EDINBURGH 2010: BWW Reviews, DOCTOR FAUSTUS, C

When Mephistopheles tells the anguished Faustus: “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it”, it’s a fair bet he’s referring to Edinburgh’s annual descent into standing-room- only Fringe hell. If you’ve ever found yourself entertaining nightmarish visions of being bodily menaced by a demoniacal Prince Harry, prepare to be disturbed by Cambridge University ADC’s production of Marlowe’s play.

Toby Parker Rees as an arch Mephistopheles carries the show, seemingly acting using only his eyes and hair, and treading a thin line between cartoonish evil schoolboy and malevolent envoy of Lucifer. The grim atmosphere is leavened by comic scenes of Faustus beasting the Pope in slapstick fashion, and the intensity of the Doctor’s mental torment is broken by the hurly-burly of spirits making a foray into the audience to look for victims.

The tone is convincingly macabre, even if the chanting and convulsing spirits jostling Faustus do an excellent job of imitating the scene in Ghost when scary shadow demons drag Swayze- baiting thug Willy Lopez to hell. It’s a thought-provoking and spine-shivery alternative to spending your evening tormented by the ten thousand hells of queuing to get into a pub and selling your soul for a taxi.