Review by Steve Bennett

Unusual venues always create a buzz at the Fringe, but sadly the fact Foiled takes place in a real hairdresser’s is probably the most interesting thing about this mediocre sitcommy show.

Central character Sabrina, played by Beth Granville, has some comic promise: a lazy manageress running the Cardiff salon funded by her father, despite hating customers and preferring to dance around to Beyonce and plan the next karaoke night. Yet somehow she believes that one day she’ll be the stylist to the stars.

Her entire ‘team’ – and she amusingly uses that as a term of address – comprises Tanisha, a doormat of a character who’s saving to set up on her own; and there’s not much more to her character than that, though Stephanie Saidathan brings a sweet optimism to the role.

Granville, too, makes Sabrina more likeable than her selfishness and exaggerated irritating traits would suggest, again adding to the charm to the production.

The problem is the script, which Granville wrote with David Charles. It’s a flaccid storyline with characters often just shooting the breeze, with a sense of jeopardy only injected late on via one of several credibility-stretching incidents that goes against the broadly realistic tone of the pieces. And even this, it is summarily introduced and resolved. There’s little sense that the desires of the characters are driving the story or their flaws causing their downfall which is so crucial to comic narrative.

Several elements need a severe cut. There’s a strand about the salon being rigged with the owner’s CCTV cameras that contributes nothing but a feeling of ‘why?’; and Sabrina is portrayed as a believer in all sorts of horoscope/aura-reading mumbo-jumbo – and at one point gets out a oijua board, though who she’s trying to contact isn’t clear – which again has no role in the story.

You might forgive a lot of shortcomings if the gags were brilliantly funny, but they tend to be just mildly amusing, the sort of gentle banter of one of Radio 4’s less distinctive afternoon plays. The whole hour-plus is predicated on the hilarity of a bald man (Dominic Morgan) going to have his hair styled. That he turns out to be an actor going for an audition sparks Sabrina’s hopes of a celebrity clientele.

There are a few nice touches, such as the idea of a salon review site called Clip Advisor, especially given how much hairdressers love a pun, and it’s testament to the performers that the hour has a feelgood vibe, regardless of the lightweight script with no substantial driving force.

Review date: 10 Aug 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Ruby Rouge