The presentation of this piece, from the costumes, to the elaborate love letter style of the press release, is top notch. On a pretty set, fashioned from another giant love letter, Another Midas TC, in the form of actors Harper Ray and Karen French bring us the story of the great poet Byron and his alleged incestuous relationship with his sister Augusta. Drawing from actual letters and diaries this should be sensational stuff, even by todays relatively relaxed sexual mores, but it contrives to be pretty dull.
The problem is not in the material but the execution. Ray cuts a dashing and sexually ambiguous figure as Byron, but his sometimes declamatory style seems to be in a different play to French, whos performance is far more understated, televisual almost. Throughout, particularly early on, there are pauses in the dialogue you could drive a coach and four through. And some of the action was lost to me, being set on the floor, so out of the eye line of anyone further back than the second row (this is a common difficultly in Edinburgh venues; future directors take note).
Theres a strange mixture of styles too, with a bit of audience participation, and two extended, well executed but showy dance sequences (a sort of 19th century version of the cinematic cut to a train going though a tunnel). I guess the fault for much of this must be laid at the door of director Bernie C Byrnes, who really hasnt made the most of the space or the actors who are undoubtedly talented. Bryon was arguably an early example of a celebrity in the modern sense, and there could have been a much more off the wall treatment of this subject instead of this rather old fashioned rendition.
