Theatre

Camden Fringe Festival - A metric arseload of previews

Alan Hindle | Thursday 22 July, 2010 22:09

The Camden Fringe Festival takes place from the 2nd to the 29th of August. Illustration by Alan Hindle

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Several million years ago some lucky monkey managed to get its grasping, recently be-thumbed hands on a dead stegosaurus. It doesn’t matter if the beast was killed by a doughty warrior with a pointy stick, or was found at the bottom of a steep cliff, when it was finally dragged it back to the tribe the ape began telling everybody embellished tales of catching dinner. As the stegosaurus turned slowly on a very large spit (the wheel not yet being invented, but every cave already having a rotisserie barbecue in the garden) theatre was invented. Before music, painting, literature, and psychiatry there was theatre, the first art form. And the grilling of fine meats.

Fringe Theatre Festivals are, I think, a modern approximation to that first exhilarating experience of telling and hearing a story. The idea is freshly caught, prepared in short order and presented still fairly raw- some parts possibly undercooked, some burned, but much is perfect- sizzling and spitting mouthwatering juices.

I’m getting too hungry to sit still and write this. Better wrap it up.

The Camden Fringe, only in its fifth year, has grown from a handful of enthusiastic companies at a single venue to over 200, showing at eight theatres spread across the borough. While the programme rather disingenuously suggests the venues are mere minutes apart, the festival is very compact and easily accessible. The shows are cheap at £7.50, plus a £1 booking fee when you buy online from Ticketweb. You can also buy tickets at the door a half hour before the show and save that pound to buy a third of a pint or just under a seventh of your next show. Or even half a stir-fry takeaway if you aren’t squeamish about what’s in it. You know the place I’m talking about.

So enjoy the summer sun, then sit back in some dark cave, sipping shamanistic beer, and watch a clutch of monkeys jump about the stage spinning tales of outlandish adventure, gripping drama, absorbing ideas (“A thing that goes round and round for the purpose of conveyance? I’ll call it ‘The 214 Bus’! Now I have to invent the Oyster card because, damn, it’s expensive getting about…”) and comedy to make you shriek and gibber.

Pick up a programme from any of the venues: The Camden Head, the New Diorama, Camden People’s Theatre, the Roundhouse, Etcetera at the Oxford Arms pub, Sheephaven Bay, the Lion and the Unicorn and Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate, the furthest flung of the venues. What follows is simply a selection, the ones that leaped out at me from the programme as the most immediately interesting blurbs.

Rosie Wilby’s Diary
Rosie Wilby, 5:45pm 2-3 August, Camden Head Theatre

Rosie Wilby has been an opening act for Bob Geldof, a finalist for Leicester Mercury Comedienne of the Year, and a former columnist in the now defunct Making Music Magazine. Pop Diary is a reworking of her old column. Since her last show, The Science of Sex, was only a couple months ago I’m guessing this woman can’t half generate material. There is a Making Music Magazine currently publishing, with the subtitle “Better Living Through Recreational Music Making”. Probably a very different sort of zine.

Knock Three Times
Mutinous Parts, 6pm 2-4 August, Etcetera Theatre

When you’re down in the chips and the bills are piling up, who you gonna call? Dead relatives! Hester, Jenny, and Bridie are all counting on the afterworld to help them get through this one, and Marjorie the medium is the one they go to. Séance play in one act.

Window Lickin’ Good
Fat Hammond’s Banjo Lounge, 7:15 2-5 August, Camden Head

Sketch show that claims to be offensive, so a good start, but there had better be some banjos involved.

ZIP: Gun & Knife Crime
Giant Olive theatre Company, 8pm, 2-4 August, 9:30pm 27-29 August, Lion and Unicorn

A play exploring the issues of knife crime and suggests we are involved in helping to end it. Now, I’m very impressed with Giant Olive, their ambitiousness is amazing, and this show’s on their home turf, the L&U. HOWEVER, knife crime has been made a bit of a buggabear, given actual statistics suggesting that in a city this large the scale of violence is overblown, so I’m going to be watching this one with a critical eye.

The Scot and the Jew: Doubly Cheap
David Whitney and Dave Florez 9pm, 2nd of August, Etcetera Theatre

One-off performance, a duel of barbed jokes between two comics. Presumably one is Scottish and the other is of the Hebrew persuasion. One of them won a Bafta, the other is much-beloved in Dagenham. I chose this one because in the programme photo one is wearing an Arabic language Tony the Tiger T-shirt, and I want one of those.

