Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2005

Halo Boy and the Village of Death
C, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Austin Williams
posted 27 August 2005

Billed as a 'spiteful grown-up fantasy', this imaginative, dark comedy is an unexpected highlight of the festival. It is a Grimm tale in every respect.

A number of plays at this year's fringe are exploring the spookier side of fairy tales, and in this production, set in a nightmarish village in some unknown land, live several families who would make the witch in Hansel and Gretel look like a social worker. Gulman the hunter sexually abuses his daughter Doll; Ma Geddon regularly stuffs her son Buckley in to the oven; and birdcatcher Kaletsky leads his children, Leakyhead and Lukas around on barbed wire leads. I have to say that I laughed out loud in places.

The reason is that the writing is remarkable. A tight script by Ben Arnold (who plays Kaletsky) has real poetic flourishes. The dialogue contains bizarre childlike wordplay to heighten the innocence and unsettling nature of what is going on; rendering it uncomfortable but wonderfully funny. But everything about this production, from the ominous music, the imaginative costuming, the shocking make-up and the beautifully pitched acting, adds up to a cross between Czech puppet-theatre and The Simpsons. Some reviewers have compared the production values with Tim Burton's black comedies… but he should be so lucky.

Here clever lines, surreal conversation and comedic surprises are interwoven into a story that actually makes you think. As it happens, I'm still trying to work out what it is all about. Halo Boy is good. He is an orphan and thus unblemished by parental influence. All the other children, however, are punished for being bad. This state of affairs results from Pastor Pzarov's rabble-rousing rhetoric. We begin to realise that Pzarov, a hellfire and brimstone preacher, is a bit of a charlatan who hasn't really read the Bible and is given to justifying his proscriptions by referencing St Umlaut, and other fictitious religious authorities. Pzarov is also not averse to abusing his son Skastin given that such brutality will save the children from themselves.

When Halo Boy brings Skastin back from the dead after Pzarov goes too far, Pzarov, in a Crucible-esque twist, manages to blame Halo Boy for his death. Surely, if Halo Boy has the power to cheat death, he has the power to cause death. Even under pressure, the preacher retains the authority and the oratorical skills to command support for his version of events. Thus is Halo Boy ostracised, disillusioned and swears to exact his terrible revenge.

A commentary about the barbarism of the grown-up world? Maybe. A story about human conflict and the need for powerful intervention? Perhaps. A tale about the corrupting tendency of authority, and the need for good to prevail? Conceivably. A fantastic entertainment? Definitely.