COWPOKES IN A BUNKHOUSE

Oblique Theatre are the stuff from which any fringe festival should be made of. The Fringe is the place to see emerging talent, new ideas and risks. This company may be seen to taking a risk by being totally female, I don’t think there is any risk in that whatsoever. Not when the world has for too long been dominated by men. That said, the theatre is one place where I increasingly see women of all ages taking the lead, both on and off stage. But here we have a company with no men involved.

Here we are seeing three young actors playing parts that one might expect to be cast as male. Three cowpokes, not cowboys, are tasked with calming a herd of cattle in a bunkhouse. Of course we, the audience, are their herd of cattle, and whilst their job may be to calm us, their absurd comedy does far from that.

Laura Cornelius as Judd, Kit White as Buck and Mabel Moon (I have name envy) as Kit display so much talent, sharp characterisation, physical comedy and, so often lacking, a clarity of diction when adopting broad American accents. They infest the script with humour as they each interpret the tale that they hope will calm the cows. There are couplings throughout the action that breathe the raw essence of the silent movie era, not needing words but making us laugh simply with the physical way that they interact.

All this said I felt that I wanted more, not from the cast or the direction but from the script. Faith McNeill and Saskia Monteiro have created the seeds of something so very promising here but in the confines and conventions of a fringe length show, there is much more they could do, especially with these very funny actors – and I hope that they do. It’s always a good thing to leave wanting more surely, and I have no doubt this interesting company are more than capable of doing just that.

Andrew Kay

3 May

BN1 Arts

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