Madam Everleigh’s Love Emporium
The Raven Theatre Company 10:15 2-4 August, Camden Head

Those crazy Victorians! A couple centuries later, all we hear about is their weird attraction to death, bizarre sex, made more bizarre in that they were forbidden to use the word “sex” and their obsession with candy and children dressed as elves. Madam Everleigh’s sounds like a suitably fraught little comedy-melodrama with some good ol’ fashioned English sickness and men dressed as furniture- another common hobby from the day, the 19th century equivalent of Furries. www.raventheatre.co.uk

The Snow Spider
io theatre company 6pm 3rd August, Roundhouse

Beautiful children’s fantasy from Welsh children’s writer Jenny Nimmo, about a 9 year-old boy named Gwynn given a brooch and told to throw it away, only to have it return with a magical adventure and a broken family that needs his help.
Righteous Anger, Pointless Ire

Robin Ince, Michael Legge and guests
9pm, 3 and 5 August, Roundhouse

Robin Ince has been around since forever, building up steam about one thing or another, and letting off squealing tirades against some-such-thing or another. Michael Legge I don’t know, a blogger, but perhaps he is there to help make tea from Ince’s boiling liquid rage. A tea of stewed anger. And they have guests popping round with biscuits of wrath.

Helen Keen: It is Rocket Science
9pm 3-4 August, Etcetera Theatre

Keen recounts the whole mad story of space exploration, and the geniuses who thought of putting monkeys into tins of explosive chemicals and blasting them into space. She really does come across as an enthusiast. This is apparently a dry run before she launches a Radio 4 series of this show, so you can be there for the final bits of fine-tuning before the monkeys are strapped in and the nation gathers round the wireless to listen.

Macabret
Clowns at Work 6:30 3-5 August, Lion and Unicorn

No Fringe is complete without some red noses. I support all things clown, and these folks have come from all over the world to do this show and write their awful blurb in the programme. I am going to assume that in a company employing Portugese, Israeli, Swiss (which could be any of the eleven official tongues) and American, the promotional material was doomed to not make a lot of sense. On the other hand, they’re clowns. How much sense do you want?

TAPtrickz & DRUMstickz
Jack & the Rhythm Chicks 6pm 5 August, the Roundhouse Studio

The frenetic staccato of tapping bravado, Jack and, uh, the Chicks (missing a chance to use one more “z” to make it Chickz) take the audience through the history of tap dancing. A “fusion of musicals, dance and percussion” by a cast aged about 12, to judge from their photo. Bless.

Speed Dating- The Musical

A new musical from Jamie Ledwirth about the recent phenomenon of stuffing a bunch of hopeless singles in a bar and having them play musical chairs to the tune of embarrassment. Since I am a practitioner of Turtle Dating, by which I have one date every nine years, I may be biased against the very notion of speed dating, which seems geared entirely towards meeting people, having fun, and sex, without having to get too old in the meantime. These kids and their ridiculous ideas.

Skin Deep
The Flapperty Twuffocks 2:45 pm, 6,8,9,16, 20 August, Camden Head

Ohhhh, that poor dog! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a brave doggy? Yes! You are! Comedy sketch show promising stupidity.

Precious Things
My Little Theatre Company 4:30 6-8 August Etcetera Theatre

There is a debate as to whether one should be expected to separate an artist and his or her unfortunate personality from their work, or view the two together as part and parcel of the piece of art. In Precious Things, Ingrid want to celebrate her great-uncle’s work, despite him being a total Nazi cuddler. The Shropshire Star was “extremely impressed” by My Little Theatre Company, and I like Shropshire. Charles Darwin and T’Pau are from there, too.

The Camden Navigator
Livewire Productions 4U 6pm, 6 August, Roundhouse Studio

Tales of the barges poking along the canals of Britain. This show would have been better done on an actual barge- the canal is right there, no excuse. However, the Roundhouse is possibly more stable for large crowds. I am always fascinated, walking along the canal looking in the boats’s windows, at their idiosyncratic arrangements of junk and flowers, and watching them crawl along spouting smoke while the relaxed passengers drink wine and magically avoid hitting boats and similarly drunken crews coming from the other direction.

