🍷🍷🍷🍷 – 4 out of 5 glasses of fine claret! (Or iced water!)

[Oh.. 🍷… they’re our ‘bohemian’ version of Stars! ⭐️]

I wouldn’t normally start a review with a comment about the venue, but wow! What a venue. As an Edinburgh regular there aren’t many Fringe shows I’ve seen in modern, 600 seater, air conditioned venues like the EICC Pentland Theatre at Pleasance.

But it’s a big show, with a cast of twelve. Or at least, eleven and a half! It bills itself as being a spoof of 12 Angry Men – a classic play that Director Guy Masterson presented to great success at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2003, using comedians instead of actors. And it seems to have split critical opinion a bit! But that might be marketing it as “an hilarious spoof of 12 Angry Men.” Perhaps fortunately for me, I didn’t see the original play. I’ve never even seen the film. So I speak as I find with this production… and it’s not perfect, but it’s a clever, original show with some lovely moments.

The Eleven and a Half men are of course jurors in a murder trial in the USA. And of course the half is a short juror! Not knowing the original, this version by Owen O’Niell is set in the jurors room of a court in America in the 1950’s. And in fact, it’s quite a serious affair. They must decide if a sixteen year old boy murdered his Father. If they find him guilty, he will be sent to the electric chair and die himself.

It’s not completely black humour, but the distance of the piece – the fact it is set in the USA in the 1950’s, allows the characters to talk about a range of social mores and behaviours that would – fortunately – be difficult today. And it is character driven. Of course, as jurors they are all very different characters. They all have their own reasons for wanting to get the process finished. And there’s almost a reality show feel to the voting as to who finds the boy guilty or not.

And there are some wonderful moments. Joe Pasquale in his first ever Fringe ends up tap dancing on the tables and there is some fabulously mimed skipping too! There are a few problems with diction too but as comedians, the cast does remarkably well.

Do they find the boy guilty of murder or not? I shan’t spoil it. But it almost kind of doesn’t matter. It’s an entertaining, often ridiculous example of humanity, presented in all its humorous extremity. Oh… and vegetarians beware!

The jurors:

Stephen K Amos,

Joe Pasquale (Fringe debut!),

Tom Stade,

Spencer Jones,

Mark Maier,

Glenn Wool,

JJ Whitehead,

Ian Coppinger,

Terry Alderton,

David Calvitto,

Phil Nichol,

and Owen O’Neill.

Director Guy Masterson.