Dr. Dolittle Kills a Man (and Reads Extracts From His New Book) is a loveable hour of Fringe madness. Dr. Dolittle is launching his new book and it’s available in all good book shops, buy it, BUY IT. Through his book launch the doctor gives us an insight into his chaotic world and the life experiences you can only gain when you have the ability to communicate with animals and despise Eddie Murphy. After introducing his new memoirs the focus of the show moves to a specific story from this book- the adventure of the ‘F**king big ruby’. This adventure takes him from Oxford, to the bottom of the sea, to the Galapagos as he aims to thwart the Nazis. After completing the story the audience is brought back to his book launch for one final dramatic showdown.
A rip-roaring ride through the absurd life of everyone’s favourite animal whisperer.
Aidan Pittman (who co-wrote the piece with director Hudson Hughes) plays Doctor Dolittle with a chaotic charm and buckets of sweat. His performance shines through little idiosyncrasies and his ability to hold awkward pauses which endear the audeicne to him. His interaction with the audience in the early stages was also excellent as he left the crowd to ponder what the biggest animal that they had ever killed was. In the case of my audience it was a goat (don’t ask). Pittman played off this interaction well and it was a shame there was not more engagement with the audience as the piece continued. The writing is sharp and filled with clever references including a chat with Pavlov about his dogs, some consultancy work Dolittle completed on Orwell’s Animal Farm and a curious relationship the Doctor has with a monkey called George.
The other stars of the show are the beautifully edited videos/ slideshow which place Dolittle in a variety of (mostly inappropriate) historical settings. These components were seamlessly built into the show and were effective at establishing settings and building the world. The most impressive technical elements were the talking animals. I won’t talk too much about their function in the story as they have to be seen to be believed, but suffice to say they were a technical marvel and hilarious to boot. Where the piece was a little bogged down was in its sole focus on one particular story (The F**king Big Ruby). The piece departs from Dolittle’s book launch which served as an absurd pastiche of a pseudo-academic lecture and entered a more familiar Indiana Jones parody. Had the piece focused on the book launch and dipped into sections of his life story the narrative momentum would have been more even throughout.
This is only a minor quibble as for the most part Dr. Dolittle Kills a Man (and Reads Extracts From His New Book) is hilarious, technically wonderful and exactly the sort of work that the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is about.
