Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles

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Edinburgh Festival review
Rating (out of 5)
4
Show info
Company
Atomic80 Productions in association with MOGO
Production
Josh Richards (director), Mark Jenkins (writer)
Performers
Christian McKay
Running time
80mins

Having premiered in Edinburgh in 2004, this Fringe First winner makes a welcome return at the Assembly Rooms this year. Tautly written, finely acted and stylishly directed, Rosebud is a banquet of Wellesian proportions for any fan.

Christian McKay does, of course, enjoy the benefit of bearing a good resemblance to the American movie legend, but his interpretation of Welles is definitely more than skin-deep. Beginning with a cute little ‘Third Man’ vignette, the show takes us back to the origins of the Welles myth, pointing out its absurdity with an allusion to the infant Welles’ ‘genius’ at breastfeeding.

It then makes some darker references to family background, including the spectre of an older brother left to languish in an institution while the young prodigy enjoyed lavish praise and encouragement. Indeed, this kind of juxtaposition runs through the whole piece, with Welles saying on arrival in Hollywood that he decided ‘to start at the end’, with the most ambitious project he could possibly think of: Kane.

It is now a commonplace to observe that even Welles could not have known how right history would end up judging him to have been on that one …

The older Welles is also present. A bearded, obese figure wandering the hotel lobbies of Europe’s cultural capitals, he justifies years spent doing voiceovers for commercials by claiming that it’s more honest to do crap and take the money in order to finance an uncompromising vision than it is to do anything mediocre.

But even he has his limits, as seen in a hilarious scene where he gets into an artistic strop over an advert for peas.

Times: 2 - 27 August, 12.10