Justin Says:

Pro­fes­sor Otto Liden­brock dis­cov­ers a hid­den mes­sage that gives him direc­tions to the cen­tre of the Earth. Along the way, he encounter var­i­ous dan­gers and creatures.

Telling an epic sto­ry such as this clas­sic Jules Verne nov­el with­out words is dif­fi­cult (there is a voice-over to pro­vide a lit­tle nar­ra­tive detail). For­tu­nate­ly, per­former Robert Feetham is up for this task. His sound effects assist in telling the sto­ry — they are fun and yet pro­vide nec­es­sary clues as to which char­ac­ter or crea­ture Feetham is cur­rent­ly por­tray­ing. I also liked how the pro­fes­sor became more and more weary as the jour­ney con­tin­ues. But, when he sees the dinosaurs, his face is full of both awe and fear. This is a pret­ty good Fringe show that deserves much big­ger crowds than the few peo­ple who attend­ed Wednes­day night’s performance.

Kevin Says:

On first glance, a phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Jour­ney to the Cen­tre of the Earth might not seem to promise an hour of absorb­ing the­atre, espe­cial­ly for some­one like me who is not famil­iar with the nov­el, but this pro­duc­tion real­ly deliv­ers.

Robert Feetham is a gift­ed phys­i­cal actor and vocal­ist who uses no words in this fan­tas­ti­cal jour­ney. A voice-over helps pro­vide some lim­it­ed con­text, but main­ly Feetham’s expres­sive and flex­i­ble body tells the sto­ry. A bit more voice-over might have helped, but on the oth­er hand, the voice-over tends to take us out of the sto­ry, so per­haps the bal­ance is right.

I hope that actors and direc­tors who think they need lots of props, set pieces, and cos­tumes to tell their sto­ry take some notes from this pro­duc­tion. Jour­ney to the Cen­tre of the Earth deserves a much larg­er audi­ence than the 20 or so peo­ple who attend­ed on Thurs­day afternoon.