Wild Bore
10 August 2017
3 Stars
Well, here's the thing. A show created from terrible reviews, both aimed at the performers and collated from reviews, now has to be reviewed. I suddenly become aware that anything I say may end up in the show!
Let's get the fact that the performers use their backsides to talk out of when quoting critics, because, of course, we talk out of our asses, out of the way ! And some vicious reviews are shared with the audience. But Zoe Coombs Marr, Ursula Martinez and Adrienne Truscott now own this material and have created a cathartic and anarchic show that has many laugh out loud moments.
The show is fun, and has much to say about meta theatre and meta criticism, and anyone who has created theatre will enjoy the references, and the performers send themselves and critics up brilliantly. However, the ass joke becomes over used and a little tedious, and some gags begin to lose their impact. A slightly shorter show would have been more effective.
There's a really good intervention by a fourth character, who throws a new light on the show, and is on point about current trends, privilege and the Traverse programming itself. (It would be a shame to give it away.) And the piece ends with a hilarious pastiche of theatrical genres and a reclaiming of those bad reviews. Far from the worst thing on the Fringe!
WILD BORE TICKETS
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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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