Lee Harvey Oswald – The Musical/ Edinburgh festival review

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LHO: Lee Harvey Oswald – The Musical produced by Evil Twins was very much an unknown quantity. Potentially very Fortean I was convinced it was either going to be a tour de force or the biggest pile of steaming foetid dingo’s kidney’s imaginable! I was sure there was to be no middle ground for this one.

And I was right. Firstly let’s be clear about this – the show (at Electric C venue ) uses live action and various projected images to get the message across and we do have the JFK assassination and all of the film associated with the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. I’ll be honest for some reason the JFK shooting seemed more shocking than I am used to and the film was not tampered with in any way.

I’m not a JFK buff per se so I cannot account for the veracity of every single fact but what we got was an investigation into the life of Oswald. A brief look at the history of the era he was brought up in as well as an overview of his life in the army and the reasons that drove him to Russia are all covered here. In song. It sounds like it shouldn’t work but it does. The three performers give excellent renditions and they have fine singing voices. Massive energy imbues the whole production as well as some inventive scripting and staging. As the play neared it’s end we are treated to the events that lead up to and indeed the aftermath of the shooting of JFK. We even see Zapruder filming events – and we see a lot more of that film than normal – the general scene setting is all included. And then after the shooting of Oswald we close with the final report of the Warren Commission. An excellent show which – on the night I saw it – did not have the size of audience it deserved. If that doesn’t change then I’m afraid that must be a conspiracy of more well know performers trying to keep the competition out.

http://www.forteantimes.com/exclusive/edinburgh2005.shtml