DVD Review: Peacock Season
Published: Friday 1st April 2011
Made on a ridiculously low budget of just £58, this film comedy from Alan Freestone and Fergus March attempts to capture the highs and lows of a typical Edinburgh Festival.
Having lost his job as an advertising executive after he unwittingly secures a deal for a condom company to sponsor a show about life in the Vatican, Keith Graham (James Wren) finds himself pushed into delivering a live stand-up show at the Festival by his pushy wife (Nina Conti). Despite lacking any comedic talent whatsoever, he is soon appearing on stage under the guise of "Johnny Bathroom". The next few weeks see him encountering a huge range of bizarre and sometimes disturbing situations and characters (the "cocks" of the city's "Peacock Season"). However, events soon put his marriage under severe strain.
Peacock Season features a large cast of Edinburgh regulars in virtually every role. Dan Antopolski, Brendon Burns, Scott Capurro, Rhys Darby, Justin Edwards, Pete Firman, Paul Foot, Richard Herring, Adam Hills, Kerry Howard, Sammy J, Matt Kirshen, Phil Nichol, Sara Pascoe, Lucy Porter, Reece Shearsmith, Isy Suttie and Glenn Wool are amongst the faces that Edinburgh devotees are likely to recognise. Whilst some others will perhaps be unknown to the general public there's so much burgeoning talent here that the cast list undoubtedly includes some very big names of the future.
Despite this, the film (like Annie Griffin's 2005 film Festival) is very much a warts and all portrait of the event, one character describing Edinburgh performers as "a bunch of self aggrandising mummy's boys who haven't yet realised affirmation isn't the same thing as love."
Undeniably rough round the edges, not all of Peacock Season's failings are down to its low budget. The direction's often a bit self-indulgent, a few scenes should have been cut and while generally droll the film's rarely out-and-out hilarious.
But regardless of whether you enjoy talent spotting, fancy an hour of undemanding comedy or just want to get yourself in the festival mood, Peacock Season fits the bill.
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