Edinburgh Fringe 2013
The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show
White Room Theatre's Bite-Size Plays
Genre: Short Plays
Venue: Pleasance Dome
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
"Come solo, with friends, family and / or business contacts for a warm welcome from the cast, hot coffee and croissants before enjoying some edgy and stimulating new works, fresh treatments of past audience choice favourites."Award-wnning short plays from the highly acclaimed Bite-size team.
Review
When Bite-Size – The Big Breakfast was on at Brighton Fringe I didn’t go to see them because I thought that although they are advertised as Bite-Size plays, they would really be extended sketches. This was a completely incorrect impression and reinforces the idea that one should go to see productions on the Fringe which one knows nothing about.
When I arrived, the queue was already long and many in the queue said they see Bite-Size Breakfast every year because it is good theatre. The audience are offered a coffee, a croissant and some strawberries so that there is already a relaxed atmosphere before the plays start. The cast come in one by one and start warming up as they start arguing amongst themselves about sex. It was a very funny warm up with even the Stage Manager, Miles Mlambo joining in.
There are three different sets of plays performed on different morn
ings. The one I saw was ’Menu 2: The Morning After’ which comprised of five plays and yes, they were plays and not sketches. Each one was very different with the first one, ‘Tell Someone Who Cares’ being the most related to ‘The Morning After’. It was about two people waking up in bed having spent a night together with one of them having very little memory of the evening before. Many aspects about relationships came up.
‘Radio Foreplay’ was an hilarious solo play about the use of sexual words on radio which was also full of sexual innuendo when the character was speaking on the telephone. Very funny.
‘Saturday Night Edinburgh, Sunday Morning Leith’ was a look at two people talking to each other but letting the audience know their true thoughts. It was funny with an underlying sadness to it.
‘A Christmas Carol’ again was amusing with a sad background to it. A play about two lonely people.
‘In Sex’ was very funny with a very apt title. It was about the morning after but with disastrous effects for one of the couple. I can’t say any more about it without spoiling it.
Definitely not suitable for children but well worth a visit for adults starting their day at the Fringe. I will be interested in seeing the other plays to see how different they are.
There was not a weak link in the acting, Louise Fairbrother, Tegen Hitchens, Annie Jackson, William Knoweldon, Becky Norris & David Tremaine. Direction by Nick Brice was first class.
