Tonight is the last night of Edward Rapley at the Exeter Fringe. The first festival where he has showed his first and 2nd show of the trilogy in succession. And by the sounds of it, it has gone down a storm....

"An ode to Ed Rapley

Thursday 3rd until Friday 5th December @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

‘Have you ever felt like you can’t be bothered?’ asks Bristol based performer Ed Rapley at the beginning of his one-man show, The Middle Bit. He continues to open his show with similar questions that directly address the audience as they scan through their own brains identifying times when they have felt something similar.

Theatrically he is naked. With an empty space and minimal props, Rapley is able to really engage with his audience quite personally as he successfully blends stand-up comedy with role-play. It is the sex scene which unwraps quite humorously and reels in the biggest laughs from his excited crowd as he harps back to his own memories using repetition and imagery. A chair replaces the girl he recollects and Rapley bravely delivers a sex scene to be proud of.

His stage presence is both warm and charming and his ability to successfully exercise his acting muscles by moving in and out of different characters is entertaining. One particularly is the international charm of Hugo who is both his friend and enemy. He is everything Rapley wishes he could be and by performing him I guess there is a kind of solace in that. By using theatre as therapy, Rapley can truly bond with his audience and his comic timing keeps him away from any self-pitying moans his depressing agenda might trip up on.

The Middle Bit is, as any exorcism should be, quick and satisfying (a bit like the chair scene). Rapley sets out in an attempt to extinguish his fiery demons an adventure into the ghouls of his own mind set and as the performance closes, the demons might not be gone but they are a little less in control of him as they were before. How do we know this? Well he was bothered to write the play and he continued to be bothered to perform it.

A witty insight into the traumas of the individual, The Middle Bit is the second part of a self-help trilogy. Keep your pearls peeled for 10 Ways To Die On Stage and Who Knows Where (he will go next).

www.edwardrapley.co.uk

Kayleigh Cassidy

Edward Rapley's 10 Ways to Die on Stage sold out in the double bill with Jos Houben at the Basement during the Brighton Festival this year.

Here is the review from Total Theatre 

Edward Rapley
10 Ways to Die On Stage
The Basement
18 May 2011

The alternative versions of Edward Rapley's one man show-wrapped-within-a-show eventually prove his point. 'It will get worse,' he says. And it does: the salt water that at first was just on the unpleasant side is heavingly undrinkable later, with half a kilo of salt in it, so when he does drink it, in an entirely consistent act of self punishment, it has the great comedy and pathos combined. Later, he performs three dances that encapsulate the show so far, each an increasingly minimalist version of the other, until the last is almost purely a dance of the eyes and eyebrows except for the delicately gauged grimaces of the mouth that tell you his salt ordeal is due to take place again.

The show operates through quite gentle, subtle physical comedy most of the time, carefully constructed, with a cogent rationale. It is sometimes hugely funny. One of his confessions is: 'I am sorry for threatening you with a knife… while our parents were out.' The comedy lies in the pause – is this something terrible and horrible emerging? – that leads to an out-loud guffaw when we realise this is one of those classic childhood moments.

Physically Rapley delivers – a fine balance in movement and sculpted pose, studied diffidence plunging into needy excess, a nice corporeal meshing of the idea that dying onstage is a great metaphor for failing in life. It maybe lacks pace in the middle to end but many of the 'scenes' are nicely judged, like the five things not to do if you want to be happy, delivered with both poignancy and great comic timing.

Bill Parslow

Catch 10 ways to die on stage during Exeter Fringe at the Bike Shed Theatre next week.

It is playing the 25-27th and you can buy tickets through the Exeter Phoenix box office http://www.exeterphoenix.org.uk/ Phone 01392667080

Edward Rapley – 10 Ways to Die on Stage

Review

“If you are in Oxford tonight, don’t miss the fabulous Edward Rapley presenting a revised and longer version of his brilliant one-man show. 10 ways to die onstage will be showing as part of tonight’s Jumble it Up programme in the Burton Taylor Studios. In the version of this show that I saw, Rapley had appropriated, revised and contemporised the idea of the clown to brilliant effect. Rapley’s stage persona blew up balloons, tipped water on himself, ragged with the audience and threatened to jump off a ladder into a tiny little blow-up children’s paddling pool. When I saw '10 ways to Die on Stage' this wild-haired actor performed the show I saw in plain t-shirt and jeans with no red nose, and yet was the most sincere and accomplished ‘fool‘ I have ever seen performing live.

Lively and versatile, Rapley flips between joy and dejection rapidly and skillfully and the effect is intensely engaging and intimate. The line between auto-biography and devised theatre performance seem blurred and the confessional, actor-bares-all quality in the work is totally convincing. The only thing that makes me think it is devised rather than completely improvised, is the evident skill in the timing and the imagery used throughout the work. In this piece we are subjected to the nervous ramblings of a terrified actor, the tragicomedy of a balloon being blown up and deflated to great emotional effect, the impishness of Rapley threatening to pour water on the expensive electrical equipment surrounding the stage and many other spectacles that are funny, discomforting and sometimes terribly sad. Rapley’s emotional navigations only feel tricky or awkward when that is intended; which makes for paradoxically uncomfortable and comforting viewing. It is comforting to be sheltered in the dark, anonymous audience and not up on the stage, and yet uncomfortable to empathise (as one inevitably does) with the somehow terribly naked portrait of flawed, fragile humanity presented before us. The lone figure on the stage is an isolated yet triumphant figure, embodying perhaps that defiant spirit of humour which I described in yesterday’s post. The control and timing throughout the show is excellent and Rapley himself is utterly engaging to watch. A redemptive show; you will laugh until you cry and will feel more human somehow after seeing this man apparently lays wide his great clown heart before you.

I loved it and am sad that I won’t be able to make it along myself for a second round of Rapley.”

April 2008

by THE DOMESTIC SOUNDSCAPE

http://thedomesticsoundscape.com

10 Ways to Die on Stage

is at Postcard Festival at Jackson's Lane - the 9th of July 

http://www.jacksonslane.org.uk/#/16

So this week you can see Edward Rapley with his solo show 10 Ways to Die on Stage at Brighton Festival. 

Here's Ten Questions:

NAME: Edward Rapley

Company: -

Hello!

1. How would you describe yourself?

In the best possible light. 

2. What's your connection to Ausform?

Ausform has helped me develop my work. 

3. What do you do? & Why do you do what you do?  

I work on stage because it is the only thing I think is important. 

4. What is the show you always become reminded of/remember the most? 

A performance by Leo Bassi that I never saw. My idea of it contains play and rebellion. 

5. What are you most proud of in your career?

My solo performances. All of them. Im most proud of them because they are my art. 

6. If your birth was generated by ideas rather than genes - who would be your mother? and who would be your father?

Marcel Duchamps is my mother and Andy Kauffman is my father. 

7. what is the wierdest gig/job you have turned up/been asked to do?

stiltwalking at the conservative party conference

8. Who is the best person you have collaborated with?

Holly Stoppit. She's so great at facilitating creativity. She makes me feel really safe.

9. If a rich person gave a ridiculous amount of money and said "go on then, show us what art is all about!?" what would you make/do/create? 

I would give £10 000 to a hundred artists that I selected and tell them to use it for whatever they want. then I would collect stories of the audience responses and give them to the rich kid. 

Where are you going/doing next? / anything you would like to plug?

Postcard Festival at Jackson's Lane the 9th of July! Come see my and Bryony Kimmings in double bill! 

Website: www.edwardrapley.co.uk