Adam Riches: The Captain review – the extraordinary glory of a ‘half man, half fish’ Victorian hero
Summerhall, Edinburgh An endurance test for a standup already starring in a fringe hit, this show resurrects the man who drilled the first ever cross-Channel swimmer‘Who are these people that...
By Brian Logan · The Guardian Culture
Summerhall, Edinburgh An endurance test for a standup already starring in a fringe hit, this show resurrects the man who drilled the first ever cross-Channel swimmer ‘Who are these people that do what [the rest of us] cannot?” Adam Riches ’ solo play The Captain teases at the daredevil spirit, incarnate here in Capt Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel unaided. Riches plays Fred Beckwith, a swimming coach who trains the young Webb for his tilt at greatness. The show takes the form of a lecture-cum-eulogy to the “half man, half fish” Webb, whose body lies under a shroud on a table in the apt surroundings of Summerhall’s Anatomy theatre. A comedian by trade, Riches offers up a version of the true story here that’s as funny as his comedy elsewhere on the fringe, The Critic’s Way . The gentle sendup of Victorian values is droll. The swimming workshops and cheerleading of Webb’s channel crossing, to which the audience is co-opted with gusto (this is an Adam Riches show, after all), are stirring good fun. And there’s a real relish for the story’s bizarre details – such as Beckwith’s “mystical fifth swimming technique”, the sidestroke. Or the American rival to Webb who completes the crossing before him, albeit in a rubber suit that strongly resembles a boat. Continue reading...