The theatre has offered up something of a variable feast for me recently.  Some shows that did well in the Fringe are doing the rounds as you might expect and I saw two of them at the Traverse.  I didn't like either of them and turned to the reviews of their successful beginnings to try to see what I'd missed.

In Gym Party we the audience are asked to vote for one of three contestants on the basis of their performance in games of a sort.  The three are dedicated to winning at any cost and losing results in nasty treatment.  The Guardian whose review gives it four stars compares it favourably to Fight Night, another show in which the audience decide who wins through.  For my money Gym Party was Punch and Judy knock about compared to the subtle manipulation displayed in Fight Night.  It was juvenile and brutish.  I didn't like it.

The eponymous protagonist of The Confessions of Gordon Brown didn't get enough votes to keep him in office and the show didn't get my vote either.  The Telegraph gave it four stars which is more praise than it ever gave its subject and they were wrong in both cases in my opinion.

I was looking forward to vigorous political satire along the trail blazed by That Was The Week That Was, Yes Minister, In The Thick Of It and the like.  But this was weak humour stretched thinly over an hour and forty minutes without respite.  It's tough for one man to move around a stage for that length of time without a degree of repetition but I screamed internally as he prowled pointlessly for the nth time upstage right almost but not quite leaving the set only to turn on his heel and come back.

My third outing was to another play that took TV talent shows as its model.  In Mama, quiero ser famoso the audience are the audience in a TV studio and vote on who should be proclaimed famous.  Strangely enough the people whose antics on stage we were treated to were not those who were subject to the audience's vote.  We were asked to choose between three audience members selected apparently at random by their ticket numbers on the basis of their response to the question why do you deserve to be famous.   They were plants of course but remarkably ill prepared.  Is that because this was a Spanish play presented by the Hispanic Studies department of the university and they were roped in on the night?

A student production it may have been but it was very well put together and hugely enjoyable despite the fact that a fair bit of the dialogue passed me by.  The cast acted with great energy and commitment especially one girl who sang about churros and strutted her stuff with aplomb.  She struck me as definitely talented.  And no company could have wished for a more enthusiastic audience.

Eternal Love is a play in which theological discourse and sexual passion play equal parts.  Abelard and Heloise are renowned as archetypal lovers and the play tells both their story and the story of the  struggle between faith and scientific enquiry that continues to this day.

An excellent production which was well received with an especial appreciation from both cast and audience for the understudy Kevin Leslie who came on for the indisposed Sam Crane.