A Holy Show continues at the Pleasance Courtyard – Pleasance Two, Edinburgh until 26 August 2019.
Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩
Pleasance Two is our aircraft carrier for today – a minimal set with three aeroplane seats and two informative screens lilts at us to settle back and enjoy.
Strap in, folks. In 1981, an Aer Lingus Boeing 737 travelling from Dublin to London was hijacked by an Australian by the name of Laurence James Downey. He doused himself in petrol and demanded passage to Tehran, in addition to demanding a platform for his further stipulations.
Meanwhile, back in biblical times, Our Lady of Fatima appears to three children in Tehran, and the repercussions of her revelations extend to the present day.
Janet Moran mixes verbatim statements from a cross section of the 112 hostages on board, with a wry and witty extension of the dialogue. Airbags and artistic license spare no deployment and the result is a wickedly charming venture, if slightly underdeveloped.
It’s fast-paced, character-based farce, and despite the heavy subject matter, it manages to park itself in that Lineham-esque space, just a notch away from realism, and comically charged. Caitriona Ennis and Patrick Moy present a fantastic sense of comic timing and expression which carry us along in our mirth.
However, the pace of the show strangely works to its disadvantage. Ennis and Moy skilfully switch on a dime between at least 11 roles, each with an intriguing potential – but there are so many character threads and so much information to fit in, the result is slightly overwhelming. It would be no bad thing to introduce some space into the script and allow us more time with fewer faces, and some more imaginative development of those character arcs.
Downey in particular, despite Moy’s frantically amusing performance, feels underdeveloped as an antagonist – and without a strong farcical centre, the rest of the form loses a little of its strength.
This is, however, a really enjoyable hour, with a company of great promise – and a delightful culmination. Hopefully the show gets the further development it deserves.
Aura Simon
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