one4review | On 25, Aug 2013

2 stars **

‘Elegies’ is a very American song and monologue cycle about the effects Aids had when it first surfaced in America and is often done for fundraisers etc. Why then was this set in a posh area of England? I found that really strange, especially as the set paid deference to the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt (as does one of the monologues). I understand the style of doing shows in your own accent (take Les Mis as a prime example) but this didn’t work.

The show was also butchered for time and mixed up – starting with Celebrate which is usually in the middle of the show was quite strange. The monologues should also be quite heartbreaking at times and these simply weren’t acted nearly well enough and had little impact or comedy.

On a positive side the boys’ singing was very good especially the one with the beard (really sorry, I have no names). One of the girls was unfortunately very flat a lot of the time which was a shame. The use of mics is always nice on the Fringe but this was a tiny venue and the cast need to learn how to use them, pulling back on louder notes for example rather than blowing us away. This also made the backing track quite hard to hear.

I’m disappointed not to be able to give a better review. I love Elegies but it needs to be done with a little more respect to the source material.

Review by Alan.

C nova
Until 26th August, 23:15-00:10