Secrets of the Elders of Zion
Paradise in the Vault, Edinburgh (until Aug 26)
**
One hundred and ten years after The Protocols of the Elders of Zion alleged a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world, Hayden Cohen, a 27-year-old further education teacher from Leeds, in West Yorkshire, northern England, seeks to debunk the notorious anti-Semitic publication in what is surely a first for the Fringe.
As Hayden notes in his flyer, he’s always wanted to be an Elder of Zion, “a secret organisation controlling the world sounds great, he’s Jewish and he thinks like a pensioner” – so he has formed the UK branch of the Elders of Zion himself. Welcome to the new members’ open day.
Great. Unfortunately, the show failed to live up to its satirical expectations, primed by his rap-influenced paeon to geekery, “Age of the Geek”, last year. After a promising start, in which he sings a eulogy to Israel, while “This Land is Mine”, the animated short by Nina Paley, in which hordes of ancients chop each other to bits, is projected onto a back-stage screen, there’s a tangible dip.
A potted history of anti-Semitism is interspersed with a mixture of witty observations and rather limp jokes, and while it’s historically interesting, it could do with tightening up and a bit more attention to stagecraft. There are plenty of good ideas fizzing around, not least those involving a musical bagel, but I won’t say any more. Hayden wanted it to be a secret.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
