Tag Archives: Edinburgh24

LYNN FACES

★★★

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

LYNN FACES at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★

“a provocative piece that isn’t quite ready for primetime”

Laura Horton’s new play, Lynn Faces, is a raw take on a woman who is on the verge of turning 40, and trying to escape from a coercive relationship. For protagonist Leah, this means forming a punk rock band with two of her friends and an unknown drummer, and hiring the local bingo hall for the band’s first performance in front of an audience. The group is named Lynn Faces, after Lynn, the long suffering PA in TV’s Alan Partridge Show. It’s an engaging set up, but taken as a whole, this play fails to deliver on its initial promise.

Lynn Faces relies on the audience to know who “Lynn” is. And also to understand why a large stuffed cow might fall on top of the drummer. References to the Alan Partridge Show are littered throughout, beginning with the appearance of the band in Lynn masks, and “snazzy cardigans.” We learn that Leah, prompted by best friend Ali (vocals, keyboards) once went around with a camera asking random people to put on “Lynn faces” so she could photograph them. That’s how she met ex-partner Pete who she is attempting to exorcise by forming a punk band. If all this sounds a bit confused, that’s because it is. Lynn Faces jumps around from being a punk band with actively bad musicians and even worse songs (based, you guessed it, on catch phrases from the Alan Partridge Show), to a woman on the verge of middle age having a breakdown.

Madeleine MacMahon as Leah, Peyvand Sadeghian as Ali, and Holly Kavanagh as Shonagh are all talented actresses. Playwright Horton makes a surprise appearance on drums. She appears late in the show playing the mysterious drummer Joy, before being felled by the aforementioned cow. The team make good work of establishing their characters, often with the bare minimum of dialogue. The antics between tough talking Ali and the innocent crafter and teacher Shonagh generate enough energy to crochet Lynn Faces together when Leah’s breakdown threatens to stop the show in its tracks. But the biggest energy drain on the show is not Leah’s breakdown, and her refusal to call ex-boyfriend’s behaviour for what it is. The show lacks the raw energy of punk to drive it forward because the musicians are terrible. Even though they’re supposed to be. Without authentic punk energy, however, this show threatens to be just a patchwork of snazzy cardigans and pearls, fishnet stockings and tartan trousers. Without punk, there’s no power to fry coercive boyfriends on the spot. Pete lingers instead offstage, or as a minuscule avatar back projected with gaslighting phone texts that trigger Leah’s traumatic memories.

Lynn Faces is a provocative piece that isn’t quite ready for primetime. Sometimes one’s favourite TV show can be a distraction from the main event. Punk, on the other hand, is an instrument for reclaiming power. Even if we have to fake it. The redemptive power of punk is the real story in this show. And despite the weaknesses in the plot, Horton’s imagination shines through. With some rewriting, and some genuinely good musicians who know how to play really bad music, Lynn Faces could be a winner.


LYNN FACES at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Summerhall – Main Hall

Reviewed on 25th August 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Dom Moore

 

 


LYNN FACES

LYNN FACES

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IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL?

★★★★★

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★★

“a personal and gorgeous reflection on queerness, place, and boyhood that will leave you laughing one second and reaching for tissues the very next”

Is The Wi-fi Good in Hell? is a gorgeously flawless meditation on gentrification, platonic love, and on growing up gay in a deprived coastal area. Following the adolescence and youth of Dev, this one-man storytelling masterclass is as creative and engaging as it is hilarious. The audience fall in love with the story from the moment Dev, played and written by Lyndon Chapman, strolls onto the stage dawning an outfit and hat that wouldn’t look too out of place in a MySpace profile photo, and begins to unravel himself and his hometown of Margate.

Acted superbly by Chapman, the piece begins with the tongue-in-cheek humour of 13-year-old Dev struggling to find connection and fit in as a young gay kid from Margate in the late 00s. The writing captures the era gloriously and paints a vivid picture of Dev’s perspective on himself, attitudes, and surroundings. “If they laugh at your jokes, they like you” he hauntingly echoes throughout the piece. He later notes the modelling work of “local creatives”, who Dev bitingly admits are local but definitely did not go to his school.

Directed by Will Armstrong, Chapman transforms subtly and expertly from 13, to his later teens, to his early twenties, keeping a coherence of character that matures in voice and physicality but never looses Dev’s spark. The piece shines with Millennial / Gen Z cusp relatability and presents a new dawn of coming-of-age nostalgia that represents queer working-class experience in a didactic yet humorous way. It is marvellous to see this experience represented so magically on stage.

The piece’s storytelling has a distinctive voice that carries with it waves of professionalism and style. As Dev details his tumultuous experiences fitting in with his surroundings, himself, and others, we are met with Damian Pace’s stylishly technical sound design which compels the audience to hang on the story’s every breath. Characters who Dev encounters like Luke and Ange are also clear and powerful, despite never appearing on stage, and connections between them and Chapman’s protagonist are touchingly quiet and bittersweet.

Chapman’s script earns its tackling of more serious issues. Audiences poignantly wipe tears from their eyes as Chapman lets his roll tragically down his cheeks. Dev is presented with complexity and depth. In particular, the portion surrounding the different switching between his “5 voices” is massively effective and absorbing. Ideas about how queer men feel they must shape themselves and their outward personas, and how that impacts them internally, are well thought through and performed with honesty and careful humour. Is The Wi-Fi explains plainly how Dev feels he must blend throughout his young life to try and reduce homophobia.

The show also twists the supernatural and folkloric into real-life consequences in a mesmerising and beautiful feat of writing and directing. Visceral and otherworldly descriptions of something following Dev are woven interestingly into the story, and Chapman’s horror and confusion quickly becomes palpable for the audience. Is The Wi-Fi Good in Hell? is a masterfully supernatural and touching re-telling of the life of a young gay man growing up and moving away from a decaying coastline; a place soon to be overrun with gentrification. This is a personal and gorgeous reflection on queerness, place, and boyhood that will leave you laughing one second and reaching for tissues the very next.

 


IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Underbelly, Cowgate – Iron Belly

Reviewed on 25th August 2024

by Molly Knox

Photography by Charles Flint

 

 


IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL?

IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL?

CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL OUR REVIEWS FROM EDINBURGH 2024