‘Who are these people that do what [the rest of us] cannot?” Adam Riches’ solo play The Captain teases at the daredevil spirit, incarnate here in Capt Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the Channel unaided. Riches plays Fred Beckwith, a swimming coach who trains the young Webb for his tilt at greatness. The show takes the form of a lecture-cum-eulogy to the “half man, half fish” Webb, whose body lies under a shroud on a table in the apt surroundings of Summerhall’s Anatomy theatre.
A comedian by trade, Riches offers up a version of the true story here that’s as funny as his comedy elsewhere on the fringe, The Critic’s Way. The gentle sendup of Victorian values is droll. The swimming workshops and cheerleading of Webb’s channel crossing, to which the audience is co-opted with gusto (this is an Adam Riches show, after all), are stirring good fun. And there’s a real relish for the story’s bizarre details – such as Beckwith’s “mystical fifth swimming technique”, the sidestroke. Or the American rival to Webb who completes the crossing before him, albeit in a rubber suit that strongly resembles a boat.
