2 Stars

**

A journey into the subconscious mind is not easy theatre to depict with any clarity but with more than half way through this play when Dr Apple uttered the line “I am so confused.” I don’t think I was the only one in the audience who had the same feeling.

The play initially has a bright start with Miss Hyde, one of Dr Apple’s students, offering each member of the audience one of her special cookies. Dr Apple enters and begins his lecture on the workings of the brain with the aid of a few slides from an overhead projector. This section did feel like being in a real lecture room. His lecture is interrupted by Miss Hyde, tripping out on one of her doctored cookies. Dr Apple dismisses the class and, after an unsuccessful meeting with one of his colleagues, returns to his lecture room and takes several of the cookies which are left.

It is then a medley of random scenes proceed with a collection of characters that inhabit his mind. I suppose this is how our mind works but there was no coherent structure, hence the confusion. However, it all seems to end well as he appears to be a more liberated and confident individual after the experience. This is a questionable outcome.

This was a play that took a long time to get going and the humour when it did come was fairly tepid. It had the feel of a play in its first draft which required pruning in some parts and generally made more intelligible.

Reviewed by Ben

Gilded Balloon Teviot; 14

3 to 28 August 2011

14.30 – 15.30

Fringe Programme Page Number: 257