EDINBURGH FRINGE 2017: (FEAR) ★★

(FEAR)

Zoo (Venue 124)

Monday 28th August 2017

A man sits in the corner of a room which is to the side of four large red letters spelling out the word FEAR. All sounds very simple, apart from the fact that the man sitting in the chair is wearing a crocodile mask. This is (FEAR), a show about literally that, the fears that we have when we were younger and how it develops when we grow older.

As the man gets off the chair and starts to crawl behind the letters, I’m already starting to feel a bit uneasy, and sadly with this production, this wasn’t the end of feeling like this. Though the performance is full of passionate speeches from Gareth Clark, the performer and creator of the show, and he’s very good at improvisation, in this instant when a phone went off in the audience, I felt very tense and nervous throughout.

The problem with the performance was how jumble everything was - there was no storyline from his childhood being the thread throughout the whole show, making almost seem like you could put any sequence in any order and it wouldn’t of mattered. Also, I further felt uncomfortable when Clark in a random act started stripping right down to his underwear,which was not something I felt was necessary in this performance.

Overall, (FEAR) left a bad aftertaste in my mouth and made me fear more as an audience member than anything I have seen from The Fringe this year!