Edinburgh Fringe 2024
The Gentleman of Shallott.
Lights on A Darkening Shore Productions
Venue: The Space on the Mile
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
The Gentleman is trapped in his tower, rejecting advances from potential suitors, seemingly unaware that the world is burning.
Review
In his tower on an island in the river, Martuni weaves, keeps fit and masturbates, calling down to unseen staff for his food. His main distraction is the horny suitors calling on his dating app. Outside, war rages, we hear explosions, from the tower he watches a stream of people through his viewfinder. Page wants to rescue him, but Martuni doesn’t seem to understand that the world is in catastrophic meltdown, and that the lake is synthetic material, there is no water. Written and performed by Gareth Watkins, this is a powerful play about the ignorance within a social media bubble as climate change rages.
But the play is more complex than that, it’s beautifully intelligent and performed on an excellent set design by Stephen Stephenson. It is a Gothic masterpiece, everything looks as if created from black and white science fiction films, and all from recycled material. It has a feeling of Metropolis about it, and it creates a strong world, battered and just about hanging on. Watkins gives an extraordinary performance, complex and entertaining, thrumming with self denial, (or perhaps selfie denial.) One caller, Page, is desperate to save Martuni, yet the fey self obsessed man can’t see it. He is as blind as one of his suitors, as perhaps we are as the media continues to ignore the rising temperatures and focuses on celebrity gossip. Watkins uses his impressive physicality as he role plays with different callers. He pretends to be Daddy, to be Sir, but even here he fails. He tries on different identities, but he doesn’t know how to “be” with new people. Like the Lady, his beauty is about to be destroyed.
Influenced by Absurdist Theatre, there are echoes of the great Samuel Beckett, particularly Krapp’s Last Tape, the listening to voices, the regret of missed opportunities and the existential love of words. It also allows the audience to layer meaning onto the text, metaphors abound in this stylish production. Are the voices he hears in his head, does he know he is entirely alone?
Superbly directed by Peter Gomes, the tension increases as we wonder if he will ever break his narcissism and leave the tower. In Tennyson’s original, the Lady is cursed if she looks upon the real world. Here, the world itself is cursed. It’s a powerful statement that, in our Insta age, the Apocalypse will be viewed through our phones. A thought provoking, beautifully crafted piece, unlike anything else I’ve seen at this year’s Fringe.
