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Review of UoN Fringe 2019: Adventurers Wanted! by Do Or Dice Theatre at The Platform Club, Northampton

Back in the eighties, I used to read quite a lot of Choose Your Adventure books from the likes of Livingstone and Jackson, so, I was vaguely aware of the health, agility and whatever points as I came to this intriguing, and genuinely extremely different, Fringe Festival performance. The difference here from those books was this used the action and live a competitive diced variety of play, and this you have to think a little more on your feet and quicker at than sitting in bed reading.

However, I was surrounded by non-experts anyway, so, as I took my Dragonborn form into the basement of The Platform, with helmet fitting badly over my glasses and on my giant, mostly empty head, I and the others relied on our guardian like guide (think Treguard but friendlier, for those old enough to get the reference), Liam Bottazzi. He is a jovial chap, all willing to guide us, but also as the gamesmaster, kill us if we step out of line.

Our assembled gang decided in our path to steal a crystal to stick together, glued together as a cluster trying to get on the same square mostly, it is as it turned out a tactic that worked, like lightning, flames and my devasting insult ability helped win the day, even if it was akin to "you fight like a dairy farmer" (another reference certain people will get) mockery.

Bottazzi is a good companion for a performance like this, friendly, fun, full of character and silly voices. Able to work the audience, here the game players, with ease. It all oddly works in the most surreal way you can imagine, and perhaps at times, you can see the appeal of this game among a whole group of people who actually know what they are doing from the outset, unlike us.

Adventurers Wanted! is not really a theatre play, but then, often the point of the Fringe is to give you something different, and in that respect, this is very different. However, the point is to be entertaining and intriguing, and there is no question that for 45 minutes we grown-up were having fun, and maybe in an often heavy collection of plays, that is no bad thing. Also no one died and we got the crystal! Win!

Performance viewed: Tuesday 30th April 2019

The Fringe Festival 2019 runs until Sunday 5th May 2019 at The Platform Club Northampton, and one show at Hazelrigg House.

Details here: Fringe Festival 2019

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