Dublin fringe festival reviews

Cataplasia Back Loft @ the Cathedral

Daniel Vais and the LoveSpotters create happiness in Cataplasia. The performance evolved after Vais's time with Daghda Dance Company's mentoring programme, and he, along with Jeffery Gormley and a cast of 10 performers with disabilities, show little self-consciousness dancing to Tom O'Donnell's ever-changing sounds. The beauty rests in the different movement qualities: one man creates his own style of Celtic, Baroque and hip-hop, then a woman steps in, moving with the lightness of a butterfly. Another performs an engaging solo almost solely with his hands, and the whole time we are invited into the living room-like space, treated to drinks and snacks. The movement was engaging, although the ending would have been more powerful with the kind of structured choreography performed earlier in the night. - Christie Taylor

Decay Unlimited Mill Theatre

So this is what French existentialism has come to. Not that anyone's complaining - we all needed a bit of clownerie with our Camus. "It's better to laugh than to cry," declares a member of the threesome Théâtre de la Paupière at the beginning of the performance. "We're all going to rot - might as well do it in style." A series of extensive, absurd numbers follows, in which physical, musical and verbal humour combine to make us laugh at death, the great equaliser. Why wait until you're old and ugly, a female performer warbles, as another covers her face with a cloth so she resembles a singing corpse. A hand emerges from an urn to make rude gestures at the audience, a woman applies magically rejuvenating face cream with a steak, the actors perform hiphop in body bags. They won't go gently into that good night. (Until Sept 16)  - Christine Madden

Dreamers O'Reilly Theatre

Forever dancing, the Lombard twins have followed their dream from the streets of Buenos Aires via Hollywood to a wet September night in Dublin. In a script straight from Smash Hits! they body-pop and tap their way past mean immigration officers, into agents' offices and through near-starvation in New York. Luckily Versace offers them a modelling contract (obviously attracted by the bony look) but a trip to Buenos Aires during the economic and political meltdown in 2001 lands them at the bottom of the food pyramid again. In the midst of rioting, the pair teach themselves how to compose, and these soppy keyboard doodles underpin a final lecture on following our dreams and a dedication to their mother. Cringingly naive and devoid of irony, only the well-danced tap sequences maintain interest, although screamy teenies would probably add another couple of stars. (Until Sept 16) - Michael Seaver

Experience  Mill Theatre

Triste music, several silent, forlorn people in trenchcoats lugging suitcases across the stage, and you think you're in for an existential, Beckettian experience, but oh no. Action explodes onto the stage with a bevy of energetic performers in a simulation of airport bustle. The thread of fevered intercultural migration within Europe snakes through a production of circus acrobatics, physical and lyrical theatre by numerous young performers from Ireland, Latvia, Germany and the UK. Their physicality, enthusiasm, charm and often sophisticated humour come together in a highly entertaining and optimistic piece about embracing our differences in a new Europe. And this Young Fringe production - miraculously achieved in 21 days - tramples the blueprint of American high-school TV and film quasi-dramas into the dust. The only thing bad about it is the short run - only two days. - Christine Madden

Laura Izibor Spiegeltent

The relentless rain might have dampened the audience's spirits, but within minutes of 18-year-old soul singer Izibor taking the stage, the atmosphere turned rather steamy. With her afro bouncing behind the piano and her stunning voice filling the Spiegeltent, Izibor seems to be channelling Aretha Franklin or Alicia Keys. All the more surprising, then, when she speaks in a broad Dublin accent, all brassy good humour and easy charm. Such is her confidence, it's a struggle to believe she's still a teenager. Occasionally her vocals are too breathy, particularly on a cover of Killing Me Softly, but her own songs sounded like bygone classics, and her cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy was inspired. While the market is crowded with excellent soulful female singers already, expect Izibor to make an impact on their ranks soon. - Davin O'Dwyer

Noise Bewley's Café Theatre

Iconic sleeves from albums by John Coltrane and Dexter Gordon hang over the set of this ambitious production by Painted Filly Theatre in which a young female journalist seeks to discover the circumstances surrounding the sudden death of a Chicagoan jazz drummer. Is Nicholas Johnson, the author, striving to emulate the careering, inventive flourishes of those musicians? Perhaps he hopes some of their timeless cool will rub off on the action. Sadly, neither supposed ambition is fulfilled. There are good performances here - Jason Nelson offers up rough, beery charisma as one bereaved buddy; Devon Jackson is sharp and intense as another - but the dialogue has neither the zing of poetry nor the easy flow of common speech, and the central mystery is too obscure to care about. Still, followed as it is by a set from a fine quartet, the evening certainly offers value for money. (Until Sept 16) - Donald Clarke