It’s normally impossible to be in Buxton
during the annual Festival Fringe without seeing familiar orange festival
banners and posters all over the town. This year, unless you ventured near the
Pavilion, you would not have known anything was going on, with the Fringe
understandably very much scaled down, because of current restrictions. The
upstairs of the Old Club House provided something of an oasis to normal times
with the walls decked in theatre flyers and posters and it was pleasing to be
back once more in the familiar atmosphere of this long standing Fringe
Festival.
John
Hewer is best known for his successful tribute to Tommy Cooper, which also returned
to Buxton this year. The move to a one-man show taking in fifteen roles was given the
added challenge of competing with the European Cup Final being watched by a hoard of
drunken fans downstairs and so the show opened to Professor Van Helsing
acknowledging that a certain football game was taking place nearby. However,
this thankfully did not turn out to be a distraction as the creditably sized
audience became caught up in the retelling of this well-known classic.
There
was something of old-time music hall in Hewer’s performance as he made full use
of the performance area with limited but effective props. There was no attempt
at any costume changes at all with the focus being almost completely on Hewer’s
facial expressions and accents, helped by various off-stage effects and
occasional music. All this was remarkably effective as the audience were
introduced to Dracula, Jonathan Harker, Renfield, Lucy, Dr. Seward and numerous
other characters. The storyline kept fairly closely to the original novel and
it helped to be familiar with the basic Dracula story.
This was first and foremost a comedy show, drawing on various influences. There were frequent groaning puns which could have been lifted from 'Carry On' films. There were word-play routines of the kind popularised by Ronnie Barker and some of the humour was simply based on the absurd, such as Harker and coachman riding naked because of the heat (in Transylvania?). Some of the presentation was reminiscent of Frankie Howerd, with set pauses to emphasise the enormity of particularly weak jokes. Perhaps not surprisingly, there was also a nod of Tommy Cooper as Van Helsing donned a fez as part of a vampire killing ritual.
The pace was non-stop with Hewer only ever stopping for an occasional, well-deserved sip of water and the attention of the audience never wavered during the entire one-and-a-quarter-hour-long performance. This was a very slickly executed show which was both funny and entertaining. A very creditable performance by an actor who really knows how to hold an audience; highly recommended as an enjoyable night out.
Reviewer - John Waterhouse
on - 11.7.21
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