Paul T Davies reviews Drip, now playing at Roundabout at Summerhall at Edinburgh Fringe.
Andrew Finnigan in Drip. Photo: John Moore
Drip
Roundabout at Summerhall
20 August 2018
4 Stars
Tom Wells is the witty, sharp observer of teen LGBTQ youth and awkwardness, and has created an army of outsiders and queers who find each other and begin to get through life. Here, with music by Matthew Robins, we meet Liam who is presenting his school assembly. Liam and his best mate Caz are the only members of the Bev Road Baths' first and only synchronised swimming team. They're doing it to win the annual Project Prize at school, as Caz has never won. There's only one problem. Liam can't swim.
This is a show with bags of charm, with performer Andrew Finnigan carrying the audience away on a tide of affection. The songs and lyrics seamlessly provide the narrative to Liam's feelings and the situation, and have a wonderful Victoria Wood quality to some of the rhyming couplets! This is no coming out story, Liam and Caz may be 15, but they are out and proud. It's more about the challenges we all face and how we get through them, and it's impossible to leave without a huge smile on your face!
While the intimacy of the Roundabout creates a strong connection with Finnigan, it is in the round, so, inevitability, he has his back to part of the audience throughout, and some of the audience participation takes a little too long to set up. But the show skillfully leads us to a closing sing-a-long that has you cheering for the optimists in our world! For that alone, catch this musical comedy!
BOOK NOW FOR DRIP
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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