Edinburgh Fringe 2019

Just back from a long weekend up at the Edinburgh Fringe. Lovely place to stay in Marchmont with a nice walk across the Meadows each morning, and a nice walk back from Summerhall in the evenings. Similar quality of shows to last time, but nothing that was really really standout (or that bad either). Interestingly we didn’t see a single show that was primarily about the scripted English interaction between two or more human actors!

Feast**1/2 - Summerhall
A bit of an oddity as the actor covered herself in milk and earth and then food. Not sure what it was really all about.

Boulder**** - Pleasance
A puppet take on the Sisyphus myth with a poor puppet trying to push a boulder up a hill. Really nicely done with innovative staging, two scales of the puppet (and boulder) and very well delivered music and songs.

Manual Cinema’s Frankenstein **** - Underbelly
We saw Manual Cinema a couple of years ago. It was a great show then and still great this time. What was interesting was how they’d broadened on the original pure OHP/silhouette model to include both more live action silhouette, silent-move style real video, and a bit of puppetry. They framed the whole story in the death of Mary Shelly’s baby and how Frankenstein was partly a wish to bring her back to life.

Three Deaths of Ebony Black **** - Underbelly
More puppets but a totally different style with a minute venue and two engaging performers and handfuls of cup-head type puppets and the story of Ebony Black told with wit and humour.

1927’s Roots **** - Edinburgh International Festival
We first saw 1927 in one of the dank dark arches of the original Underbelly over a decade ago. It was a wonderful performance then, mixing film and live action in a way that was close to the great Forkbeard Fantasy. The new show didn’t stray far from those routes being a compilation of folk tales portrayed by simple but elegant black and white drawings projected onto a screen from which the actors faces would appear strategically placed to match with the characters and action, or occasionally in front of the screen. The same technical craft and whimsical delivery as ever.

Ontroerend Goed’s Are we not drawn onward to new erA ****1/2 – Zoo Southside

+++ SPOILERS +++

Considering the climate crisis and the question of whether we can reverse what we have done this was a real tour-de-force. Beginning with what looks like an Eve-and-the-apple scene at first you can’t work out if their speaking Flemish, Dutch or something else. They’re moving oddly too. Then it dawns on you (helped by the palindromic title) that they are speaking and acting backwards. As the story plays out (backwards) the apple is eaten, the tree destroyed, bags of rubbish fall from the sky and are scattered about, and final a big golden statue erected. With echoes of Red Dwarf’s classic Backwards episode I was trying to construct the forward narrative and to translate the words (I think I only succeeded with Yes and Sorry). I’d been hoping they might play it forward but didn’t think they dare/do it, but sure enough as the acting ended a screen came down one of the actors struggled into forward speech and then a video played of the whole of the first half reversed, so they story plays out “normally”, with strangely distorted human speech and movement, the statue being destroyed, the litter picked up, the tree planted, and yes, the apple regurgitated and placed back on the tree. Wonderful, and the sheer skill needed to construct it and act it out unbelievable.

Fishbowl **** - Pleasance
We went along purely on the basis of the flyer, but the fact that it was booked into the Grand should have suggested something impressive. The stage is 3 small bedsits, occupied by smart and clean guy, scruffy guy, and newly arrived bohemian girl. The whole performance is then like a modern silent movie following their dramas and escapades as neighbours and more. Crammed full of sight gags and a real stunner of a finale it was a great piece of (French) entertainment which really ought to tour every town and city in the land to show people just how accessible and fun modern theatre can be.

Trying It On **** - Traverse
We saw David Edgar’s play at the MAC in Birmingham last autumn, so it was interesting to see how he’d changed it for the run at the Traverse. The most notable change was giving Dani, the stage manager, a bigger role and how there seemed to be a more explicit handover of the torch for radical (left) campaigning from the older to the younger generation.

Sh!t Theatre’s Drink Rum with Expats **** - Summerhall
A fun and thought provoking piece from Sh!t Theatre’s two actors about their trips to Malta to create and put on a piece at “The Pub” – expat hangout and death place of Oliver Reed – as part of the City of Culture celebrations. After an exploration of the pub’s many characters the piece turns to consider the issues of refugees, those rescued, turned away and who die, and the “golden passports” scandal and the murder of journalist Daphne Galizia. The free beer, for the lucky few some rum, some crowd surfing, great story-telling, life jackets, a dinghy and a dog all made for a very entertaining but thoughtful night.

