For a venue programmer like me one of the great joys of the Edinburgh Fringe, back now 77 years after it was founded in 1947, is the opportunity to discover new and emerging companies and artists to add to our annual line-up. Over the years we have uncovered a host of shows by emerging talent to bring to Greenwich, many of whom have gone on, with and without our help, to greater success in London and on tour.
However, there are also far more established companies that use the Fringe as a way to keep in touch with the rest of the industry – and one such company is Los Angeles based Theatre Movement Bazaar.
I first met the company, which has been hailed by the LA Times as offering “the gold standard in wry literary remakes”, in 2011 when director Tina Kronis and writer Richard Alger were presenting Anton’s Uncles – their radical reimagining of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. I’d never seen anything at the festival like TMB’s highly physical, comic classic, so I set to work building a relationship with them and booked a short UK tour for the show the following year.
Further shows followed, always reimagining a well known story with music, dance and a uniquely satirical eye, but COVID put the relationship on hold.
I am delighted that this year, the company are back in Edinburgh with Tiny Little Town, an all-new show which will finally bring the company back to Greenwich Theatre when the festival ends next week.
Tiny Little Town is a new musical comedy reimagining Ukrainian playwright, Nikolai Gogol’s 19th century satire The Government Inspector. In the show, a small town in 1970s America is thrown into chaos when its corrupt bureaucrats mistakenly identify a visiting stranger as a Government Inspector sent from Washington, D.C. to investigate their town. The show is a hilarious and timely indictment of corruption, conspiracy mongers, and crooked bureaucrats.
TMB has built a repertoire re-imagining classic literature with a unique mixture of text, movement and dance, but co-founders Kronis and Alger now join forces with composer Wes Myers to create their first musical.
The show is being applauded by audiences and critics alike. Musical Theatre Review awarded it five stars and described it as “hilarious, detailed, skilled and thoroughly entertaining”, while Fringe Review hailed it as a Must See Show and the British Theatre Guide applauded the “extremely hard working cast (who) treat us to exhausting, energetic performances that are simply surreal”.
It looks like Tiny Little Town promises to offer a vintage glimpse of just what these impressive festival regulars can do, with these Greenwich dates providing the only chance to see them outside of Edinburgh.
Tickets are available now at www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk
Photo credit David Haverty
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