“When you peel the skin off Paris’s back, ugliness is brought to the surface”. I paraphrase, since I was too busy drying my eyes to remember the precise words. Pip Utton’s one-man performance is a rare and beautiful confessional in which, after 200 years of oppression, Quasimodo is given a voice more powerful than the bells of Notre-Dame. Esmeralda lies upstage, a noose curled around her neck, as the character viewed as half-human, half-beast tells us of his suffering at the hands of a seemingly perfect people. Utton’s delivery is painfully authentic, drawing attention away from his deformities and onto our own moral imperfections. Under Quasimodo’s hump is a universal outcast begging for acceptance; under Utton’s costume stands a national treasure.

New Town Theatre, 4 – 28 Aug (not 16), 6.00pm (7.00pm), £7.00 – £10.00, fpp288.
tw rating 5/5
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