Edinburgh Fringe Review: Angry Alan, Underbelly Cowgate - powerful irony at play
19/08/2018
You'll laugh, scoff and roll your eyes at the irony of what Roger says but the final blow is a tragic irony.
Donald Sage Mackay in Angry Alan Edinburgh Fringe 2018. Photo: The Other Richard
Booked my ticket for Penelope Skinner's new play, Angry Alan, before the Fringe started and it's subsequently won a Fringe First Award which raised expectations - and it didn't disappoint.
Skinner presents the reasonable Roger (Donald Sage Mackay) who stumbles upon men's rights campaigner Angry Alan on YouTube, someone who seems to have the answers for all his ills (and he thought he had bowel cancer).
His divorce, redundancy, high alimony payments can be explained away by what Alan describes as a 'gyno-centric society' which has suppressed men's feelings and emotions and their place in society.
What Skinner and Donald Sage Mackay do so well is to present a man that isn't dangerous with his new found views but rather misguided and lost.
Angry Alan gives him a sense of purpose, a club to be part of where he feels empowered, invigorated and not alone.
You'll laugh, scoff and roll your eyes at the irony of what Roger says but the final blow is a tragic irony and made more so by the fact that Roger, despite his new take on gender equality, isn't a terrible man.
If it doesn't transfer to London, I'll be very surprised.
Angry Alan is at Underbelly Cowgate at 15:20 until August 26.
More Fringe stuff:
You Only Live Forever - comedy stuffed with witty one-liners and silliness.
Queens of Sheba - the most emotional I've felt at the Fringe.
Review: Su Pollard is a sharp-tongue hoarder in Harpy
Edinburgh Fringe Review: The poverty trap through the eyes of a teenager in Killymuck
Some things I've learned on my first day at the Fringe
Edinburgh Fringe Review: Ladykiller or how to use gender stereotypes to get away with murder
Edinburgh Fringe Review: The Vanishing Man and The Extinction Event - magic, clever and fun
Peaky Blinders comes to the Edinburgh Fringe in Tobacco Road (review)
A play losing its way in The Journey (Edinburgh Fringe review)