July 2016

A Little caravan in a wooded glade – who should appear out of this most whimsical of settings but Ventnor’s own Doris Doolally. 

Hello Doris, how the devil are you?

Hello Fringe, I am very well indeed thank you. 

What are you doing here at the fringe?

I’m just about to run a poetry workshop in the pop up caravan in the park at the fringe where we will hopefully create some comedy poems.

What’s next for Doris?

I’ve been very busy in the run up to the Elegy Emporium at Boomtown Fair. We’ve been busy creating obituaries for our crew, collecting taxidermy and doing photo shoots among a number of other things. After Boomtown, I’ll be performing at Reading Between the Lines Birthday Party, and Cowes Speaks V-Dub takeover. 

What’s this Elegy Emporium?

It’s a combination of visual and performance art. We will be doing live performance or rhyming couplet obituaries, measuring people up and face painting them after they’ve had their fortunes told.  It’s all very exciting. 

Exciting indeed! It’s been a pleasure Doris. 

By Matt Hitt

This week we have been treated with six performances by Scena Mundi, giving us Shakespeare’s Richard II and Marlowe’s Edward II, parked together under the title ‘Seize the Crown’

In Richard II, performed in period dress, we were shown the weak and capricious Richard whose arrogance and greed seals his own fate, isolating himself and eventually being deposed by Bolingbroke, the clever and just son of the late wise John of Gaunt.
Though some of the audience were a wee bit lost during the first half, everyone was gripped during the second half, giving the actors a well deserved applause for their faultless performance.

In Edward II, by contrast, was set in the 1980s. Upon hearing this I must admit I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but any doubt quickly fled as soon as it started. The performance had drama from the out set, telling us the sorrowful demise of King Edward at the hands of his wife and her lover, the power hungry villain Mortimer. As with Richard II, the nobility and Edward are at odds, resulting in drama and death. All this in contemporary punk-like dress and to 80s rock; and unlikely but brilliant match which suited this play perfectly, once again receiving hearty applause.

We cannot thank Scena Mundi enough for the joy they have given us with their performances this week, as well as their appearance in our carnival procession and I am personally thankful to them for introducing me to the world of theatre.