Sort of the Rings is playing in The Pod which is one of many tents inhabiting the gorgeous “Garden of Unearthly Delights”. This one has nice seats. Dotted in amongst the seats were many coloured helium balloons attached to weights that became part of the show later on. The music playing from the film ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ was a clue to the fact that this show was referenced entirely from the films and not for book reading nerds like me. (Not that I haven’t seen the extended versions of the films many times over….) The intended audience for this show is fans of the films, when an audience member professed to not knowing the characters they shouted “What are you doing here?”, ” My kids dragged me” was her reply. So although you might still have a good time, if you don’t know LOTR at all, I can’t guarantee you will understand the plot.
The show began with a lovingly filmed, somewhat accurate but silly re-creation of the opening of the Fellowship that involved live action and stick figures. But the dialogue was pretty spot on. Of course real nerds know that the opening lines of the film spoken by Galadriel (‘The world is changing I feel it in the water…’etc) were actually spoken by Treebeard at the end of the 3rd book, but I digress. Eventually the action moved from the screen to live action on the stage and the rest of the 3 film plot was covered (slightly disappointingly by only two actors and a lot of very lame props. Luckily the two actors in the show have enough charm and silliness up there sleeves to carry it off.
Mike Climczak and Jason Chong (in his second brilliant show of the Fringe) do an exhaustingly wonderful job portraying (not quite) all the characters and creatures from the epic legend of Middle Earth. ‘But there are 7 members of the Fellowship alone, how do they possibly manage it? I hear you ask. Well you are going to have to go see it to find out, lets just say that wigs, puppets, rubber gloves, audience members and the coloured balloons played major roles. The best was probably their rather serious creation of Gollum using puppetry, Jason’s brilliant mimicry and some excellent lighting to swap between Gollum & Smeagol. If all of the show could have been created at this high level, it could have been a truly amazing experience.
As it is, it is a well put together show for general fans of the films. By no means extremely Nerdy; my goodness I had to stop myself from shouting out that it’s ‘Fly you Fools’ NOT ‘Run you Fools’ Mike!... Though its not easy understanding Ian McKellen through that beard I spose. Still I thoroughly recommend this to you all. It’s a hilarious show for the whole family, who know something about Lord of the Rings.
Visit the Fringe Website for booking details.