“While you laugh at the characters’ blunders, you warm to their naivety”
Fishbowl is a wild mix of theatre’s ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ and TV’s ‘Friends’. It transcends language, using mime and stagecraft to paint the picture of three individuals living side-by-side. The three stock characters portrayed are the hoarder (Pierre Guillois), the tech-nerd (Jonathan Pinto-Rocha) and the wacky experimentalist (Agathe L’Huillier). You can’t help but love this bunch of misfits, even as the world around them crumbles. The audience was in hysterics watching as the comedy of errors played out. It is a seventy-five minute whirlwind of a play, full of surprises.
What makes this production such a stand out is the exciting use of set, props, lights and sound effects. The set, marvellously designed by Laura Léonard, becomes a character in itself. The design is the cross-section of the three apartments, making the audience view them as if the characters are in a fishbowl – we peer in on their every move. The three homes are sandwiched together and are visually very different, creating a sense of claustrophobic chaos. The knock-on effect that each flat owner has on the other is clear through the clever use of special effects. The stagecraft team, through their use of puppetry, quick changes and design elements, are fundamental to the play’s success. The use of visual and audio gags is a running theme throughout, providing constant laughs. One such example of this is each of the characters’ fight with a mosquito that can never seem to be got rid off.
The cast’s skills in mime and physical comedy are a thrill to watch. Every possible aggravating factor about living with others is well observed and then exaggerated to the extreme for comic effect. The direction, also by Guillois, is faultless. The idiosyncrasies of each character are consistent, such as the individual way each opened their door or how they slept.
On the surface Fishbowl is about a bunch of oddly-matched neighbours who physically fend off the outside world through a series of increasingly ridiculous blunders. However, this is ultimately a play about finding connection with others. While you laugh at the characters’ blunders, you warm to their naivety. This is an accessible show for anyone at Fringe: I can’t recommend it enough. I have never seen a play make falling over, losing items of clothing and dropping things down rubbish shoots look so authentic. It is a testament to not only the actors, but the team of designers and backstage crew that help to make the show run so smoothly. I see big things to come for this company in Edinburgh and beyond.
Reviewed by Emily Morris
Photography by Fabienne Rappeneau
Fishbowl
Pleasance Courtyard until 26th August as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019
“a transporting, beautiful, heartfelt reminder that strength and resilience can be found in unexpected places”
It’s the late nineties and Bobby and Amy are thirteen years old. She’s a social outcast, still grieving the death of her father. He’s on the autism spectrum, dodging bullies after school. As fellow misfits, they form a reluctant companionship which quickly grows into a deep, fiercely loyal friendship. The play follows Bobby and Amy on adventures around their small, working-class Cotswold town. In escape of unhappy home and school lives, they play in the old folly, roam the fields, and help Farmer Rodge with his cow herd. An outbreak of Foot-And-Mouth Disease puts their whole world at risk.
Written and directed by Emily Jenkins, Bobby and Amy is a transporting, beautiful, heartfelt reminder that strength and resilience can be found in unexpected places. Kimberly Jarvis (Amy) and Will Howard (Bobby) are outstanding. In addition to their portrayal of the titular characters, they shift in and out of a dozen others, bringing an entire town to life. You walk away having seen a largely populated story, full of nuanced personalities. Jarvis and Howard have made it easy, with just a bit of distance, to forget the show was a two-hander.
Jenkins effortlessly sweeps the audience out of Edinburgh to a rural Cotswold village. I can’t say I’ve experienced a richer, more vibrant setting, especially in a show with no set. Bobby and Amy is a black box production that uses no props or set design. Jenkins’ script does the heavy lifting in bringing us a tactile, almost cinematic experience of the world of the story. Golden fields, greasy fish and chips, the old folly, the live birth of a calf. Looking back, it’s almost a surprise remembering we didn’t actually see any of it.
Jenkins brings the late nineties back in full force as well: Tamagochi, choker necklaces, hand gesture rhymes (“loser, loser, double loser, whatever, as if, get the picture…”), and of course Foot-and-Mouth. The disease is never named in the play, which emphasises its senselessness and injustice. When the farms that employ nearly the entire town are shut down, when entire herds of cows (who have names) are shot and burned, there’s no explanation given; no reason said. The omission of the disease’s name also works to place us more firmly in the children’s world: their inability to fully comprehend the situation, and their powerlessness in the face of it. One day the fields are an idyllic playground; the next they’re on fire. Why? We don’t know (diseases just happen). It’s not fair.
Jenkins gives a poignant, perceptive, and loving depiction of a town hit by tragedy that’s forced to pull together, let go of the past, and change. This is a story of great depth and big heart. It will transport you to a nostalgic, vivid world you’ll want to linger in for a while longer.
Reviewed by Addison Waite
Bobby and Amy
Pleasance Courtyard until 26th August as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2019
