Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
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1927
Metro
This is the kind of show you dream of finding on the Fringe – a strange and wonderful little gem that feels utterly fully formed.
A homage to silent cinema combined with a shivery gothic aesthetic, it's a series of diabolical fairy stories – delivered by an impeccably poised female duo with eerily fixed stares and a pianist – in which someone invariably meets a sticky end.
Think Shockheaded Peter with Martyn Jacques' falsetto replaced by cut-glass accents, and with fabulously inventive animation and film footage instead of puppets, and you're halfway there.
A pastry chef is slaughtered by an escaped set of gingerbread men on the rampage; a respectable suburban town is horrified when the housewives get the clap.
In the best tale, twin girls go in search of a playmate following the mysterious death of their lodger. Their parents, who died in the wishing well, are buried in the family cemetery in the back bedroom. Surely, only the very foolhardy would dare follow them into the woods to play...
This super show from theatre company 1927 combines technical virtuosity with a pitch-perfect attention to detail. It may well be too enslaved to the motifs and ambience of its chosen genre but it maps out its territory so beautifully, you can't fail to be seduced.
Until Aug 26 (not 23), Underbelly (V61), 8.15pm. www.underbelly.co.uk
16 August 2007
