One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL 2008 REVIEW

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

• Practical Magic Theatre Company
• Venue 186. Sweet ECA
• 2^nd-9^th August 19:15hrs 
• £10.00

Some of the younger members of the audience at the Practical Magic Theatre Company's performance of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were unfamiliar with the 1975 film starring Jack Nicholson. For them, this was a new story which they enjoyed enormously.

I was a bit apprehensive as I am familiar with that movie and wondered how this adaptation of the classic script would stack up against it. I need not have worried. On the strength of this play, Practical Magic's claim to a tradition of bringing high quality production values to the Fringe is not as boastful as it might at first appear. It's a fact.

Set in an insane asylum, Randle P McMurphy a petty crook has been committed after being diagnosed as psychopathic, although it seems likely that he's really shamming in order to escape hard field labour. He fits in well with his fellow inmates but runs up against the repressive order in the asylum, personified in the sinister Nurse Ratched.

Yvonne Waring exudes barely concealed malice as the vindictive head nurse. The happy-go-lucky McMurphy, perpetual rebel and shit-stirrer, is carried off convincingly by Adam P Tompkins (who bears a striking resemblance to Ulster's own James Nesbitt). Iain Campbell narrates the story in his role as supposedly catatonic Chief Bromden.

The supporting cast rise well to the demands of their roles as McMurphy's fellow inmates. Special mention needs to go to Francis Lyons as the stuttering innocent Billy and Gillian Souter as the good-time girl Candy Starr. There wasn't a duff part in the whole production.