David O'Doherty presents: Rory Sheridan's Tales of The Antarctica review

The D'OD is such a well-loved Fringe figure these days he could probably book in an hour of difficult contemporary dance and still have people queuing round the Underbelly. Thankfully Rory Sheridan's Tales of The Antarctica is anything but a vanity project, and the genial Irishman has crafted a splendid tale of tundra-based derring-do.

It's 1917 and young Rory Sheridan is a downtown boy in love with an uptown girl, a relationship doomed to flounder unless he can impress his beloved's father by staging a hazardous publicity stunt and thus saving their family business. This involves him trekking to the Arctic Circle with a party of ne'er-do-wells who have invariably been selected not for their seaman skills but to get them out of harm's way, hopefully for good.

The ensuing saga - told by Sheridan on his subsequent lecture tour - isn't as bewilderingly gag-packed as this year's must-see character show, Humphrey Kerr's Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher, and there are lengthy stretches of laugh-free narrative. O'Doherty is always watchable though, and the perma-infuriated sailor is a diverting departure from his usual affable onstage self.
Some splendid eccentrics cross Sheridan's path along the way, and while a slight tightening of the script wouldn't have gone amiss this is a thoroughly agreeable way to spend an afternoon. There's scope for a sequel too, and more Rory - and thus more O'Doherty - would be a welcome addition to next year's programme.

---

David O'Doherty presents: Rory Sheridan's Tales of The Antarctica listing