The Three Little Pigs

Another play brought to Edinburgh as part of Assembly’s South African season, Three Little Pigs explores the country’s deep problems with police and political corruption, through a slightly over-stretched Orwellian metaphor of people imagined as animals.

Two little pigs—you can guess their profession—have been slaughtered. It’s up to the third porcine brother to assist the criminal investigation, as he undergoes an interrogative grilling (sorry) at the hands of a goat and a chicken. Evidence points to a criminal baron with a bloodily sinister past – the Big Bad Wolf. But is solving this crime really that nursery-rhyme simple?

The stage is framed by an imposing electric fence, meat-hooks hanging ominously from the ceiling. Actors James Cairns, Rob van Vuuren and Albert Pretorius roll in their respective parts like pigs in proverbial you-know-what. But their acting is consistently more compelling than the plot, a sub-The Wire mix of bent and noble cops, underworld snitches and ruthlessly careerist bosses. Some animal characterisations work well – the snivelling rat informant, or the coke-snorting coterie of hyena club trash for example. Others—such as the cat stripper, confusingly lusted after by other non-feline species—just don’t read.

There are some flashes of devilishly dark humour, and no punches are pulled as the play works to illuminate South Africa’s battle with particularly vicious, often internecine, forms of criminality. “Family murder is practically a national pastime in this country,” runs one line grimly, as a clever twist in both the tale and the tail looms.