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A valuable antique husband has been stolen! What’s a dame to do? Film noir has never made less sense as dame and detective careen after a dastardly criminal, avoiding traps, thugs, and logic at every turn. Can they rescue the captured consort before he ends up on the black market? Can they defeat the same actor in several different hats? And can they do all this without making too much of a fuss?
Audio Note Transcript link.
Content Note: Guns are mentioned but not seen onstage.
Extended Content Note is available here.
Please note that masks and proof of vaccination are required to attend all Ottawa Fringe Festival shows and events.
This show is funny and you should go see it. But since a nine-word review has never persuaded anyone (I am thinking particularly of Abraham Lincoln ignoring the National Intelligencer’s brief notice, “Do yourself a favour and avoid Our American Cousin”), I suppose I shall have to say more words.
If you’ve ever regretted that you only got to experience the side-splitting Goon Show episodes via archival recordings, then rejoice that life has given you a second chance. Playwright David Scotswood has brought the Goon-Show worldview to film noir detectives, dames, and of course, horses with guns, in a 45-minute examination of a nefarious plot to (SPOILER) counterfeit… well, husbands. (END OF SPOILERS) It’ll all make more sense if you go see it.
Scotswood, who appears as the Detective, Arthur Bampot, joins Dangerous Dames co-producers Sarah Thuswaldner and Becky McKercher, who appear as the Dame and every other character, respectively; the whole directed by this Scotswood bloke. If you know Dangerous Dames, you already know that they can bring the funny, and if you didn’t already know, relax; you have this ideal opportunity to probe the rumour to its core. In others, go see it already.
Logic is delightfully fluid but you can more or less follow the through-line of the plot, such as it is. If you enjoy laugh-a-minute farce, then buckle up, because “Arthur Bampot and the Case of the Kept Man” scorns such a leisurely pace and squeezes laughs in between laughs. In other words, it’s funny and you should go see it.
https://apt613.ca/fringe-review-arthur-bampot-and-the-case-of-the-kept-man/
An absolutely brilliant show. The writing, the cast, the props, everything. I’m hoping to see it a second time before the end of the festival.