Baby Jane
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Group: The People Show

Chris Wilkinson

Yes, this is the Baby Jane, of 'Whatever Happened to…?' fame. People Show's latest production sees four people locked in a nightmareish studio, obsessively re-enacting scenes from the film, in front of a backdrop of television screens showing pretty much the same thing.

Ostensibly, it seems intended to be a study of 'cult following', investigating the kind of people who find greater fulfilment for their lives in a film than in the real world. Yet it rarely does anything other than tread over the obvious ground of presenting these people as misfits. The atmosphere becomes increasingly fraught as they are forced to perform more and more scenes from the film, yet the show fails to go anywhere with this.

Aesthetically it is certainly impressive - the set is beautifully designed - but in the end this fails to feel like anything more than window dressing for a show that is empty of ideas.

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