Edinburgh Fringe 2003 PREVIEW

Peepolykus - Mindbender
Bull Theatre

Group: Peepolykus

Francis Boorman

Mindbender is a highly bizarre and eclectic look at Tony Santos: self-inflated latino Mindbender. Our mental master can only be described with one word, used in fact by one part of his mind beffudling trio. Tony Santos is a 'twat'.

He displays this pungent side of his character throughout the performance as we are shown his youth, his show and his death. Mindbender starts as many a magic show has been known to: a member of the audience is shown to have absolutely no suspicious ties with our performer whatsoever, so when he volunteers to have incredible feats performed on him we are in no doubt whatsoever that this is the real deal.... There may be sceptics amongst the audience, but Mr. Santos elicits a shocked hush by announcing that he is going to stop his heart using only the power of his mind, then start it again just before he dies. Like every good performer, Tony Santos has a backup plan if things don't turn out quite as they should; he has his fingers attached to a car battery with which our volunteer is to revive him.

It almost goes with out saying that everything goes wrong and the car battery is brought in to play, causing an impressive explosion of sparks but not the revival of the magician, now martyr to the performing arts. At this point the play makes a transition from offbeat slapstick humour to the completely bizarre, which keeps the audience rolling with laughter for the remainder of the performance.

From now on anything is possible, as we see when the angels of death arrive: two fast talking, loud mouthed, cigar chugging Americans sporting sequinned miniature baseball caps. This can only be described as a cartoon moment. Our angels unfortunately do not have time to take the life of Tony Santos as they have pressing family commitments, so he is returned to life allowing him to complete his show, and also exposing us to several snapshots from his early life, encompassing his brutish fluorescent lycra clad mother (complete with beard) and his childhood friend; a dancing bear.

Still Santos tries to complete the show as planned, showing off his hairy chested, gold medallioned, luridly flirtatious and all round twatishness. Alas, much to the sorrow of his captivated audience (particularly the blonde nurse in the third row to whom he is making lewd gestures) our protagonist must die, and without revealing too much, the splitting of Santos' body from his soul involves him handcuffed to a chair and wearing a pink bra.

This play was described by one of the three actors as not something too intellectual, but just for a laugh. Peepalykus, as the group are known, pulled this off perfectly. The show is built on a spontaneous and silly humour which nonetheless proves to be very funny. Fans of Chekhov might not enjoy it as there is be absolutely no misery to wallow in, just a bloody good laugh.

Peepolykus - Mindbender is appearing at the Assembly Rooms Edinburgh from 1 August.

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