Photo © Rita Jakuceviciute
An energetic and entertaining start to the first full week of the Edinburgh Fringe as The Crawl, performed at the Pleasance Dome at 12.05pm on Monday 4th August, attracted a nearly full audience to the venue consisting mainly of adults with only a few children in the 8-10 year old age bracket.
The Crawl, directed by Olivia Zerphy, relies heavily on physical theatre and the talented and flexible duo – Alexander Burnett and Ellie Whittaker – interacted well with each other while delivering a fast-paced narrative to a musical background. The performers relied on voice projection rather than microphone and at times I felt that the volume of the background music slightly overpowered the narration.
The show starts with an amusing summary of the evolution of the world, the development of water-based creatures onto land and quickly gets to the main theme of two competing swimmers, Steve a likeable cheeky chap and new kid on the block of top swimmers and Steve’s long-time hero Mita, the current champion who had been swimming since he was ten minutes old in the freezing waters of the Baltic. The quite absurd storyline pitches the two swimmers against each other in an epic competition and manages to get plenty of laughs along the way.
The comedy is generated by the two energetic performers who morph into other characters including two laid-back Australian commentators, the two busy co-organisers of the swimming event Barbara and Linda as well as the two main swimmers. The fun is enhanced by the audience participation, who did not have to be coaxed into taking part (although some may have been plants).
There is always a risk when seeking audience participation that inappropriate language is used and on this occasion one of the performers repeated the phrase for comedic effect. Adults found it very amusing but it was clearly inappropriate for the younger members of the audience and may have disturbed their parents.
In summary, it was a highly entertaining show if you can cope with the absurdity of a swimming competition without a drop of water and a heavy reliance on movement and physical theatre.
Well worth an hour of your time and money.
PWT rating: ♥♥♥♥♥
The Crawl is on at Pleasance Dome until 25 August (not 13 and 20) at 12.05pm, suitable for ages five plus.
Running time: one hour
Tickets weekdays £13/£12, weekends £15/£14 bookable here.
