Edinburgh Reviews: Take It Interns (C Venues), The Veil (Pleasance Dome)

Take It Interns, C Venues ✭✭✭✭

Many so-called professional musical companies on the Fringe this year would do well to take a leaf from 1945 Productions’ Take It Interns. This talented group from Bristol are storming C Venues with a spirited, well-structured and hilariously funny musical about five hapless interns vying for one job at Cicero Advertising. In a script that is as observant as it is clever, and with a musical score that displays a tremendously advanced grasp of musical theatre writing, Take It Interns is the surprise musical treat of the Fringe. With tongue firmly in cheek, Take It Interns nonetheless manages to make some important comments about a generation leaving school and heading for the workplace. Without ever descending into parody, the characterisations are beautifully realised: Eliot Salt as Amber is a particular find. The singing is good, the choreography less so, but it is the book, lyrics and music that elevate this show. The talented 1945 Productions have announced themselves as a team to watch – and if this is the future, then it’s clever, charming and, importantly, commercial. Off West-End producers take note – The Interns are coming, and they want your jobs.

**** ( 4 stars)
Runs until 26th August

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The Veil (Le Foulard), Pleasance Dome, ✭✭✭✭

“I am an artist” declaims Lucy Hopkins in a gloriously pretentious opening to a show that manages to be at once hilarious and intelligent, and a triumph of simple theatre. Armed only with a veil, Hopkins’ “Art Soul” (say it slowly and with precision) is a delicious comic creation. Like a demented cross between Florence Foster Jenkins, Mrs Overall and Joyce Grenfell, Hopkins delivers her monologue with style and panache, morphing seamlessly into a variety of characters, interacting with the audience and framing the entire device as a sort of lecture on Art – with all the attendant pomposity that such a lecture might be saddled with. A huge swathe of black silk, a cocked eyebrow, a quivering lip and a savage put-down are all the ammunition Hopkins needs to reduce her audience to giggling wrecks. The result is a lovingly realised, dazzling display of sheer brilliance, craft and ingenuity.

**** (4 stars)
Runs until 26th August
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