All life is here: snapshot portrait of ordinary lives is deeply revealing
Craig Taylor’s miniature dramas first saw the light of day as serialised columns in The Guardian.
Now Ros Philips re-stages them for the theatre as part of the Fringe, having already enjoyed great success with a run out of the show at the Citz in Glasgow last year. And a real treat it is too.
Revamped with a site specific edge here, it starts off on the stairs of Hill Street Theatre, where a panicky bride and groom dash this way and that, while in another snippet a creepy IT office worker is getting carried away with a leaving card from a female colleague.
From there we’re then marched off round the corner to the White Stuff clothes shop in George St. (discount available for One Million Tiny Plays audiences an added bonus), and settle down for the rest of what is a highly entertaining evening.
Played out by an excellent multi-tasking cast of three (Mark McDonell, PaulineTurner and Taqi Nazeer) switching accents with ease, all life really is here as we criss- cross the country, eavesdropping in on a variety of characters ranging from Glasgow litter pickers to a drunken Wonder Woman out on a hen night in a series of short, sharp observational vignettes taken from overheard conversations that make you think as well as laugh.
Knife crime, getting on the property ladder courtesy of a murder, lonely pensioners, an anti-animal testing stall, theatre cloakroom attendants pinching mints from customers pockets, and late night shenanigans at a Portsmouth kebab shop all have the spotlight trained on them here to illuminating effect.
By its very nature the show doesn’t so much develop characters as allow brief snapshots of them in this theatrical collage.
But the overall effect produces a more intimate portrait of their lives than you would imagine in such short bursts, with each narrative arc neatly framed and laid out before us to both poignant and comic effect. A midget gem well worth getting along to from all concerned.
- One Million Tiny Plays About Britain, Hill Street Theatre, Edinburgh until Aug 28. Tel:0131 226 6522