Mariner’s Tale *** - Paradise
Some nicely delivered story telling weaving family and loss, the Argonauts and a spell on a round-the-world yacht expedition that could have benefited from a clearer structure and aim, and some tighter prose.

CSI:Improvisation ***1/2 – Underbelly
One of the many improvised dramas/musicals on the Fringe, this one based around who-dun-its (and not really anything to do with the CSI franchise. We had the audience selected tale of the murder of Leah Unlucki, a school dinner-lady, by a piccolo. Delivered with gusto and lots of in-jokes developing along the way, a good hours entertainment.

A few things we missed but might hopefully see on tour:

• She Sells Sea Shells about palaeontologist Mary Anning
• Wireless Operator about bombing missions in WW2 with the actor hanging in space as though laid on in the nose of the bomber
• Medea Electronica – “smash hit gig theatre”

Edinburgh Fringe 2013

Just back from this year's long weekend at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Not a classic, but some good shows in there - 16 in 3 days (and a couple of bits), not including the cafe. We got a a lot more different venues, some we hadn't been to before and hardly spent any time at the Pleasance (when previously we've spent almost whole days there). We also found it harder to work out what the "must-sees" were - perhaps because we normally go at the end of the festival when all the reviews and awards are out. None of our Festival faves (NIE, SpyMonkey etc) were there either to structure our schedule around. Also we saw hardly any posters for the shows we did see, adding to the feeling of being just a bit more in the dark.

Here's the shows in order:

Friday

Death By Murder* - We took a chance at using the half-price hut for our first night, just off the train seeing it was nearby. We go what we paid for. Sort of improvised comedy but not very well done and some pretty amateur acting. One of the cast played the inspector and had to work out who the murder was, but it just didn't really work and wasn't that well done.

Saturday

Pussyfooting**** - Nice drama piece by a young theatre group we know via contacts in Birmingham. The neatest thing was the use of blackboards of all sizes to represent the set and props with drawings being hastily drawn as the play went on. Well acted and not a bad script around a fun plot about people's feet taking them over.

Seven Ages**** - flyered whilst buying tickets at the Fringe Ticket Office (saving us 90p a ticket vs iPad app purchases). 7 linked scenes about the 7 ages of pan, told and acted with wit and charm by Kevin Tomlinson, some with audience suggestions. Funniest was the "one word at a time" Clue style section with his assistant who couldn't remember that R came after E for the Queens initials, or that it was Great Britain and Northern Ireland (not ... and Scotland!).

Ballad of the Burning Star*** - history of modern Israel told Cabaret style complete with Drag Queen and gold spandex shorted Starlets. The Guardian had given in 5 stars but it just didn't really hold together. The play we say a few years ago consisting of monologues of cafe patrons each of whom gets blown up in turn as the end of their piece was far better.

Solfatara**** - Another that we'd been alerted to from friends in Birmingham, this time a Barecelonan production, in Spanish but with English subtitles. But it soon became apparent that the subtitle were part of the act as Annie-Hall style they started giving voice to the inner thoughts of the main characters (and even of the subtitler). The set-up was that a character in a mask (so very/only expressive eyes and mouth became the (evil) inner voice of the main character as the relationship between him and his wife went through volcanic (hence Sulfatara) outbursts. Really well done, really accessible, very nice piece.

Boredom***1/2 - Earlier in the day in search of a coffee we'd gone into Hunt & Darton's pop-up cafe just up from the Pleasance - without realising that it was actually an "event" - with Hunt & Darton curating a different ambience each day - today being "community" so we found ourselves at a large table doing a puzzle with a group of Australians. Really nice ambience and as good as many a show. SO in the evening we took in their Boredom show, which was prefaced by the two of them sat po-face saying "This is Hunt & Darton's show about boredom - good luck" and then proceeded with a variety of dead pan monologues, sketches, slideshows of food, a collection of model pigs and so. Well done and very amusing in a very dry way. Giving it **** would probably be wrong in principle, it wasn't meant to be that exciting. But **** for the cafe.

Sunday

Voluntary Departure **** - Woefully poorly attended black comedy in a very small venue, it was nice to see a piece by more mature performers just acting their hear out - the woman in particular in this two hander was superb, the script really tight, sharp - just delivering that with a solid hour on stage at a brisk pace and some really wonderful wordplay was stunning. The plot was about a voluntary euthenasia clinic in a future state, the clinician advising the client how to die, and finding out why he wants to die. There was a 1984 watching security eye, and constant references to "our leader" - which for some reason kept making me think of Alex Salmond and a future Scotland. The the ending could perhaps have had a bit of a better build up, but overall really good.

