Napoleon’s 100 Days
★★☆☆☆ Basic
Paradise in the Vault (Venue 29): Sat 3 – Sat 17 Aug 2024
Review by Allan Wilson
Napoleon’s 100 Days is a comic telling of Napoleon’s epic escape from captivity on the island of Elba, performed by its writer and producer Andy D (for Dickinson) at Paradise in the Vault for the first two weeks of the Fringe.
Dickenson covers the time from when Napoleon became bored with upsetting the locals by howling at the moon, and the 100 days (actually 111) it took him to gather an army and lead it to ultimate defeat at Waterloo.
Andy D. Pic: Andy Dickenson.
Dickinson tells the story through the eyes of Stanley, a rifleman from Manchester who somehow found himself in Napoleon’s Army invading Russia in 1812, accompanied by his dog, Fido, and remained a loyal soldier for the next three years.
Stanley becomes a close confident of Little Boney, though his advice is generally ignored. He provides such earthy commentary on Napoleon’s journey as: “The outcome for the Corsican was proper shabby”, as he sums up the retreat from Moscow.
Dickinson takes a basic stand-up approach to the story, using a single microphone on a stand, supported by occasional quotes from Napoleon projected onto a screen at the back of the screen. He plays both Napoleon and Stanley, with Fido represented by occasional yaps and barks from off-stage.
His Stanley is a simple Mancunian foot soldier, whose main concerns are food, sex and keeping warm.
circumstances
For Napoleon, Dickinson doffs a bicorne hat, adopts a sing-song intonation, exaggerated shoulder movements, and a form of Franglais, mixing words from both English and French in a clichéd style. There are lapses into the kind of French stereotype, better left in the British comedies of the 1960s and 70s from whence they came, with reference to frogs’ legs, garlic, snails and stripy t-shirts.
Additional insights into Napoleon’s personality are provide with a few of his quotations, projected onto the screen. “Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.”, “You don’t reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.” and “Circumstances – what are circumstances? I make circumstances.”
Sound Designer, Dominic Brennan must have enjoyed creating Fido’s voice as each intervention is different, expressing the dog’s likely feelings still appearing to be by the same dog.
Dickinson is clearly interested in the history of the Napoleonic Wars and researched his topic. But, sadly, what is presented as comedy just isn’t particularly funny.
Running time: One hour (no interval)
Paradise in the Vault (The Vault), 11 Merchant Street, EH1 2QD (Venue 29)
Saturday 3 – Saturday 17 August 2024
Daily (not Sun 11): 7.45pm.
Details and tickets: Book here
Website: www.andyd.co.uk/
Facebook: @AndyDComedy
Instagram: @andy_d_comedy
ENDS
