Kiddy-Fiddler on the Roof

Rocket @ Demarco Roxy Art House    31 July - 9 August, 11-16, 18-25 @ 22.00    The Bad Taste Ideas Factory

Well, the production company here lives up to its name -- just in the title alone. The show features a hard-working and mostly interesting motley crew of a cast, who are seriously hampered by the acoustics of the venue. It was very hard to hear the lyrics, but where one can hear, there are some interesting ideas. Nice ensemble work throughout and the piece certainly pleased its audience.

The narrative thread follows the ways in which hysteria grows over a young boy’s false accusation of paedophilia, and has much to say about the unsavoury places in which self-righteousness takes root. Rather disconcertingly, it finishes by spelling out the moral of the tale, but then gets the moral completely wrong (whoever said writers knew what they were writing about?!?). The proclaimed moral is that there a little ‘kiddy-fiddler’ in all of us, which is blatant nonsense. This is pretty neatly driven home by the overall likeability of the ‘strange’ characters here – a sexually hyperactive agony aunt who is supremely comfortable in her eccentric look, and a persistently supportive and empathetic ‘fat kid’ who manages to put the whole story right.