Dead Parrot Collective return to the Edinburgh Fringe for the third time with Wizards of Armillaria: The Death of Magic. As the title suggests, this year they’re parodying fantasy novels, and Table Top Roll Playing Games, of the likes of Dungeons & Dragons.
The performance opens strongly, with a song that sets out some facts about the planet we are on, and why it has three moons. This is well put together, both musically and in terms of the performance elements.
From here, we move to that quintessential of the fantasy genre, a tavern scene. As is usual with Dead Parrot, the sets are rough and ready, but still show an impressive level of realisation for a fringe budget, and the constraints of a very short show change-over period. The costumes though are excellent.
We learn that the Prince of the realm is missing, presumed kidnapped by the Druid, Leaf. Of course, he’s actually run away, from royal politics that he disagrees with. In subsequent scenes, we meet the various characters who will appear in the narrative.
The characters have been blessed with plenty of tropes to lean into. The King is wise – but cannot see that his assistant is manipulating him. The drunk in the tavern is not merely the owner of said tavern, but a high-ranking Illusion Mage.
Terrible names abound: The bard, whose job is to tell stories, is called Paige Turner. There’s a lot of silliness, and the cast are plainly having a riot of a time.
But possibly there is too much going on. Some plot points don’t seem to go anywhere, and the entire opening song doesn’t really seem to have much relevance to the rest of the show.
There’s also a lot of people, places and things with names that are types of mushrooms. The reason why isn’t clear, although it may be that the explanation was missed, in the barrage of scenes and songs.
We did see this show at the first performance, and so it overran by a fairly significant margin. This will almost certainly have been resolved by the end of the run, and no doubt some of the other rougher edges will have been smoothed off too. For the moment, this is a fun show, but somewhat confused in terms of the story being told.
An homage to, and pastiche of every TTRPG campaign ever devised, there is potential for this to be developed. However Dead Parrot need to decide how they want this show to evolve.
Currently this is fun for anyone who enjoys a pastiche of epic fantasy, but unfortunately, there’s too much plot for the show length, and a level of narrative disappointment because of that.
There are, occasionally, some interesting points made amongst the chaos. ‘There is much to learn in that which is not real’ is a rallying cry to why stories remain important, and why representation in fiction matters.
Go for the fun, the lovely costumes, and a company of actors having the time of their lives.
Wizards of Armillaria continues at 22:50, daily at The Studio at Paradise in Augustine’s until August 9
Featured Image courtesy of Edinburgh Fringe Society