By Peter Maddern
Frank Woodley is a well-known Australian comic and Simon Yates is an acrobat. For Inside they play twins Russian Viktor (Yates) and Vasily (Woodley) stuck together in a cell, seemingly with no hope of the future but for the prospect of escape.
It has to be said it is not clear just what this performance was meant to be – theatre, comedy, or comic theatre – under any category Inside is all a bit of a mess.
Not that this production lacks preparation with an excellent stage setting of a wired enclosure that opens to the audience, good lighting effects and even better sound ones. But as theatre it all sort of lacked dramatic structure – why and where were these brothers incarcerated, where was the meaningful debate between them about their lives. While there were familiarities between them as you would expect of siblings, sometimes the physical aspects of it all overreached.
As comedy, well Mr Woodley has earned quite a reputation but a string of obvious cracks aided by a silly look is not, what one would say in the commercial world, a sustainable business model. As for being the ‘nonsense’ the Fringe Guide (under ‘Comedy’) suggested, the dual attempts at drama and comedy meant it all came up horribly short of being coherent on this front.
A brave attempt at no doubt a new angle for Mr Woodley’s comedic talents, but Inside just doesn’t much work.
Kryztoff Rating 2.5K
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