Chalkies
Matt Byrne Media
Maxin's Wine Bar, The Parade
Until Sun 16 March


Matt Byrne returns to this year's Fringe with 'Chalkies', and just as some of his previous productions: 'Virgins', 'Pricks' and 'Barrackers' have confronted airlines, hospitals and football fanatics respectively, as the name suggests it deals with issues within the state education system.

Once again using the four-hander approach, 'Chalkies' reunites Maggie Moore taking on duel teacher/student roles as art teacher Pastel Brodie and the garishly overweight Courtney Date with Kim Clarke (drama teacher, Vladimir Gladimir/the troubled revhead Vinnie Rissoto), Jessica Lynch (environmentalist, Oleander Bush/sluttish Britney Brown) and Byrne himself as Principal Julius Sinner and the nerdish halfwit, Dwayne Insane, along with many other characters strategically thrown in for good measure.

Learning that the education minister Jane Glomesh Stix has plans to absorb their school, Hilltop High, into a new super amalgamation, the action hots up and the affect on each of the principle players lives are shown. Keeping up with contemporary times, obnoxious American relationship expert and TV guru, Dr Pill, is sent along to mediate the transition only to further infuriate the faculty and turn this whole farce into a real circus.

Played out once more on minimal floor space using mostly virtual props, the cast effortlessly switch roles and, due to the multicultural and lower socio-economic nature of outer-suburb public schools, accents and facial posturing at the drop of a cue.

Cleverly revamped songs: Kenny Loggin's Danger Zone, Weill/Brecht's Mack The Knife, Eminem's Lose Yourself and Alice Cooper's, School's Out, sung by the cast, along with plenty of 'seventies/eighties hit snippets also serve to provide momentum and further backdrop to each scene. And with Byrne's early British comedy influences guiding the script the humour is constantly paced, dangerously stereotypical and firmly tongue in cheek, while the messages regarding the actual seriousness of all failings within our schools are addressed up front and factually.

Top of the class! A+.

Steve Jones