Imagination and colour run riot
In the first days of the fringe, I have thrown a plastic ball at a fallen Ulysses, had a sprite whisper in my ear about a thimble, watched an office getting overrun by stuffed animals and heard the words of an American politician translated into a made up language. But best of all, I have seen two men dressed in white dealing with the transformation of their white world into a land of colour, below right. Their show is called White and, although it is for two year olds, it is one of the best in town.Just as edinburgh is going through its annual Wizard of Oz-style shift from monochrome to Technicolor, the 35-minuteshow by Catherine Wheels celebrates the simple transformative joy of red, blue and orange in a colourless landscape.As washed out landscapes go, Shona Reppe's set is a thing of great beauty. Next to a wigwam of white lace, white sheets and white clothing, she has built a small forest of white birdhouses. You can see why Andy Manley's Cotton and Ian Cameron's Wrinkle should want to keep the colour out of their lives as they go collecting white eggs and placing them in white teacups.So when colour arrives in the form of a red egg dropped out of the sky, their resistance is understandable. So too their curiosity.As the colour magically rushes into their world, giving them private pleasure and public embarrassment, they create a magnificent allegory about the challenges, fears and rewards of new experiences. Warm-hearted and consummately executed, Gill Robertson's superb production feels like a metaphor for a city coming to terms with an onslaught of artistic enterprise.That spirit is what has struck me most this week. With the exception of White, the pleasure has been less in individual excellence than in the profusion of ideas....
Mark Fisher, Scotland on Sunday 8/08/10
In the first days of the fringe, I have thrown a plastic ball at a fallen Ulysses, had a sprite whisper in my ear about a thimble, watched an office getting overrun by stuffed animals and heard the words of an American politician translated into a made up language. But best of all, I have seen two men dressed in white dealing with the transformation of their white world into a land of colour, below right. Their show is called White and, although it is for two year olds, it is one of the best in town.Just as edinburgh is going through its annual Wizard of Oz-style shift from monochrome to Technicolor, the 35-minuteshow by Catherine Wheels celebrates the simple transformative joy of red, blue and orange in a colourless landscape.As washed out landscapes go, Shona Reppe's set is a thing of great beauty. Next to a wigwam of white lace, white sheets and white clothing, she has built a small forest of white birdhouses. You can see why Andy Manley's Cotton and Ian Cameron's Wrinkle should want to keep the colour out of their lives as they go collecting white eggs and placing them in white teacups.So when colour arrives in the form of a red egg dropped out of the sky, their resistance is understandable. So too their curiosity.As the colour magically rushes into their world, giving them private pleasure and public embarrassment, they create a magnificent allegory about the challenges, fears and rewards of new experiences. Warm-hearted and consummately executed, Gill Robertson's superb production feels like a metaphor for a city coming to terms with an onslaught of artistic enterprise.That spirit is what has struck me most this week. With the exception of White, the pleasure has been less in individual excellence than in the profusion of ideas....
Mark Fisher, Scotland on Sunday 8/08/10