Every year the Edinburgh Festival is inundated with weird and wacky new takes on the work of Shakespeare. Not A Man apart Theatre company take on Pericles is to transform it into a powerful piece of physical theatre with much hilarity and humour injected into it throughout, helped along by a brilliant seven strong cast.
The plot for those not familiar to it, is a tale involving a prince who is forced to escape his homeland by an incestuous king. As he explores different cities he has a wife and child before tragedy strikes. The play despite its age is packed full of twists and turns and had the audience engrossed.
Director John Farmanesh-Bocco has done an excellent job of creating a beautiful production, filling the performance with high drama, hilarity and some wonderful character quirks that will have you rolling about laughing. The dancing however will have you gasping, its incredible. When the men are fighting in a stunningly choreographed dance, there fighting is rough, impeccably timed and using real weapons put many simulated weapon battles from other productions well and truly to shame.
Suffering only from its over reliance on pantomime humour which while very funny takes away from the spectacle as it never quite gels together with the subject matter. Never the less this is a stunning production and well worth the fantastic word of mouth praise it has been receiving.
4/5 
Martin Miller
