Aeneas Faversham Forever: Review

Aeneas Faversham Forever: Review

17 October, 2008
by: Greavsie123

The Penny Dreadfuls are on the money and on the rise. The biggest selling sketch act at this year's Edinburgh fringe are pretty much where it's at in terms of progressive sketch talent, and after seeing Aeneas Faversham Forever at the Leicester Square Theatre it's easy to see why. Aeneas sees the Dreadfuls showcase the versatility that underpins their act in an hour long play in which the three members; David Reed, Thom Tuck and Humphrey Ker, adopt many guises to shovel their audience through a riot of murder, skulduggery and children's literature based around the building of Tower Bridge in the depths of the Victorian age.

This description does little justice to the complexity of what the Dreadfuls have achieved in constructing a play that sustains plot, humour and interest right until the final curtain. In the rare moments that dragged, they were energised by an audience that had been eating out of their hands since the lights went up. Indeed, the only criticism is that at times the Dreadfuls are too keen to indulge this slack.

As a tripod, the group function improbably yet perfectly. The legs are different lengths, quite literally, as Ker's 6ft 7in frame towers above his friends, but the result is a picture of rare distinction. Aeneas is a masterpiece of the Dreadfuls' strengths – tremendous character acting, ripping one-liners and a joyous manipulation of the Victorian ideal. The show is peppered with subtle and playful references to film and modern culture and language as children's author Rufus Hambledon battles with the dark side in a bid to find out who murdered his wife. Reed plays Hambledon with the eye-catching understatement that makes him such a watchable and vital part of the Dreadfuls success. He is the perfect foil to the more in-your-face on-stage personas of Tuck and Ker. While Tuck is the more obvious actor, Ker is the finisher, often the last on stage to bring the house down. He can be guilty of rounding the keeper four times before sticking it in the back of the net, but there is a reason why the fans love those sort of players. While everyone will have their favourite Dreadful, in this show there is no such thing as a weak link.

Having caught Aeneas before it went up to the fringe, it was insteresting to see how much it had changed. As Ker told me after the show, "When you've done something 26 times in quick succession, you get a pretty good feel for what works and what doesn't. We are always changing little things here and there." The work paid off. The plot was a lot tighter in this latest version, while Ker also let slip that this was the first time that they had used a particular ending. It is a testament to the Dreadfuls determination to progress that they are still tweaking a show that will be seen at most a handful more times, as they prepare to change tack in pursuit of the next challenge.

It was a tremendous risk for the Dreadfuls to abandon the sketch format that had served them so well at previous Edinburgh festivals in favour of Aeneas, but in doing so so successfully they have marked themselves as a group with foresight, ambition and very real talent. The Dreadfuls stable is also home to a successful BBC Radio 7 and now Radio 4 show – the Brothers Faversham – as well as the totally un-Victorian 'Dmitri and Vassili', an improvised act where Ker and Reed play mechanics, one Russian and one Georgian. The show I last saw them in touched on moments of absolute genius, to the point where some audience members could not believe it was not scripted.

If the whispers that the future lies away from tailcoats and Victoriana are true, then there can be no doubt that what comes next will be fantastical and fantastic in equal measure, whether it be on the stage, radio or television. The biggest compliment to the Dreadfuls is that a night spent with them is a total escape, a rare chance to laugh without agenda. When I got back to my car at the end of the evening a happy face had been scrawled amid the grime of my rear window. It had been that sort of night.


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Greavsie123