So Mark Watson is now doing promenade theatre. Except he's not, really. Because Mark Watson's Hotel, might involve walking, it might involve location-specific set-pieces, it certainly disrupts the roles of audience and actors, but it certainly isn't promenade theatre. Perhaps, though, asking what this is isn't really the point here. It's what it does that makes this production unique.
Ostensibly a city centre hotel—albeit a very strange one—audience members, or "guests" are invited to explore the establishment's rooms, meet its staff, and experience its endemic troubles. Top of these troubles is Charlie Rowland, the owner-manager of the failing joint, and a mentally fragile alcoholic whose final breakdown is one of the scripted highlights of the performance. There's Vincent Fleet, the moustachioed fitness instructor who invites his charges to meditate on their own "wellness" alongside a techno backing track. There's Philipa, the masseuse who can't resist bitching about her ex, the spiritual guru next door. It's hard to know how to react as she tells me she's like a caged animal inside.
And that's exactly the point: disorientating, fun and wholly unconventional, Hotel is, quite simply, bonkers. There is, however, a quibble – a complaint to the manager, if you like. The form still needs a little bit of tweaking. Frustratingly, I wasn't able to see all of the rooms, missing out in particular on the cabaret act and the restaurant – both, one suspects, deliciously bad. The cast still need to work out the technicalities of allowing people to explore the building, while guiding them subtly between the set pieces.
But, in blurring the line between theatre and comedy, between what's real and fictional (all of the hotel's staff are well-known Fringe faces), between what's performance, interaction or museum-style observation, Mark Watson retains his place here as one of the Fringe's most brilliantly creative minds.
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