Paul T Davies reviews Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, a play by Marcelo Dos Santos starring Samuel Barnett, playing at Roundabout at Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022.
Samuel Barnett. Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen.
Roundabout at Summerhall
Edinburgh Fringe 2022
5 Stars
There are some plays that are tricky to review. Sometimes they are good, but nothing special, sometimes you can't quite pin down what didn't work. And, very occasionally, they are so darn clever you can't and mustn't give anything away! Such is the case with Marcelo Dos Santos's mind flip of a play, tightly written and twisty, with revelations that its best to discover in performance!
The script meets the perfect performance by the excellent Samuel Barnett. He plays a stand-up comedian, and, after several starts, he settles on, "I'm 36, I'm a comedian, and I'm about to kill my boyfriend." We are taken through the whole landscape of modern gay dating and sex, hilarious in its graphic descriptions, but also an undercurrent of loneliness. Until he meets the American, Mr. Right, who is perfect. Or is he?
Barnett may well have a future as a stand-up, his timing is outstanding. It's when he comes off the microphone that more is revealed, what exactly are we watching? A play that will definitely have a life after the Fringe, get tickets while you can, it's a palpable hit!
Aug 14-15, 17-22, 24-28
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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