PEOPLE SHOW 117: THE BIRTHDAY SHOW. TO 15 July.

London

PEOPLE SHOW 117 – THE BIRTHDAY SHOW

People Show Studios Pollards Row E2 6NB To 15 July 2006
Wed-Sat 8pm
Runs 2hr No interval

TICKETS: 020 7729 1841
08700 600100 924hr credit cards only0
ww.ticketweb.co.uk (booking fee)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 July

Happy birthday, People Show – and quite a happy party too.
Nestling nowadays in a former church-hall down a Bethnal Green side-street, this company began performing in a London bookshop basement in 1966. For years, according to founder-member Mark Long’s reminiscence during this 40th anniversary waltz of an evening, People Show casts were limited to 5 because, pre-photocopiers, this was the most scripts that could be typed using carbon paper.

As People Shows, with their identifying numbers, proceeded various formats appeared, like the Cabaret quartet involving Mark Long’s linguistic riffs, George Khan’s saxy displays, Emil Wolk’s acrobatics and piano-playing Chahine Yavroyan’s sinister taciturnity.

Most of them are here, celebrating alongside other People. Long’s verbal pyrotechnics remain filled with an enthusiasm so convincing it raises doubts: does the carbon theory of early scripts hold up? Did the Kray twins learn to box in this very room? There’s typically teasing narrative too, and comic inspirations like the real party in adjoining rooms (“They’re having a better time than we are,” Yavroyan lugubriously mutters).

Then, while the space is transformed from shabbiness to a white miracle into which piano, parcels and characters crash, and where mirrorballs gleam, the audience is taken in groups through 3 smaller-scale scenes elsewhere. These show the People at worst and best, plus their poetic and comic aspects, from a dull session in the stores that meanderingly tries to justify its existence, to a mini-show where oldest Person Jose Nava sings Weill’s ‘September Song’ apparently to a lonely young woman next door (actually to his window-box) and 2 lookalike young women create a sense of mysterious uncertainty.

Best of all, in a trailer hijacking local residents’ parking-spaces, there’s a brief nightmare of the touring actor’s life, from “oh-god-did-I-really-do-that-last-night?” memories to confused longer-term recall as location names flash aurally through the air. Here Gareth Brierley provides a detailed Mark Long pastiche alongside a heavily-pregnant partner, whose condition is the ultimate test of life on the theatrical highway.

With moments illuminating the process of creating a People Show, it’s good fun for party-guests indulging their hosts, though it will need work before touring in 2007 – Year 41 of the People Show era.

Performers include: Chahine Yavroyan, Alit Kreitz, Jessica Worrall, Nik Kennedy, Sadie Cook, Tyrone Huggins, Amanda Hadingue, Mark Long, George Khan, Fiona Creese, Gareth Brierley, Rob Kennedy

2006-07-14 09:13:05