Fringe review – Suspicious Minds (rating: 3/5)
As a full on Elvis fan I was expecting Suspicious Minds to deliver big time – it didn’t deliver Elvis, although it pretty much teased the crowd with a few snippets before the drama began.
At the Fringe in Edinburgh often things are not what they seem to be.
This was essentially a Radio 4 play performed in an old-fashioned way, and perhaps Elvis would be in the building sometime soon. But when?
This performance involved a couple trying to get grips with their relationship – yawn, yawn.
Much to the surprise of a lot of the audience the plot involved time travel – trips to Ancient Rome, Regency England, the Titanic, Berlin in 1924 and finally Elvis showing up in Honolulu in 1973.
This show didn’t do what it said on the tin. Essentially the four players were static and performing through microphones and very obviously reading through scripts – yes turning pages, just like Radio 4.
The voice artists performed well; there was a little bit of guitar, some strange props, a cabbage, yes, a cabbage.
As a masterclass in how to perform radio, the props were amazing, but it didn’t work for me.
The technical team were excellent and there was a stand-in for one of the principals as he had “gone to Exeter to do another show.”
The audience did their best, but ultimately it doesn’t deliver.
Suspicious Minds is daily at the Jack Dome Pleasance 5.30pm
Hey Pauline,
Tom here (the guy who had to go for Exeter for a few days). Sorry for any confusion about the play. May I direct you to our listing on the Fringe website, which describes the show thusly:
“It’s been a particularly tough year for Mark and Fran. Mark’s Dad died of cardiac arrest whilst playing squash. Fran f*cked someone. In a last-ditch attempt to fix their relationship, they book a commercial time-travel holiday. Spanning from Ancient Rome to an Elvis Concert in Hawaii, this is an honest and dark romantic-comedy about wrestling with the past and working on the future.”
Hope that clears things up. Thanks for coming to see the show and sorry we couldn’t give you the Elvis concert you were hoping for!