I'm in my 60s and for me this play encapsulates the fringe itself, it's evolution, subjects, presentation styles, since I first tried to review a show for Deadbeat #16 in 1983.
Living in Edinburgh we've watched as the fringe becomes a comedy on every corner. Wannabee comedians hope to strike friendships to take themselves to the next level where their art can be heard by a larger audience. To what end, I'm not always sure and as much as I like a good joke, like the laughter clubs of Copenhagen, it's not the only show in town, Josef K grabbed that in 1979. Stand up does risk becoming sit down. So stand up, wise up be aware what you're asking of yourself and your audience.
Theatre on the other hand can be funny, intense, thought provoking, and these days so relevant, as it helpfully drags the age groups together.
The best theatre for me is when I am challenged. When I hear what the next generation are saying and try to process it with my geriatric capacity. I process it using my experience in my life. What I've witnessed in work or in pubs, on the terraces at Easter road or on the streets and in the parks. From drivers, to walkers, cyclists, to talkers. Oncologists to bus drivers, passengers to parliamentarians, I just process. I'm not a theatre critic nor could I be, these views are merely my take. I only do one or two shows a year as they quite literally take me on such a journey any more would be too much.
I'm a listener during the fringe. I like to hear the chat in the courtyard or summerhall, Swanys, 56 North, the Cask, Abbey, Argyll bar, George or hill square. I get a pint, I sit down with a note pad, write some lyrics to a song nobody will ever sing while listening to the larks and narks. They've come out of a show, performed in one or warming up for the next one. They all have a tale to tell of audiences. They talk of reviewers who gave them 4 or 5 stars and then someone has a bum review that always holds their gaze. "How was that only 2 stars". I marvel at how people deal with outliers. I'm a statistical machine. There's always somebody who shags that one sheep and looks, well sheepish, when someone mentions it. History is littered with red faced humbled critics or footballers who forget their lines. Think politicians who lie or people so busy on their phone they walk into you. Ignorance is their stock and trade, making you feel uncomfortable is their game. Feeling strategically superior in their world is all that matters. A wonderful web of self promotion and living in denial.
There is something called society. I believe it and so do the money markets.
I remember back in the 80's the reviews were insightful and quite a useful guide. Nowadays, many, I wouldn't publish in deadbeat good or bad. I often see political reviews trying to drive wedges in our ever dividing world. Praising or demonising a show on its alleged subject matters to stifle any debate. Substitute truth for belief or vice versa. We hear about protests at shows getting more and more threatening as these divided camps take more diverse strategic choices.
2 Little Pigs therefore let me take a second look at the subjects this play threw up. My brain often went off on tangents when I watched it first time. I kept created a narrative behind the characters.
I could picture my mum telling a grandson that he needed to toughen up. It wasn't dialogue in the play it was the way the character Mark, played by Caleb Hughes, was acting.
I could sense, as I had, growing up, the first time Mark was backed into a corner he didn't know how to react so went for tantrum. I felt as a teenager he opted for sneaky as he couldn't front up his mistakes. He learned to blame others. People apologised for him, "he's a nice boy really, he'd always stand up and give his seat away, he works for free in the charity shop". Nobody had explained how to process stuff when he had made a mistake. He couldn't take criticism. He didn't realise people were trying to help when they said "walk on this side of the road, it's safer." He hadn't gone to hiking school. He hadn't gone to stamp school either. He only found out at 26 when he put a stamp in the top left of an envelope for a mothers day card and his mum laughed and ridiculed him. His answer was never to send a card again. He clearly had evolved into a despicable character, quite simply through denial which had served him badly.
He probably started lying saying it wasn't him as a child. The denial strategy worked so he kept it going as an adult and quite simply has struggled with the truth since.
Mark reminds me of many multidimensional humans I've met with those despicable traits. A lying bastard even to himself. He found little solace in his work despite clearly having some excellent communication skills. Unfortunately these were often negated by another of his traits, he couldn't type as fast as his brain. He made typos. He couldn't be arsed proof reading. He could proof read but responded to pressure by pushing the denial button. It meant he was shit at communication. It meant he was brilliant at writing the first 1000 words. Then he needed an editor. He could proof read anybody else's work as he was a bit picking wee shite in someone else's work.
In his own it just wasn't ever his fault.