Kevin Shepherd: Caronicle
7:30pm 6-9 Sheephaven Bay

People love their cars, and none of their cars do they love more than their first cars, despite their glee when they get to chuck it for a better one that is not in constant danger of falling apart or blowing up. Kevin Shepherd examines this and nine other objects of modern fetishism that have shaped his life.

Tell it Like it is
Celtic Kiss Productions

Clara Bow, Louise Brooks and Mae West are locked up in a hotel room in 1927 while police sirens pass by outside. Three of the hottest silent movie goddesses, one of whom was one of the funniest people ever. This show has set itself high expectations, so I’m hoping it is suitably packed with filthy zingers and a couple of blatently suggestive songs that I can later quote in pubs during speed-dating sessions.

A Kiss Goodnight/ Crime in a Madhouse
Theatre of the Damned 10:30pm 6, 7, 8 August, Etcetera Theatre

Two Gothic one-acts, one about a man with his face burned off with acid, the other, a girl locked up in an insane asylum where her demons can visit her. Having recently seen Ghost Stories (see review) and theatrical horror done brilliantly, this may be an unfair pick. Scary is hard to do genuinely well in theatre without a decent budget for Alton Toweresque effects. Without money you have to make do with script, actors, atmospheric set and lighting and a director who understands how to make the most with least. We’ll see.

In Shadows of Silence
Handprint Theatre 1:30pm 9-10 August, Etcetera Theatre

Another scary one, this one using sign language, physical theatre and puppets to tell a tale about a family trapped between past and future. A play shaped by silence could be very frightening for a hearing audience. Noiselessness can be a useful effect, helping to create a feeling of suffocation, of space closing in, of not knowing what to expect, with the other senses heightening to greater sensitivity.

Occasionally Ovid
Helen Ainsworth 3pm 9-10 August, Etcetera Theatre

Three Greek myths performed by one woman with a filthy sense of humour and some very cool-looking puppets.

Patchwork
The Honourable Society of Faster Craftswomen 10:15 pm 9-12 August, Camden Head

Short stories about excessive ambition and wasps, using “projected drawings”. Possibly the best blurb in the programme, as I am so curious to see what that phrase means. Even the company’s name is enticing.

OOK! and The Terrible Thing that Happened
Teatrosaurus 3pm 10-12 August, New Diorama

Ha ha, no, this might be the best blurb! Chester, Esther and OOK save the world from the All-Devouring Piggy Bank of Doom. A musical mask show for kids, which probably does not end with a useful moral of opening a Young Savers Account at the local Lloyds Bank and getting a free pencil and a lollypop. The masks look great, and the show has a good review from something called Galactic Mystery Solvers. Unless the GMS turn out to be Osbourne and Cable, in which case I will be very disappointed and worried for the galaxy.

Hecuba
Lazarus Theatre Company 8pm 10-14, 17-21, 24-28 August, New Diorama

Troy lies burning and the victors hold Queen Hecuba and her people await their fate. Polydorus, son of Hecuba and Priam, sent with a heap of gold to stay with Polymestor of Thrace, has been murdered by his host. Powerful mothers, heroic daughters, and dudes with the morality of dudes, ghosts and gods, and everywhere death. Lazarus have just completed their run of Salomé and are continuing their mythology season it seems. This will be a fairly big budget show, for a Fringe production, hence the longish run to recoup expenses before likely being restaged elsewhere.

Molly and Fuffkin
Powdersloth 8pm 10-11 August, Lion and Unicorn

A couple of wanderers undergo a series of adventures filled with “psychics, swingers, geriatric magicians, stripteases and swineflu”. I think they’re just wandering Camden Town, really. Using a variety of media, including animation and dance, Powdersloth tell a dark wee yarn. Imaginative photo and the clever line, “overtones of humour are frequent”, suggests this is a talented little company and this is one I will be seeing for sure.

Wishing to Fly
Pebble Rock Theatre 1:30 11-12, Etcetera Theatre

A slowly unraveling play about a couple stuck in a rut. Written and directed by Rufaro Maposa, who also wrote a play called Broken Wings, so perhaps this is a continuation of a theme? Maposa came to the UK from Africa to be raised by her grandparents, and African storytelling has a very different feel to European theatre. This could be a lovely little, bittersweet fairy tale for lost grown-ups.

