The Faustus Project – C Arts, Alto Studio

Doctor Faustus is universally known as the man who sold his soul to the devil, and that basically sums up the play by Christopher Marlowe. Remembered as a scholar and a rebel, Marlowe’s play is actually quite reactionary, very much boiling down to, between patriotic swipes at the papacy, “I want knowledge, consequences be banned! “No, don’t have knowledge, you’ll be damned!”, “oh no I had knowledge but now I’m damned!’, like the College Humour Ye Old Black Mirror sketch played straight.

As such, it seems a good frame to riff off of, which Half Trick Theatre have done by casting a new actor in the main role each night with no knowledge of the show, with all the comedic opportunities for embarrassment and confusion that offers.

The secret to all these shows is the cast themselves, who must deliver performances while dealing with whatever happens on the night and giving the Faustus Stand-in as much rope as possible to hang themselves with, and the cast here is universally good. Their energy is high, their gymnastics are impressive and their delivery, studied and adlibbed, is strong. Several of the added set-pieces work very well, such as the aforementioned pope scene, which here becomes a series of pie in the face gags.

Less effective is a Jackass style undercurrent to some of the humour. Something like “importance of Being Earnest??”, to reference another fringe show with a similar conceit, gives their “performers” clear characters they can exploit when things go wrong, and replacing more and more performers gives the show a rising action, while something like Shitfaced Shakespeare shows the Disruptive element is clearly having fun and is just a problem the rest of the cast has to work around. Now, I’d like to think I’m as much fun as the next person – actually that’s not true, I fully accept I’m the most boring person alive – but when a show gets to the point where a third of the audience are chanting “kill it! Kill it!” to pressure someone into genuinely beating a living creature to death with a mallet, it might be time to say that maybe some fun shouldn’t be had.

I’m sure many would argue that the fact the death is of a large insect makes it fine, yet I would say that few shows deserve a body count, especially not one a night. This deliberate attempt to provoke a less good-natured discomfort colours other gags too, such as when the Faustus is made to think they are involved in a trust exercise gone wrong, or involved in a judo move seemingly without warning. And whereas many of these shows carefully limit the stage time of their victim and give their main cast the brunt of the action, here it is placed upon someone reading Elizabethan verse for the first time, which is itself a challenge to keep fresh and entertaining over 80 minutes entirely spontaneously.

Though it is clear the Faustus has been given a safe word to use – and used it was, twice, when the insect had to be killed and then eaten by them- it still seemed like there was a lot more pressure on the Faustus to be “game” than in most other shows of this nature, and the cast’s “all in” attitude could have been better served as a first resource rather than a last resort. And while some gags and the cast worked well, the show, like Faustus, might have benefited from more humanity and less devilry.

The Faustus Project is running at C Arts, C Alto studio Aug 9th, 11th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 21th, 23^rd and 25th. Tickets can be found at: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/faustus-project

Reviewer: Oliver Giggins

Reviewed: 7th August 2024

North West End UK Rating: