Edinburgh Fringe 2025
The Silly William Gambit
Matt Bader
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Solo Show
Venue: Space @ Surgeon's Hall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Silly William is on his way to Philadelphia and on the train journey he engages in a game of chess with an opponent who is mystifyingly likely to offer him freedom. There are seven set pieces or gambits which are based on chess, which is played out between the stage and the projections behind our narrator and character actor. It’s a technically challenging offering which is well performed.
Review
It is only in the end that the personal connection between the writer and the play, which is needed at the beginning. It’s an odd piece, and one which has found a rightful place at the Fringe but that does make it any less challenging.
It begins with an odd premise and an odd set of characters. Eccentric chess prodigy Silly William is on a train, for hell or Philadelphia as it’s known in some circles. On the way he is playing chess with an equally strangely named opponent, Bum Fiddler. During these games Silly William is using his specifically designed gambit to stop the scholar’s checkmate, utilised by his opponent. From there, winning each game to prove that he may not be silly after all, William engages in a number of narratives which entertain rather than enlighten us.
The conceit of chess does not always help illuminate the points being made. It sometimes obfuscates our access to the narrative. Coupled with the accents being used for Silly William and Bum Fiddler as eccentric, over the top high fallutin Englishmen played by an American, on top of chess which for some can be an impenetrable game of skill and strategy. It makes this quite odd as I think I would have preferred to have heard natural American accents especially since they were heading towards Philadelphia.
Matt Bader, as an actor, is skilled, Justin Jaeger has directed this well with limited options and opportunity to move the characters about, though Bader makes the stage very much his own and is adept at leaping from one side to the other, giving the words physical force and focus. It thoroughly enhances the production. Technically, the voiceover at the beginning and the projection of chess moves works very well.
It is interesting to see chess used in this particular manner, though I wonder whether or not another conceit would have been better used. That having been said, it sits comfortably within the space and the fringe, but I think that we could do with the performer taking the writer out for a long lunch and suggesting there’s a possibility of another layer to be added, which would open up the performance to more audience connecting with it. I don’t think chess is overly impenetrable, however, what I do believe, and I was sitting there thinking ahead of the chess moves and sometimes got them right, sometimes got them wrong, which meant that I was in danger of failing to focus on the narrative. What is missing is that level of narrative that would allow the audience to connect more fully with the storyline. It’s a large group of performers, and I do love the fact that they have come with a full crew that is giving the fringe their best shot.
P.S. I do love a playbill, and I hope that once they get back home, that they will get the opportunity to thank their supporters who are sitting in America waiting to hear of all the stories that they’re likely to take back with them.
