Wednesday, 24 August 2016

Fringe Binge 2016 Show #7 - Alice Fraser: The Resistance at Wee Room @ Gilded Balloon , Edinburgh, 18-Aug-16 at 2015

Ms. Fraser is an Aussie comic, raconteur (raconteuse?), singer, musician, actress, pod-caster ... as young people tend to be these days. I saw her last year at the Free Fringe and while I may have been disappointed in the show I most certainly wasn't disappointed in her. So I kept comedy tabs on her and I was looking forward to this new show. 

This is a difficult show to describe. It's not stand-up (though it's very funny), it's not theatre (though it gets dramatic), it's not a musical (though she sings a number of songs). The general theme is setup via an extensive backgroud section about her rather unorthodox upbringing and her family history - Hungarian Jewish on Dad's side, English Christian on her Mum's ... obviously she would be brought up as an Australian Buddhist in a ramshackle old guest-house owned by her grand-mother in a suburb of Melbourne. It gets stranger from there.

Living with the family in this guesthouse were three others who her gran had taken in over the years: a manic-depressive Chilean gardener; a Hungarian Christian writer and an always-veiled Indian woman who kept blurting out mystic advice about love and beauty and sex. Unusual you might think, but young Ms. Fraser accepted this as normal.

The story them went in various different directions but always coming back to these strange people who she never knew anything about really but just accepted.

Then her Mum died and she found her Mum's notebook in the wardrobe (very uncomfortable for me at this point) which shed a LOT of light on this odd domestic arrangement. And that was the rather shattering conclusion of the show.

The general theme is about not conforming, about questioning, about fighting authority, about ... well ... resistance. And, as such, I found it a deeply affecting work.

Oh, there were loads of good lines, e.g. "Twitter is for learning to hate people you don't know. Facebook is for learning to hate people you do.", and her music was funny and she was good ... ach, go see it.

She gave out free hugs and chocolate at the end (it's not called the Wee Room for nothing). As I was walking out she hugged me and said, " Aww, your happy face kept me going through that!". As I walked away, for a few moments, I almost believed her.






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