Well what are you going to call a show if there is no dialogue?
Here we are in a large theatre in The Pleasance with a set comprising an office with cubicles and a raised area at the back where the boss sits, and the theatre is about two-thirds or more full on only the third night of the run. So you know this is going to be a bit of a special show.
The usual humdrum of office life is broken only by a short burst of ping pong fashioned from some paper and a rubbish bin…..but this is tame compared with what you will have seen by the end of the show. By that time, you see, the set is probably in need of being completely rebuilt!
This is a clever show with physical theatrical moves which reach a pinnacle with one of the workers using the fluorescent light strip hanging from the ceiling as a trapeze (with the light still on!). There is amazing use of ordinary everyday items as props for a show which carries you along with an unfolding story, with only a short break when it appeared temporarily a little lost, but which quickly picked up momentum again for the grande finale set to AC DC’s Highway to Hell.
This is the perfect show to take your foreign guests who might be stuck in the mire of words that are often used in Fringe shows…or indeed if you just can’t be bothered listening and you just decide to attend to visual clues of which there are many.
While I have not identified every movie reference Blam has plenty of them and the show becomes a secret joke among those who know. It pays homage to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, Blade Runner, Terminator, Predator, The Fifth Element, The Matrix, Untouchables, Star Wars, X-Men, Apocalypse Now and of course every testosterone-fuelled office worker’s favourite – Die Hard. TV’s late night poker is not exempt in a brilliantly creative cameo.
Perfect for teenage boys and the middle aged men who still think they are one. Perfect for anyone who works in an office (who hasn’t done the thing with the rubber bands across the room…?)
With a standing ovation that was well-deserved the only surprise was that no-one actually got hurt!
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
