Hand Island
By Daniel Buckley at 29 July, 2010, 8:20 am
Films may be all well and good but the C film festival at the Edinburgh Fringe is also bridging the digital divide by showing the first five episodes of new British webseries Hand Island.
When cowardly Colin (Alex Robinson) is mistaken for the new manager of an exclusive-but-sinister island, he quickly finds his life at risk from the island’s ‘Advisor’ – a stuffed toy tiger.
As he runs for his life across the island, he finds (and begins to fall for) fellow castaway Vinny (Bex James), while receiving help from the mysterious decoy duck obsessed ‘native’ (Katherine Ellen-Kotz) and idiot chauffeur Wade (pronounced ‘waar-day’ and played by Ash Parker, who also directs and co-writes).
Hand Island won’t win any awards for sophistication, but it is a genuinely funny sitcom somewhere in between the cultish charms of The Mighty Boosh and Max and Paddy’s Road to Nowhere, and represents an ambitious attempt to produce a series on a budget of virtually nothing.
Of course, this budget means that sometimes, you really can’t ignore that the main villain of the piece is stuffed tiger toy – but while this can to some extent be considered part of the joke, director Ash Parker has gone to such extraordinary lengths to often successfully make the tiger seem animate, that when it fails it just seems a bit of a shame.
Fortunately, the voicing and characterisation of the tiger are so much fun, you’re generally willing to let things slide – even when some of the actors’ comic timing is occasionally off as well.
Parker and co-writer Alex Robinson rely on a good story with likeable characters to keep the audience interested, making the first three episodes, which broadly form a single story arc, the most successful of the series so far. Episodes 4 and 5 lose a little pace, but are worth keeping up with for some amusing moments.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–
An episode of Hand Island will be screened every weekday from the 3rd to the 30th of August at C soco urban garden. The screenings are free to the public.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
C FILM FESTIVAL – Film at the Edinburgh Fringe, Thank You Skinhead Girl, Hip Hip Hooray, Knock Knock and The End of the Pier Show
Trackbacks & Pingbacks