By Ron Bingham
For those not a fan of the work of Terry Pratchett, this is a loosely based reworking of the Faust legend, where a thirteen year old wizard named Eric conjures up a demon to grant him three wishes. Sadly in this case, the demon is an incompetent wizard named Rincewind, who had been trapped in the demon dimensions in a previous story. Surprisingly for everyone, Rincewind ‘s magic works and we find him trying to make Eric the ruler of the world, meet the most beautiful woman in history, and to live forever. Of course, all of these wishes fail spectacularly in some way and our heroes find themselves trapped in Hell being pursued by a vengeful bureaucratic demon, with their only hope of salvation being a piece of luggage.
The show is, of course, well written. There are a lot of funny lines and even those of us familiar with the work laughed loudly at points.
The cast deliver their lines with aplomb and really seem to be having fun performing the show. Eric looks a bit too much like Harry Potter (but I think that’s just generic boy wizard, isn’t it?) and Ponce da Quirm needed a wig to show his advanced years.
My main concern was that the stage is not raised, which caused problems when the action was occurring at floor level, which was usually in scenes involving The Luggage. So I’d suggest trying to grab a seat in the front rows for the best viewing (no audience interaction to fear). The main character, Eric, has suffered an injury to “his” knee (there seems to be a trend for teenage boys to be played by ladies), which was well covered in the introduction to the show. The cast, apart from the main characters Eric and Rincewind, all played multiple parts and did a good job of swapping costumes and keeping the action going through the thousands of years that the show encompasses.
The show is in the Studio at Augustines (which is in the basement). There is a lift for disabled/wheelchair access. The show runs for just under ninety minutes. The room was full on Monday, so I’d suggest getting a ticket early if you want to see the only Pratchett show at the festival this year.
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/terry-pratchett-s-eric