Dave Clarke and John Ullyatt in ShipShow, Photo supplied.
ShipShow! (Stage 25, Spotlight Cabaret)
By Liz Nicholls,
All the nice girls love a sailor, all the nice girls love a tar,” as the old music hall ditty has it. And as for the rest of us … we’re very apt to love a couple of breezy entertainers in sailor suits who travel the high seas with a pretty much unlimited supply of fish puns and salty double-entendres. Ah, and songs from an assortment of salt water reservoirs: music hall, pop, rock, ballads and patter songs, ditties and hornpipes. And including Yellow Submarine, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and the theme from The Love Boat. Now, that’s nautical range, me hearties.
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ShipShow! is an hour with Captain Willy (Dave Clarke) and Able Seaman Simon (John Ullyatt), the former with a mischievous glitter in his eye, and the latter with a jaunty nautical air — and both with the gift of the gab and an appreciation of the goofball.
The alleged theme of this free-floating and buoyant cabaret, directed by Eileen Sproule, is the curse of the Flying Dutchman, doomed to sail the seas forever in his phantom ship, unnerving sailors everywhere — unless the captain finds a girl willing to kill herself for the love of him. I won’t be attempting to explain how this pertains to a very funny textless “oceanographic ballet.” C’mon, you don’t have heavy responsibilities at ShipShow! beyond hollering Ahoy Ahoy from time to time, which is a pretty relaxing way to ride the Fringe waves.
There’s an assortment of props (all boats), and waves. There’s a game. The spirit of impulse and improv rule. It’s an amiable way to spend a Fringe hour, preferably with drink in hand. Sail away sail away sail away.
