Flower-arranger Mig Kimpton says that “You will not see anything even remotely like this anywhere else on the Fringe.” Well, that’s true. But then he also says that the show is “an hour of flower fun’ – which I’d say is pushing it, mate.
The trouble with this show is nothing to do with its premise: watching top-notch “floral architects” (or whatever they like to be called nowadays) strutting their stuff is a sound enough idea. The blooms are staggeringly beautiful and the arrangements are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. No,
the problem lies much more in the personalities of the floral demonstrators themselves,
or more specifically in the tone of the “banter” they attempt to weave in and around the real substance of their art.
Alison Bradley, to be fair, at least has the decency to look uncomfortable at times, and is by far the more appealingly understated raconteur. Kimpton, however, sails around the stage martyring himself over all the terribly hard work he had to put in to prepare for the show, and how Assembly begged them to do all three weeks (but they could only afford to do five days), and how much he’s looking forward to getting back to London, and how crap the weather is and how difficult it is to
find Stirling on his sat-nav, etcetera etcetera.
I'm sure it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek but it just came over as irritating. On the plus side, however, they did pass a lovely David Austen rose around the audience for us to sniff, so cheers for that.
In short, I would urge these guys to take on a scriptwriter. The show isn't bad, after all, it just needs a little more thought with the patter. As it is, it's got some very nice flowers and some not-so-nice human beings. Plus ca change, then.