Unexpected night out

Normal day at work, then a swim, then unexpectedly at 7pm it turned out we had the opportunity to see two shows later on... so we did.

Fringe show 25: Facehunters (4*)
We went to see the musical Facehunters last year and enjoyed it, and we had heard that they had reworked it a bit and brought it to the Fringe again so we thought we’d give v2 a go. The show is about young people and contemporary culture and the pressures of life and love all wrapped up in a Dorian Gray style plot. It was good in that the actors were wonderful, the singing excellent and the choreography and chorus very tight. I think they’ve stepped it up since last year. In my recollection the plot has been rehashed a bit to make it less complicated. I liked it the other way personally, it felt more twisty, but it was fine. But what seriously let this production down was the sound. The combination of a live band and a small room was not well handled and the principals’ mics were not always turned up. Consequently at least half of it was indistinct and it was hard to make out the words. If I hadn’t seen it before I’m not sure I’d have known what was happening. Shame, because there is a lot of potential here. Plus it ran over by 15 minutes (despite starting on time) which was seriously inconvenient as we had another show to go to but there was no way out unless we walked through the stage!

Fringe show 26: Jodie Prenger Presents... Musical Theatre
This was a compilation show of musical Fringe acts, hosted by BBC at the Fringe. We saw bits of several different shows ranging from straight folk singing to musical comedy to musical theatre. Very good. The highlight was absolutely (title of show) – yes that is their name - who were very very talented singers and their material was tight, quirky and amusing. It is a musical about writing a musical, which looks like it will be great. We will also probably try to catch Sarah-Louise Young’s Songs for Cynics. Luckily for us this show started fifteen mins late (as we arrived fifteen mins late) but it finished on time. So that was disappointing, I was expecting a full hour.