Fringe 2024 The Signalman Zoo Southside 8th August Review
The Signalman at ZOO Southside – Studio is on throughout the Fringe and if you like your Victorian Gothic horror stories, then this might just be the show for you.
Unusually, this horror story is written by Charles Dickens. It was the author’s last completed work and written after he himself had survived a train crash. Many details of this crash were withheld from the public at the time, particularly the fact that Dickens’ female travelling companion in his carriage was not his wife.
Directed by Sam Raffal with Tim Larkfield playing the part of The Signalman haunted by a ghostly figure and a recent multi-fatality train crash at his station, this production is a good example of how to adapt a story for a solo performance stage monologue.
Monologues are never that easy to do well on stage as they require the performer to have the ability to be a natural storyteller and not only grasp the attention of their audience in the first few moments, but also to keep them interested and paying attention for the rest of the work.
Tim Larkfield clearly has the ability to do this as well as the dramatic ability to make his role as The Signalman an interesting one. Here is a man not only shaken by the apparition that he has seen, but also one clearly suffering from what we would now recognise as PTSD after a terrible railway crash in which many people died. Careful use of sound effects, minimal stage set, and some period songs are used to good effect here with just enough information given, in the performance time available, about The Signalman as a person to make him more than just a one-dimensional character.
There is of course a gothic horror twist to this story and I have no intention of telling you that in this review.
Tim Larkfield also has another show at Zoo this year, James Whale: Beyond Frankenstein.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
Unusually, this horror story is written by Charles Dickens. It was the author’s last completed work and written after he himself had survived a train crash. Many details of this crash were withheld from the public at the time, particularly the fact that Dickens’ female travelling companion in his carriage was not his wife.
Directed by Sam Raffal with Tim Larkfield playing the part of The Signalman haunted by a ghostly figure and a recent multi-fatality train crash at his station, this production is a good example of how to adapt a story for a solo performance stage monologue.
Monologues are never that easy to do well on stage as they require the performer to have the ability to be a natural storyteller and not only grasp the attention of their audience in the first few moments, but also to keep them interested and paying attention for the rest of the work.
Tim Larkfield clearly has the ability to do this as well as the dramatic ability to make his role as The Signalman an interesting one. Here is a man not only shaken by the apparition that he has seen, but also one clearly suffering from what we would now recognise as PTSD after a terrible railway crash in which many people died. Careful use of sound effects, minimal stage set, and some period songs are used to good effect here with just enough information given, in the performance time available, about The Signalman as a person to make him more than just a one-dimensional character.
There is of course a gothic horror twist to this story and I have no intention of telling you that in this review.
Tim Larkfield also has another show at Zoo this year, James Whale: Beyond Frankenstein.
Review by Tom King © 2024
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com