The History of Who
Theatre (abridged) 6pm 11-13 August, Upstairs at the Gatehouse

I grew up in Canada watching Dr. Who, but was never obsessive like so many people here, who literally grew up with Dr. Who. I mail-ordered a Tom Baker-style scarf through the mail and it was a disappointment. Long enough to get me picked on by bullies for having such a ridiculous scarf (in Alberta, where in wintertime you would think idiots would understand the bigger the scarf the warmer you are? You hear me Rudy McPherson?!) but not long enough I could use it as a mean to escape from a second floor biology classroom window. This show promises to answer all your questions. But will it answer for Rudy McPherson? WILL IT? Will it, hell.

The Open Couple by Dario Fo and Franca Rame
StraightUp Theatre 6:30pm 11-13 August, Lion and Unicorn

A clown show by the great Fo and Rame about a couple who decide to become swingers when the husband’s fooling around becomes too much for the wife to bear. I’m torn about this show, because I love the script, but the blurb is terribly done, with a dark, boring image and badly written text. Here’s hoping the folks putting it on are wonderful performers but terrible publicists.

4:48 Psychosis
Darkness in Berlin 9:30pm 11-12 August, Lion and the Unicorn

Depression, psychosis, suicide, the life of an individual who “cannot be named”. Voldemort, presumably. Everything about this show is ratcheted to squeaking point: The company’s name; The photo of three actors stewing in their misery in some toilet- she gets sit down while he turns his back to use the world’s smallest urinal, and the third guy sits in the doorway waiting his turn, possibly peeing down the stairs into the pub where they shot this. These people are clearly crazy. Could work, could work…

Neil Cole Presents Neil By Mouth
7:15 12-15 August, Camden Head

Opening support act to Russell Brand, so if you like Brand (which I do) then this should be enough to get you interested. If you don’t like Brand, then Cole has pretty much shot his wad there. You can also go to his site, www.theneilcoleshow.com and see more of his stuff.

Grimms
Go Catch 8pm 12-15 August, Lion and Unicorn

Grimms Fairy Tales told using physical theatre by a large cast. Hopefully these are the Grimms where children are hacked to pieces because they didn’t eat their peas, and grow-ups are fed to stark-eyed wolves for making their kids eat peas. Where punishment dwarfs the crime and everybody leaves the theatre too terrified to even watch Disney’s washed out-watered down-fabric softened versions. Or maybe a little lighter, but then it had better be stuffed full of sex, depravity, and madness. The way children’s stories should be.

Is Star Trek Voyager Good For You?
Paul B. Edwards & Brian Higgins

I grew up watching Star Trek Voyager and even mail-ordered a Neelix forehead and sideburns, but it didn’t stop me getting beaten up by bullies. Nor could I use it to escape from the second floor of the office building where I was supposed to be holding down a job. So for me I guess, no, Star Trek Voyager was not good or healthy. Edwards and Higgins will be attempting to argue otherwise, using every Trekker trope imaginable to make their point. One of them does look like an alien. I ain’t saying which.

Room 110
The Rival Theatre Company 1:30pm, 3pm, 4:30 pm, 6pm, 7:15 pm, 14 August

30 writers and directors tell 10-minute tales of what happens in Room 110. Is it the thing that scares them? Inspires them? It sounds fascinating, though, and that’s why Rival have been given another plug in the Snipe preview page, even though I had decided not to cover companies with multiple shows. However, this sounds too cool not to.

Blonde Compassion: A Yoga Comedy
Yogamahny Productions 2pm 14-15 August, Lion and Unicorn

Yogi guru Shri Shri twists herself up tighter than her own neuroses to teach you how to loosen up looser than a loose thing… with a loose… I ran out of imagery. American New Age Lifestyles is always good for a poke, and this production appears to come straight from LA, so you know the alfalfa is fresh.
Attempt!

Amandio Cardoso
3pm 15-17 August, Etcetera Theatre

I have no idea what this show is supposed to be about. I don’t think Amandio does either, bless him. It may not actually be a show. Some unscrupulous theatrical producer, a la The Elephant Man, may have found this guy naked in a park playing with explosive tomatoes, combining words, punctuation and facepaint to express himself to the ducks in the pond, and put him on the stage. This show is the perfect Fringe production, and while I may sound disparaging, I guarantee I will be seeing this one and hoping I am wrong. Otherwise I am kidnapping Amandio and relocating him to somewhere safe, with ducks. Like the set of Boo!

