» Review: Intimate History
One-on-one ‘experiences’ have for a while been all the rage in fringe theatre. But a two-on-one, ten-minute musical, which you picked for yourself on the day from a choice of six titles, each coming with its own little set? Performer Jake Oldershaw and pianist Derek Nisbett certainly had something new there.
My first choice, ‘The Frontiers Of Despair’, was unfortunately off the menu. “Too distressing” apologized The Nightingale’s director Steven Brett enigmatically when he came to take our order. “After Moscow Jake said never again…”
So I opted instead for ‘How Music And Humour Changed Love: a swinging tribute to the Arab troubadours who taught Europeans new ways of loving’, and soon found myself eating rose Turkish delight in a cushion-strewn tent while Oldershaw sung to me (really rather movingly) of lutes and lewdness – occasionally diving in next to me for a spot of extended historical exposition before the pianist politely coughed him back to the mic – and a little wooden camel on wheels trundled slowly past.
Like being asked to pick just one chocolate from the box, this wasn’t the most sating of theatre visits, and the act of choosing formed a good proportion of the overall experience. But it was intoxicatingly sweet nonetheless.
Or at least, it was for me: my companion emerged from ‘The Discovery Of Fear In The Stomach: The beautifully ugly vaudevillian tale of Poor Tom, who at the turn of the 20th century was inadvertently the subject of a great deal of scientific debate’, with talk of lost entrails and a hand smelling mysteriously of jelly…
Nightingale Theatre, 3 May
4/5
Bella Todd
