This Ubu is Bloody Brilliant! Oh, don't take your kids to this what ever you do. They'll see too much you've been trying to protect them from. Adults, though, should not miss the opportunity to witness this slice of vigorous magic. Jarry's classic play provoked a massive stir when it was first staged back in 1896. Over a hundred years later it still has the power to raise eyebrows and unsettle some tender minds. While the show is very, very funny, behind the laughs there lies the evil slime that is the human heart. Black and ugly it shows humanity in a light we'd rather not see, in a script translated, adapted and directed by Martin Danziger to give it some modern, political welly.

The performances are fantastic. Robert Jack and Louise Allan are great as the bickering couple who do everything short of killing each other. Nick Underwood is equally good as Fuquhar, deploying a real knack for comic timing. Underwood also composed and sings the Kurt Weill-like songs, they add to the seedy, decadent atmosphere of the production.

Whether you know Alfred Jarry's masterpiece or not, this is a show impossible not to enjoy. You'll laugh, shout and possibly vomit. It's a exceptional orgy of a show.
© Alex Eades 11 August 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Runs to 28 August at 14:25 not 17.
Company – Theatre Modo.
Company Website www.theatremodo.com


Ursula Martinez -- OAP (Page 187).

Drams .
Venue Assembly at George Street (Venue 3).
Address 54 George Street.
Reviewer Lorraine McCann.

Ursula Martinez is a very modern sort of chick, on a very modern sort of quest. She's already done a couple of shows about earlier periods in her life and now she wants to find out about the future - old age. What it is. What it's not. And, most important of all, what it might be like for her.

The show starts by making use of the obligatory digital interface, with a huge screen showing a few minutes' footage of the pier at Morcombe, where elderly folk meander past the lens, some of them with sticks, some of them arm-in-arm, and some of them gliding along like Hell's Grannies on those motorised scooters. But then a real-life codger appears and introduces Ursula, who bounds onstage like a toothy gazelle, lithe and fit and clearly in way too much of a hurry to get stuck into ageing.

With a mixture of interviews and live action, the show proceeds to dissect the pros and cons of ageing, and the ways in which it might be possible to pre-empt the inevitable decline. For me, the videoed material was funnier than much of the stand-up, particularly when the pensioners were let loose on subjects of some metaphysical import -- that and sex. Of the live action component, Eve Pearce, who plays Ursula's elderly self, is endearingly vague but packs a sucker punch that will affect all but the most cynical of viewers. Clever stuff.
© Lorraine McCann, 19 August 2005 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Runs to 28 August at 17:35 (not 22).
Company - Ursula Martinez.

(U) 2 out of 258