High Plains **** - Really good simple (ghost) story of the modern American west told by a battered friendly drunk. Very simple, very effective.

Inspector Norse **** - Subtitled "The Girl with Two Screws Left Over" this was a wonderful mix of The Killing, Abba and the Ikea catalogue. A two hander from two mature women (Lip Service Theatre) and a set (and props) made almost entirely of wool. Just very silly but very good, highlights being the crisp-bread foleying of walking through snow and the woollen animal roadkills piling up on the front of the car. From the web site it looks like they make a serial habit of such popular culture send ups - must try and catch them again.

Humans Inc. A Sci-Fi Epic on Stage from anthony springall on Vimeo.

Humans Inc - ***1/2 - Every year I try and see something SF related, but am usually disappointed. Is it that people try too hard with Star Trek style sets, or that the plots are too cliched, or that the subject matter just doesnt attract good or inventive actors. Humans Inc almost broke the mould, but not quite - and a cavernous venue populated by a handful of SF geeks didn't help. The staging was really good, handheld LED frameworks for flying spaceships (or bits off), (real) lasers cutting through the smoke, white handheld screens being used almost balletically (?) to creating moving corridors, lifts and housings. It's just the plot was far too cliched and the acting (particularly from the lead) far too variable.

The Colour Ham - ***1/2 - Sketch and magic show delivered by three guys who were in perpetual giggles about what they were doing - some deserved some not. Well done but just a bit too much audience volunteer humiliation for my liking but they did appear to get their come-uppence when one volunteer turned out to be the neighbour of one of the performers and she had no idea what he did for a living!

Monday

Domestic Science **** - We made a conscious decision to see a bit more on the Free Fringe this year (having seen and enjoyed Austentatious last year), and along with the half-price hut on the first night, and generally lower ticket prices (earlier in the festival, not all weekend/bank holiday) we probably averaged a lot less per ticket than previously (despite still donating about £7 a head for the free shows we saw). This was a really good science show, lots of simple demos/experiments with household objects, smart and funny delivery, and a highlight of my wife being dressed up as the Hubble Space Telescope (image available on request!)

School of Night's Spontaneous Shakespeare **** - Jo saw this last year and really liked it. Four real "thesps" improvising around Shakespeare (and Chaucer), with some wonderful "study notes" style interjections to take the play in challenging directions. Great fun and well worth seeing again next year.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn ***** - You know that you've finally reached the real Fringe when you walk into a venue and wonder if a) you're in the right place and b) if you are whether you ought to turn right round and head back out. The WhyNot venue was a dark basement bar, the clientele sat on a motley collection of chairs and bar stools, and was dressed in a variety of fashions from punk to goth - Deb and I were initially the oldest people there - and certainly the straightest. But the guys with aviators googles on their hats, and the girl with a set of golden wings gave it away - this was steampunk and where we should be. From the description it had sounded the most like the wonderful grunge Beowulf we saw 2 years ago - and I wasn't disappointed. The Mechanisms do what can only be described as steam punk folk/blues music story telling, and do it incredibly well. The band members had their own be-costumed steampunk personas, a highly charismatic leader (first mate!) to propel the whole drama, and an audience (with no small number of devoted followers) which was rapt. This is what I come to the Fringe for. And of course interestingly despite the classical references of the plot it was SF, and well done steam punk SF.

Baby Wants Candy **** - Whereas as Ulysses was gritty this was slick and a bit manufactured - but great fun. Improvised musical, by a US group, in this case Oh Brothel Where Are Thou. The best bit was the rest of the cast trying to keep it together when the plot went off in a completely unexpected direction involving a Narwal horn and a toenail!

Tuesday

Aaand Now for Something Completely Improvised **** - We'd wanted to see this earlier but it had sold out, but decided we could just about fit it in before the train. Well worth it. Probably felt the most "improvised" of all the improv we saw (more than previous years), cant say it was "pythonesque" in the way described in the brochure (apart from one interjection), but again the fun was in watching in how other cast members dealt with the evolving plot and trying to keep straight faces. The two most glorious moments were one actor (supposedly with bird tendencies) regurgitating an opal fruit into the mouth of another, and one actors own mobile phone going off repeatedly - as the other actor said to him - "we'd have shamed an audience member mercilously for that", the miscreant got off lightly!

***Imported from old blog***