| 15 August 2011
Benet Brandreth appears onstage like a Jilly Cooper hero sauntering into a chapter: looking disarmingly dashing and causing quite a stir.
The premise is that Brandreth, the debonair man about town whom world leaders and their royal highnesses have on speed dial, is bestowing upon the audience a selection of his finest vintage memoirs. With great suavity he tells how, after the collapse of his most ardent romance, he left Cambridge to pursue his destined place in Hollywood’s Hall of Fame. With his ex Jane never far from his mind, Brandreth’s career path becomes an epic quest to win back the fair maiden: battling off mythological monsters from the deep, conquering the White Cube and ICA, and single-handedly saving the nation from tyranny as he goes.
Peppered with erudite references throughout, it is clear that Brandreth is one of our nation’s most accomplished raconteurs. In the play his intellect sashays across Shakespeare, Goethe, Norse mythology, Greek mythology and even dabbles in some light trivia on our beloved Welsh songstress Dame Shirley Bassey. It comes as little surprise that Benet has twice been World Public Speaking Champion and, by day, is a highly successful barrister (God help his opposition).
Keeping up with him is half the joy of the production; the other half is the sheer delight of hearing such a grand and extravagant adventure itself. While the content of the Brandreth Papers is likely to alienate rather than attract all but the select few, with his tongue firmly in his chiseled cheeks and a twinkle in his eye this piece makes for an attractive prospect this Fringe.
The Brandreth Papers, Gilded Balloon, 3-29 Aug, 6.00 pm
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