Crossing the divide

TV or not TV, that is the question pondered by Edinburgh every year. An unseen faultline divides the audiences from the performers. Audiences want to get away from TV while performers — especially comedians — want to embrace it. Les Dennis, who has done telly already, transcends the rift in his new hybrid show which combines drama, mime and cabaret in a way that would never work on the box. Certified Male (St George’s West) is the sentimental story of four businessmen on a bonding holiday in the tropics. Laddish humour abounds. ‘Cover that up,’ says Dennis’s mate as he bares his plump belly, ‘before Friends of the Earth push it back out to sea.’ This schmaltzy examination of male angst was drawing pretty large audiences.

As was Dylan Thomas, Return Journey (Assembly at Hill Street), performed by a brilliantly versatile impersonator, Bob Kingdom. Plump, ginger and stout, Kingdom bears an amazing physical resemblance to the pop-eyed bard who described his visage as ‘the face of an excommunicated cherub’. He performs Thomas’s anecdotes and poems with such simple and affable authority that it’s hard to believe you aren’t watching the man himself. Kingdom is a consummate actor and after acknowledging the applause for Thomas he loosens his bow tie and instantly shifts persona. Now he’s Truman Capote (the subject of his companion show at the Fringe). His Capote impersonation is exquisitely turned. In particular, he gets that frail needling lisp just right. Thomas and Capote shared an agent and perhaps inevitably they became rivals. ‘What is it with those Celts?’ bitched Capote. ‘They go from the nipple to the bottle without changing diapers.’