Another Someone

RashDash productions return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, after the success of last year’s ‘Honeymoon’, with a new song-and-dance comedic extravaganza, exploring happiness in life.

‘Another Someone’ follows the struggles of Holly, recent law graduate, as she tackles dealing with something we all know, hate, and fear: “real people”. Her knowledge of Latin, literature, and fine wine is wasted on her two new neighbours, Alicia and Jim, though she does (eventually) venture for a brief love affair with the latter. However, on account of him (in her eyes) lacking ambition in favour of a comfortable, pleasurable life, she leaves him. Her own ambitions are soon questioned however, as she discovers that happiness and success can be on two different sides of the same coin.

The majority of the physical theatre and dance was superbly graceful and innovative, with the trio of performers displaying great gymnastic strength. However, the songs, whilst catchy and delightfully homophonic in harmony, suffered a bit of distortion on account of the mic levels.

Though having the point of the play made clear to me from the outset (“This play is about happiness!”), I still sometimes found myself wondering quite what the message was, other than a extravagant display of self-indulgence. Though as the piece progressed, so too did my engrossment. As Holly stepped out of her father’s shadow and regressed to the spontaneity of her youth, Another Someone almost reached a moving dénouement. However, the race to win me over was narrowly lost at the last hurdle, with an anti-climax of odious, unnecessary, arrhythmic samba.

Reviewed by Sacha Timæus 31/08/2010

Another Someone
Bedlam Theatre
Festival run ended
Transferring to London’s New Diorama Theatre 1st-2nd Sept; 7:30pm