The time has come, once again, for a series of reviews on a series of productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival of 2023. The text to speech program is switched on, the names of the companies have been pretyped, ready to be inserted into the final draft. And the big ideas have been put to one side so that at least some shows will get something that looks like a proper review.
Slash Is a right load of fun. It is one of those late-night shows that ham be enjoyed after a few drinks, although it does have a very serious subtext. It looks those very special works of erotic fiction rated by fans, mostly female, to explore the suggested romantic and sexual attachment between celebrated mail protagonists. There is a shared bed experience with two members of the Beatles; Sherlock and Holmes bumble into the world of Harry Potter; Andrea Dworkin enters and challenges the innocence of any pornographic literature; the women of the world of Archie comic experiment with a different form of life experience. Slash is a last, and a laugh with intelligence.
I often complain that audiences want their tummies to be tickled. This show is a tummy tickler for me: lurking beneath the playful skits, there is a serious and incisive analysis of the relationship between fiction and patriarchy. When Veronica and Betty, off Archie, realise that their lives are being lived under oppressive conditions (the comic book format itself enacts tyranny on their bodies and emotions and experiences), they dive into another fictional world one in which their own romantic desires are sublimated into male homosexual adventures. This kind of fiction emerged from the Star Trek fandom, and its themes of same-sex desire performed for the female gaze appear in an entire genre of Japanese comic books.
Slash is not one of those terribly important, self-conscious, message plays: instead, it alludes to a deeper political analysis of the ways in which the patriarch E collapse and represses female agency without losing its sense of humour. The individual sketches work as stand-alone routines, even though they inevitably fade away for climax. However, taken together, these episodes become a powerful commentary and demands thoughtful analysis.
That is where criticism could actually be useful. But I’m a bit busy complaining about my eyesight. It’ll have to wait.
It is always tempting to find the connection between the various productions that I have randomly selected to share an article. I don’t really think Coconut and Slash have very much in common. One is a monologue and follows the adventures of a young woman through family expectation and sexual drama. The other one is a cabaret style series of two-person routines. Now, I could be the big lazy brain and pretend that because they feature women, they are feminist works and therefore should be considered together. If I were going to think a little harder, I would say that they both consider the female sexual experience. But Coconut fits more easily into a very Fringe tradition, exemplified by, inevitably, Fleabag.
The title of Coconut alludes to the protagonist, who is grappling with dual identity. It is a word that can be used as an insult, for someone who is brown on the outside and white on the inside. And the script is absolutely at its best when it delves in the uncomfortable family relationships: parents who wants their child to find a respectable job (and the sexually chaste) and a daughter who has ambitions to become an actor and has a taste for generic white men. There is a rich comedy in her enthusiasm for men who quite clearly fell the most rudimentary standards for intimacy and respectability (there is a lovely moment when she is surprised by a man expressing sensitivity) and the performer (Rea Malhotra Mukhtyar) handles her mood swings with aplomb.
If the narrative falls into a familiar structure towards the end – there is a degree of self-knowledge achieved after a bad thing happens – Coconut was a promising work from a young company. If it never quite delivers on its promise to explore the complexities of a dual identity and leans too heavily into a rather formulaic temporary sex comedy, it is celebrated re-rather than pessimistic and vividly portrays a life dealing with the thickness of thin things.
I think that’s enough for today stop I am going to lie down in a darkened room for a while and pity myself as I am sure the cast and crews of the shows will know, August in Edinburgh is very stressful. It probably gets a bit more stressful when somebody reviews your show, the same person who sat in the front row wearing his headphones because he was having a problem with loud noises. If you see somebody wearing headphones in your show, they are not listening to music. Honest.
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