Dipping a Toe Into Metal
Bruce Smeath 4:15pm 16-18 August Camden Head

A full immersion into the realm of Metal. Although, any show which calls its own musical subject “impenetrable”, a “bloody racket” and is hosted by somebody’s dad in a black turtleneck… Just don’t try quoting any of this stuff at the Crobar.
Brief interlude to say, best Fringe Map ever. Mixing Egyptology, Teletubbies-style art and a formica kitchen tabletop pattern to represent the rest of London. It is simple, fun, pretty and, while not in any way accurate or useful as a map, a quintessential Fringe souvenir. The Highgate Cemetary (sic) is chock-a-block with alien skulls, Regents Park boasts a single giant spider and a very fat, decorative goat who seem to be avoiding each other, and smack dab in the centre of Camden is an avante-garde… heron? Platypus? What is useful is the knowledge that the #214 will be your magicbus for the month of August, getting you quickly and efficiently from Camden, through Kentish Town, to Highgate High Street and the Upstairs at the Gatehouse Theatre.

Desiree Burch: 52 Man Pickup

No fest is complete without a sexologist happily spilling stories of debauchery. Desiree Burch is our designated slut, spilling the beans and anal beads about her adventures in NYC. (And keep in mind people, sluts aren’t just women, being a slut is not a bad thing, it’s how you treat your partners that defines you, and sex is supposed to be fun. You may now leave the brackets with a friendly and supportive hug.)

Titus Andronicus
Hephaestus Productions 9:15 18-21 August, Camden People’s Theatre

Possibly Shakespeare’s first tragedy and certainly his goriest. Titus returns to Rome from fighting the Goths to be offered the emperor’s throne. He refuses, passing the laurels to Saturnius, unleashing a spiraling descent of Rome’s ruling classes into madness, lust, murder, mutilation and the most horrible of revenge, familicidal cannibalism. I once wanted to stage this play as a clown show, featuring a big finale of a blackberry and cream pie fight.

External
GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN 2pm 19-21 August, Lion and the Unicorn

Belgian company Ontroerend Goed’s production of Internal played at the BAC a couple years ago. Five performers seeking partners engaged the audience in whatever the audience was prepared to do. External is a response to that show… but the performers of GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN just have some stuff they found in the garage and they don’t really want to touch anybody. So… they’re British, then. Although, the Brits, especially Londoners, seem quite cheerful about discussing sex. Besides football and the IT Crowd, there’s little they like to discuss more. Best website that tells you nothing I’ve seen in ages, www.getinthebackofthevan.com

Iszi Lawrence: Science Friction
9pm 19-23 August, Sheephaven Bay

Lawrence has carved a name for herself in the comedy wood of the stand-up furniture of the UK upholstered hilarity scene. Using a joke knife. End of overextended metaphor. Also, the line from her blurb, “What’s truer than the truth? A story. What’s better than a story? A joke” isn’t bumph, it’s philosophy, as real and valid as anything a dead Greek in a marble toga could spout. For myself, this could be a must-see.

Marvell at Midnight
NO SOUP! Productions 9:30pm 19-20 August Lion and Unicorn

An exposé of the up-and-coming Hull music scene during the 1930s. Which makes no sense- how can they be up-and-coming if it was 80 years ago? But said music- accordion jazz- sounds promising and the photo looks enticing.

Witzelsucht and Moria
GC Morgan 10:30pm 19-20 August, Etcetera Theatre

A man looking back at his life, a woman looking at a hazy future- or maybe she needs glasses. Another excellent blurb, suggesting these folks can write.

Funny Women Awards Showcase
Funny Women 3pm 21-22 August, Camden Head

It’s a shame the stereotype still exists that women can’t be funny, that we need festivals geared towards proving otherwise. On the other hand, this is bound to be a great show, so I guess we have narrow-minded chauvinism to thank for this compilation of the eighth annual search for Britain’s funniest female comics! Let’s hear it for the boys! Hoo hoo hoo!

You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown
Freshcut Productions in association with Rose Bruford College 3pm 21-22, New Diorama

Holy cats. I’ve never seen this show outside of a high school drama department. Rose Bruford College has been training young actors for 60 years now, and this presentation by the students is maybe a year-end final production? A perfect afternoon for a family. It’s not pushing any dramatic boundaries, none of the performers will be stretched, but it’s warm and pleasant and a good place to take the kids after a picnic in Regent’s Park. Not exactly Fringe-like, but who cares. Sometimes all you want is comfort food. American comfort food, mind. Is this show a stalwart of the British school play circuit as well?

