Foiled

What could be more ‘Fringe’ than a play performed in a working hairdressers? Foiled—a three-hander from the young Welsh company Duckspeak—surely has this year’s most accurate set, due to them taking over the Ruby Rouge salon for the duration. Unfortunately, their material can’t match it.

The fictional salon is Bleach for the Stars, run by horrendous head stylist Sabrina, who spends much of the hour barrelling around, belting out pop songs and generally impeding the work of her harassed employee, Tanisha. Today she shuts the shop to fill in a competition entry form—always a riveting narrative device, form-filling—but then a bald actor arrives, and everything’s turned up to 11.

Sabrina is a promising, almost Disney-esque evil diva—played with admirable verve by Beth Granville—but there’s something missing here; it’s broad farce, essentially, but lacking enough decent gags to power the hour. If the audience don’t go for the high-octane hi-jinks, there’s not much left.

Duckspeak’s website states that Foiled has a "strong undercurrent of politics” and “brings to dramatic attention the everyday trials of life under austerity”. Well, perhaps it did in an earlier incarnation, but either that undercurrent is imperceptibly deep or the interesting stuff has been culled along the way.

Which is a shame, as it’s a fine concept. That closed-salon story also means that they can’t utilise their inbuilt extras – the audience, dotted around the room like waiting customers are ripe for being woven in. Foiled could still work, with a good makeover.