REVIEW: Skin Deep, Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe ✭✭✭✭
Paul T Davies reviews Skin Deep the musical at the Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh Fringe
Paul T Davies reviews Skin Deep the musical at the Gilded Balloon at Edinburgh Fringe
A lot of impressive creative talent has been thrown at Boys In The Buff, and one can but marvel at the standard of the quality of work lavished upon it.
It’s a great story, but the show’s most glittering treasure is its music. There are folk tunes, love songs, impassioned ballads, comedy numbers, patter songs, soaring melodies, complex harmonies and splendid polyphony, all with a sprinkle of Irish jig around the edges. The inherent power and attraction of the score is helped in no small measure by a superbly assured delivery of the most difficult, and gorgeous, music by Jennifer Harding who excels in the central role of Constance. This is an engaging, absorbing, fantastical musical, radiant with possibility and truth. It’s confronting in parts and heartbreaking in others. And it is full of magical moments.
Spindlewood, like most towns of age, has its traditions. But no practice, custom or Old Wives Warning is so firmly adhered to as ‘The Turning of the Key’. Every year, on the last night of winter, as the first day of spring unfolds, the townsfolk gather to take part in a strange ritual. They meet in the centre of the town square, where a statue bearing the likeness of a young girl stands, poised and still, one hand raised as if to toast the sky. Constance has stood in the square for as long as any can remember. But she is never more lifelike than tonight. Spindlewood is also home to a Clockmaker with a secret – something the simple folk of the town must never discover. Through methods hidden even to himself, the Clockmaker has created something much, much more than a machine. . . This world premiere by new … Read more
McWhir understands the limitations of the Landor intimately and is especially skilled at making the most of those limitations. This production of She Loves Me demonstrates his understanding and ability clearly and deftly. There is excellent musical direction from Iain Vince-Gatt who controls the musical side of proceedings from a keyboard. The stand-out performance here comes from Joshua LeClair, whose Arpad is effervescent, energised, and totally convincing throughout.
Like the Union Theatre, the Landor continues to bring new or largely overlooked musicals to London as well as encouraging and developing the skills of freshly graduated musical theatre talent. If you don’t know Damn Yankees, or even if you do, pop into the Landor to catch this – there is a lot to admire.