"It wisnae me" as we hear all the time when some arse hole knocks over your pint in a busy bar squeezing past your table.
"Well, you've got a big fat fucking arse and were the only one moving when the pint fell. Oh and there are 5 others at the table who saw you."
Sometimes laughter helps and the peacemaker will often laugh "sorry pal. It wiz you Walt." An old Scottish put down for anyone in denial, they got called Walt cause he Disney. He never dis.
How much had we helped Mark evolve. Martha played by Caitlin McEwan had clearly realised it wasn't her job to persevere with helping him. Whether she realised she had tried hard enough or more likely just didn't feel she had the skills to teach him, so had one inevitably turned enabler, she was off. Dumping him in the opening scene. You could sense the back story had been one of I'm sure I could bring him round. He's not as bad as he seems, had been replaced by, he's not my problem. Had the scene lasted another minute I'm sure there would've been applause for her escaping this creep.
The music as the scene ends suggests the game is up. This is the cross roads. This is a path they have turned in opposite directions from. They are both going off piste now compared to where they were when they first met. It was probably over the same dinner table they would now split up over. The first time I saw the show I was still thinking back to what had attracted them to each other, how long they'd been going out and if I'd had a five minute interval after that opening scene I would've been sharing my speculation for where they'd been and where they were going. That's where advert breaks have me going. I turn into a contestant on Gogglebox. Fighting for the viewers attention, it's not a competition, I chuckle to myself.
The music told me where the play was going, it was creepy. It was very dark. Mark is clearly abandoned and patching into all sorts of protein warrior web nonsense, muscles and enter the absurd.
Enter the pig. The pig takes it's time to survey the scene but not so long as to overstay it's grunting arrival.
The pig talks.
The pig tries to stand up.
The pig walks.
A walking talking pig. In fact, a walking talking pig played by Caitlin McEwan, with a big back story. A fantasy tale about life on a farm, friends from the human world and how they interacted with the animal kingdom.
This lightens the mood. I was getting a bit stressed about how dark it could get and suddenly I'm jolted into laughter and farce. It's mind bending. It really is mind bending. Over the years from my youth and Jacques Cousteau's talking to dolphins in the 1970's. The way people talk to their pets and the pets listen and communicate back. I'm off dreaming again and it's funny, my head is light and frothy drifting off into my youth.
Woah! The horse stops and the play twists again into a darker phase. He's going to harvest this pet.
The line between pets and animals looks like it getting crossed. Eating our pets, interesting.
The odd couple farce of love, abuse, violence, reconciliation until the last battle between the two is a tremendous watch.
It's good to have seen it again as my head processes so slow I missed some stuff. It took me back to singing "eating trifles" only to find out the Jam song was called "Eton rifles".
I praised the production the last time and echo that sentiment. That was opening night and it had got tighter. Some lines landed much funnier while some landed with more sinister intent. I didn't laugh at something I found funny first time around. Maybe I'd processed it more, maybe I was still processing.
Very evocative and this play will leave you with the conclusion that it's on us. We need to try harder or just let socials control us.
If want the algorithm to arrive ahead of us then get online. In no time at all you'll be in line. Probably somebody's front line.
Wake up radicalised and fighting somebody else's manufactured battle.
"Al go where the rhythm takes me". What a song that is.
"Straight to hell" boys
I quite simply enjoyed this as journey
And finally
On reviewerswho wish to see us publish their review....
Deadbeat set its stall out to say if you haven't got anything good to say, say nothing. Why slag of misplaced enthusiasm when it's only your view. Worse still why slag anything you don't understand. I did it once and realised I was wrong. I felt terrible slagging off the Cocteau Twins and I now love the song I rubbished. It's a hard lesson to learn but I was wrong. On so many levels I was wrong.
I slagged it off, in hindsight, through jealousy first and foremost. Instead of getting behind these people who were making fantastic sounds I slagged it. I have that review on my wall to show how much of a nasty wee erse I was. Deadbeat only sold 2000 copies and if Liz read one I can only apologise.
I'm not haunted by it, it's not a badge of honour. It's just my past. I don't like to own it, I just do.
Other confessions can be read in my unpublished memoirs. Why would anyone want to publish a pile of shite mistakes and ignorant idiotic behaviour.
