fringe: sound and fury's dirty fairy tales

sound and fury's dirty fairy tales - (from the left, horse, richard and patrick)

What's not to love about attractive gentlemen in Shakespearean garb? And even more so when they're three funny and attractive American gentlemen with quick wits and dirty minds.

Even before Sound and Fury's Dirty Fairy Tales started I already found myself with a crush on two thirds of the cast.

That's perhaps not as bad as it sounds given the fact there only three performers. They are, as they introduced themselves at the end of the show, Richard, Patrick and Hung Like A Horse (we'll call him Horse for short, although his name is actually Ryan). And they are genuinely hilarious and more than a little bit dirty.

Not only are they performing, according to the program, three different fairy tales shows (as well as two other shows in addition to the Fairy Tales), but the show is heavily improvised (in a good way), so even if you saw it twice it would probably feel like a completely different show (I'm guessing anyway).

They're a little bit like the funniest person you know, it's not polished humour, but it is genuinely funny. It often has that edge of both frenetic energy with a slight edge of panic (which is actually amusing in its own right), but you can tell when they're making it up as they go and making themselves laugh as they do it.

And given that the front row of the audience (which I wasn't in) was a little... rambunctious... the boys took great delight in using them for comedic inspiration.

Even before the show started. Richard, Patrick and Horse are out on stage, running around, cracking jokes and interacting with the audience... So it was almost like we got an extra bit of show that wasn't really part of the show.

A little like 1001 Arabian Nights, the show itself is set up with Patrick's thief character telling the titular dirty fairy tales to Richard's emperor.

The fairy tales this time around were The Emperor's New Clothes, Rapunzel and Jack and the Beanstalk. Plus there was a bonus, mostly improvised, completely invented tale at the end.

Sound and Fury have beautiful comic timing, and work wonderfully on concert with each other (even if Patrick and Horse didn't realise until tonight that Richard is left handed), especially when they manage to flummox each other with a particular line.

Patrick (and I'm not going to lie, he's a short, cute, redheaded, freckled young gentleman, and thus my personal favourite even before he turned up on stage mostly naked) seems to be the "punster" of the group... I think just about everything out of his mouth before the show started was a groan-worthy pun and he worked a few into the show as well. He was also brilliant as the naked Emperor (even before he got naked), Rapunzel and Jack.

Which is not to say that Richard and Horse weren't equally good, there were moments of all three performers that had me in stitches, particularly Horse as Prince Charming and Richard as the shuffling witch!

If you like your comedy a little bit frenetic, a little bit (okay more than a little bit to be honest) dirty bit very, very funny then this is the show for you!

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