Tamburlaine by Christopher Marlowe
Paul Vitty Productions 2pm 22-24 August Etcetera Theatre

Tamburlaine, or Timur the Lame, was the great grandfather of Babur Khan, founder of the Moghul Empire. Actually, Timur was more of a stay-at-home sophisticate, but Marlowe’s play focuses on his warring and womanising, and is the more fun for it. The picture in the programme shows Marlon Brando in a production of Hair directed by Che Guevara. Brando is leaning against a tree, arms crossed determined to resist his director’s order to eat less cake.

A Broken Part
Big Odd 7:45pm 22-25 August, Camden People’s Theatre

A fairy tale about a Portugese queen defying her king to feed her people. Oddly (maybe this is why the company is called Big Odd?) the photo in the programme is of two fellahs kissing. Ah. That sort of queen. My bad. A tale of magic and a good lie.

The Time Travelling Adventures of the Pirate Revlon Scarlet: The Search for Drake’s Gold
River Productions 3pm 24-29 August, New Diorama

A time pirate pops over to Victorian London looking for the lost fortune of Sir Francis Drake and ends up running from real pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read- who lived in the 18th century, but Revlon is a time pirate, after all. Is this an historical lesson dressed as an adventure for the kids? Or is it a jumped-up live Dr. Who episode? Who cares, it’s got pirates! Yar.

Romeo and Juliet
Get Over It Productions 6:30pm 24-29 August, Lion and Unicorn

As romance goes, I’ve never understood people’s conviction that Romeo and Juliet is a template for love. Two thirteen year-olds go on a first date and commit suicide together. Still, this is one of Shakespeare’s most popular, and as the original productions used to have boys play the roles of women, because women weren’t allowed on stage, so Get Over It say turn about’s fair play, and present this all-female production.

Is the Daily Mail Dead Yet?
William Hanmer-Lloyd 7:30 24-29 August, Sheephaven Bay

British newspapers make no attempt to provide impartial news. They openly pronounce which half of the political turkey they prefer. Lowest common denominators are the norm, and prejudices are worn, not on sleeves but as flapping, billowing capes. No journalist can be truly objective, however, because every story is filtered through their own human experiences and personal biases. If anything, as much I despise the Daily Mail, they are at least honest creeps. Still, it’ll be fun watching Hanmer-Lloyd burn one. I love a bonfire.

Wekillpimps.com
Pretty Tina Theatre Company 10:30 24-29 August, Etcetera Theatre

Vigilantes for hire, Beverley and Justine hunt pimps. Does the show deal with the ethics of murder, or is it a given that pimps deserve death? Is this a straightforward action/chase play, with our heroes hiding out after the heat gets too hot? A comedy of terrors? All I know is, the woman in the programme photo has definitely killed before. Look at those eyes! I have chills. The lady behind her looks more like the executive chef at the Four Seasons. With an AR-15 assault rifle. For piercing jacket potatoes.

Bad Musical
The Trap 9pm 27-29 August, Etcetera Theatre

Reverse psychology is a touchy thing. It often becomes reverse reverse psychology. Occasionally it magically ferments into reverse reverse reverse psychology, but usually it just rots into reverse reverse reverse reverse psychology and you have to break out the bleach. Bad Musical calls itself crap, the latest in a series of crap productions by a bunch of crap. “Entertainment poison” The Trap calls its latest dump. There are over 200 shows at the Camden Fringe. Should I miss a show I might enjoy for a show that pretty much tells me not to go see it?

Pinter’s People: A Celebration
Highly Strung Theatre Company 1:30 28-29 August, Etcetera Theatre

Since 1959 Pinter would, from time to time, knock out comedic sketches. They were never performed as a complete revue until 2007, a year before he died. That cast were some of the best comedians in Britain, including Sally Phillips, who should be given a new TV series immediately, followed by dinner with myself, and a desert of zabaglione from my own recipe, because even though Phillips is a happily married Christian, one taste of my zabaglione and she will want a passionate affair with me. Highly Strung present Pinter’s People as a thank you to the late, great playwright for his amazing legacy to theatre around the world. The secret is marsala AND chardonnay white wine.

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