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Bill's New Frock
- adapted from Anne Fine's book of the same name
Part of the Bank of Scotland Childern's International Theatre Festival
in 2002 more
with EdinburghGuides reviews and info about the Festival including reviews
from pervious years.
Director - Douglas Irvine
Set Designer - Rachel Hauck
Lighting Designer - Jose Lopez
Costume Designer - Joyce Kim Lee
Company - Visible Fictions presents Mark
Taper Forum and P.L.A.Y. Production from Los Angeles USA
Venues & Dates - see end of review for details
Age Range and Length of show - + 8yrs and 50 mins
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Bill's strange day is vividly imaginative
Bill's just a normal kid until one day he wakes up to find he's not a
boy any more and everyone is behaving differently around him. When Bill
tries to join a football game, it's the high impact sport of the US where
the ball is thrown and rarely kicked, his lovely pink frock gets a bit
mucky. But sexism is still dealt out whatever side of the pond you're
on, and this adaptation of Anne Fine's novel picks up lots of the ways
we make the lives of boys and girls different.
The cast are energetic and lively keeping the story in the air and the
audience engaged. There's a commendable economy of set, radio alarms,
a motor bike with sidecar and the school are all vividly created by the
cast so that the story of Bill's strange day is vividly imaginative. It
also left at least one teacher examining her approach to her class when
a pupil said in a quiet moment, "You say that to me, Miss and it's
just because I'm a boy". Ron Garcia is a skinny, increasingly
baffled Bill while Julanne Chidi Hill, Paula Killen and Sun
St.Pierre are the all female ensemble who play the school children,
the gang down the road, Bill's parents and the teachers.
Perhaps in the future we'll evolve into a society that treat boys and
girls the same but for now this dramatised version of Anne's Fine story
is fun to watch. It's interesting too that it makes you just a little
anxious that you might wake one morning like Bill and have to spend a
very different day.
© Thelma Good 28 May 2002
Other EdinburghGuide reviews of VIsible Fictions Productions
Emily's House. I Beethoven's
Brother | Song
From The Sea | The
Pearl.
Spring UK Tour in 2002 for Bill's New Frock
Tour begins
10 May 1.30pm & 11 May 7pm Paisley Arts Centre 0141 887 1010
13 May 1.30pm & 7.30pm Inverness Eden Court Theatre 01463 234 234
18 May 2.30pm Perth Bells Sports Centre 01738 622 301
21 - 23May Norwich Playhouse 01603 598 598
25 May 1.30pm Dunfermline Carnegie Hall 01383 314 000
26 May 3.00pm Kirkcaldy Adam Smith Theatre 01592 412 929
27 - 29 May 10.00am & 12.30pm Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131 228
1404
Tour Ends
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