Review: Camden Fringe

Lindsey
By Lindsey Last edited 199 months ago
Review: Camden Fringe
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Our first foray into the Camden Fringe was oddly reminiscent of our last Edinburgh experience. A rainy, busy street at 3pm in the afternoon, leading into a tiny, dark and terribly hot mini-theatre, beer in hand. If only there had been a street full of aspiring thesps flyering outside we could have sworn we'd been up there. But no. This is Camden and praise be, our first show was really very good.

Room 110 features 6 short plays by new writers all set in the same hotel room sometime between 1897 and 2007. Interestingly, there are 10 plays on rotation so if you go, you may not see what we saw, which was: a loud, profane and murderous New Yoik couple on the make, an emotionally taut breakdown of a lesbian relationship, ruined by heterosexual Hollywood, the stupidest (funniest) and least rock 'n' roll couple ever, a desperate housewife trying to take a night off, a fatal encounter between a spurned and broken lover and a scary autobiographer and, finally and climactically, 1940s spooks! Sarah Mardel as Boo gave a particularly delicious and sparklingly comedic performance.

This is what festival fringe theatre is all about - new talent and new work. Rough round the edges but full of spunk. Room 110 gives an array of snappy, engaging performances from a multi-tasking cast. Bunk off early tomorrow and go see it.

Room 110 is at the Etcetera Theatre, in the Oxford Arms, Camden High Street at 3pm every day until Monday. The Camden Fringe runs till 26 August. Click here for more information and ticket info. There's bags of stuff to see!

Last Updated 02 August 2007