Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

A four-way race between poet, actor, video artist and sound engineer: Edinburgh Festival’s Burn reviewed

Plus: at the Fringe, home truths from the NHS and a fascinating verbal banquet

Alan Cumming's portrayal of Robert Burns centres on dance, which downplays the actor's comic talents. Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

In a new hour-long monologue, Burn, Alan Cumming examines the life and work of Robert Burns. The biographical material is drawn from Burns’s letters, and the poems are read out in snatches. You won’t learn much except that Burns was a poor farmer who later worked as a taxman. To represent his many flings with women, a few high-heeled shoes are dangled on strings above the stage but this looks strangely cheap given that huge sums have been lavished on graphic imagery projected onto a big screen at the rear. Flashing lights and surges of music add to the sense of distraction.

Cumming’s performance centres on dance, which looks like a new departure for him. His comic presence, his adroit wit and his impish, teasing face are world-class gifts but this show downplays his strengths. He moves around in slow balletic routines which are difficult to decipher.

And then there’s the poetry. Burns’s best-known verses are broadcast on a soundtrack which gets tangled up with intrusive musical compositions. Not a great result. The show looks like a four-way race between a poet, an actor, a video artist and a sound engineer. The poet finishes last and the actor comes in a poor third. And the show assumes that Burns holds little interest for the play-goers, who need trippy illuminations and hectic videos to keep them watching.

Dr Akadiri confides that he hates caring for ailing passengers on planes because he can’t send them a bill

This is a straightforward black-box show that just needs a performer and a text. Any addition subtracts. Any enlargement diminishes. And for some reason, Cumming is dressed in a black Lycra T-shirt and matching shorts. He looks like a bicycling mortician who follows the Tour de France and discreetly disposes of any contestants who die of an overdose.

No Scrubs is billed as a comic monologue but it feels like a documentary about NHS corruption.

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