Dirty Rotten Scoundrels – Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Assembly Hall

Picture: Robbie McFadzean

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels continues at the Assembly Hall until the 26 August 2018 (not 13 and 20).

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

It’s a bold move to present a feature-length musical in amongst the Fringe’s pageant of bite-sized offerings, but the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s MA season kicks off with vigour, rollocking through Jeffrey Lane and David Yazbek’s farcical theatrical adaptation of the 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Our jaunty tale of warring con-artists in the South of France is punctuated by some fantastic performances – Derek Dishington as the debonair Lawrence Jameson carries the pace of the show with charisma, excellent comic timing and a fine tenor, perfectly adapted to the glossy charm of a Sunday afternoon musical.  

Likewise, Sorrel Brown plays a wickedly naive and lilting turn as Christine Colgate; Jacob Bedford is endearing as Freddy Benson (a generous performance with plenty of rough-diamond charm); Donny Krow/Nicole Visco make an excellent team as Andre and Muriel, and Beth Ann-Stripling works a zealous sense of fun into a role which feels somewhat straitjacketed into stereotype.

Dougie Irvine’s direction is slick, detailed and grand, but it doesn’t often make the most of the comic potential within the farce. Nevertheless, Lainie Baird’s witty choreography picks up the slack.

This isn’t a kind show to women. The men get to be protagonists, and ever-evolving heroes despite their titular flaws – the female characters tend to be naive/unwitting pawns of little emotional significance or devious temptresses. Despite a clever fit in terms of the casting of this year group, the entire ensemble hints at a much more nuanced capability – there may have been a missed opportunity here to tackle something that pushes the boundaries of the form, and of traditional gender balance, a little more.

This production may well have packed more punch amongst its festival peers in an abridged format and could have benefited from some more imaginative direction, but it is nonetheless a charming and smartly realised addition to the RCoS’ 2018 Fringe season.

Aura Simon