain from being preachy.

Not in My Name! ends with a blunt twist as Machiavelli decides that it is not he on trial, but the audience and he harangues the wrongs of America in modern politics, reels out statistics and advice and rants about his name being used in connection with modern politicians. Michael McEvoy's orations are saved by his own stirring passion as well as his interesting arguments on America.

Although his one-man play is creative and original, it would benefit from a spoonful of subtlety.

Cast Credits: Michael McEvoy - Niccolo Machiavelli.

Company Credits: Writer - Michael McEvoy. Director - Jennifer McEvoy. Sound and lighting - Mags O'Donoghue. Producer - Portrait Productions.

END

(c) Sara Pascoe 2007

Reviewed Monday 20 August 07 / The Green Room

Subeditor - Bo Wilson

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008