Friday, September 30, 2005

Alex Horne - When In Rome - 29th September

At Soho Theatre

I saw this show at Edinburgh. Well I say I saw it at Edinburgh. Every show is different depending on the audience's choices.

The show is based around 3 things. Latin, the Choose Your Own Adventure Books and Frank Lampard. Alex Horne and his personal assistant Tim Key set about trying to teach us or at least get us interested in Latin. Alex has a genuine enthusiasm for his subject and it's hard not to get caught up in it.

The audience is split into 2 teams, men versus women, with a captain picked for each team. Alex then guides us through his latin Choose Your Own Adventure Book. If you don't know, the books don't read like conventional books, page 2 following page 1 etc. Instead at the bottom of page 1 there might be a choice of whether to go up the mountain by turning to page 5 or heading to the river by going to page 9.

Here the story is we're in Sheffield, getting through our first year at uni. Sheffield is chosen because like Rome it is built on 7 hills. Unlike Rome it was built in a day, when one day in 1963 the people of Sheffield decided they needed somewhere to live.

There are some brilliant moments like when one of the audience gets a little over excited and begins to interrupt the flow of the show. Geeky Tim Key, sitting at his computer, brings up the detention letter on to the giant screen and promply gives him a written warning.

The show is full of technical wizardry. There is so much more to the show than you see. I could happily see it again.

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