I saw two shows at the Fringe. Sammy McMillan, aka Sammy J, and ‘Randy’, his bug-eyed purple puppet, was highly amusing. The Carroll Myth by the Schmuck’s Theatre Company was rather meatier, featuring the dark shadows around his ‘friendship’ with the 11 year old Alice Pleasance Liddell, and his own descent into madness. A cast of characters including the Mad Hatter, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, the Walrus, a trio of Cheshire Cats etc swirl around the hapless Carroll, with highly effective presence and undoubtedly accomplished menace. An interesting interpretation of what one might call an individual’s ‘personal myth’, and a nice reflection on the jumbled lines joining that myth to literature and to popular culture (and perception). It makes you wonder what other artefacts, literary or otherwise, one could trace a ‘myth’ through. All in all, it was decidedly odd but rather clever.
Stuart Dunn 