Wanted Dead or Alive
clubWEST @ Edinburgh Theosophical Society, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Group: Clubwest Productions

Dave Clements

We find ourselves with Santa in his Grotto, situated somewhere in a Florida shopping mall. He seems a little jaded, ranting on about the wrongs of the world, only to break off to greet the next child, then the next...

You can't sit them on your knee nowadays, he says. A kid on medication pulls at his beard. Nobody knows who they are anymore. The rise of therapy and addiction is testament to people with too much time for introspection. Santa bemoans the collision of Xmas with consumer capitalism - 'cheque-book cheer' he calls it. The American Way creates needs you didn't know you had.

He compares the social decay, the 'lexicon of vices' that characterise the USA, with the fall of the Roman Empire. 'We're sitting on a powder keg, the Infidel is at the door!' he cries agitatedly. Santa speaks of cowardly America. They are the real terrorists, he spits, lamenting the loss of those brave suicide bombers. The endless excuses are laughable, he contends: it was about the oil all along.

Santa rises to his feet and passes through the audience, revealing dynamite strapped to his waist. It's only a toy, he mocks, like those he promises the 'greedy little monsters' in his Grotto. 'They'll never find me here', he laughs, 'the most hated man posing as the most loved'. 'One way or another you created me' he teases as he closes the door behind him.

Certainly, the bogey man behind the beard (see?) is the creation of our insecure and fearful times, a society unsure of itself and its values. This biting satire should discomfort audiences sympathetic to the anti-globalist, anti-American line. The growing sense that you share so many targets - Starbucks, financial districts, et al - with Islamic Fundamentalists is going to make you squirm! The brilliance of both the writing and the performance is to tease out this creeping realisation so effectively.

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