Edinburgh Festival Guide
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Inside: Garry Starr Sarah Keyworth Baby Lame Dan Daw Tabby Lamb Sharon Kam Manual Cinema Dreamachine Lizard Boy
START YOUR ENGINES Jinkx Monsoon makes her Fringe debut 20 YEARS OF FEST
FEATURES
CITY GUIDE
VENUE MAP
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17 ‒ 24 Aug
⁄
14:45
→
Summerhall
Kvartetto by KATI RAATIKAINEN + TEAM
3 ‒ 28 Aug
⁄
16:15
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Summerhall
Receptionists by KALLO COLLECTIVE
3 ‒ 21 Aug
⁄
16:40
→
Assembly Rooms
Lion by CIRCO AEREO + MIMEXPLOSION
5 ‒ 20 Aug
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19:05
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ZOO Southside
Raging Mother by HANNA VAHTIKARI + MARZI NYMAN
5 ‒ 28 Aug
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20:40
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ZOO Southside
Johnny Got His Gun by ROSSI + HOLOPAINEN + RIIKONEN
FROM START TO FINNISH 32 ‒ 28 AUG 2022
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Director George Sully
CONNECT MUSIC FESTIVAL .COM
A DF CONCERTS PRESENTATION
FRIDAY 26 AUG
IDLES | Jon Hopkins John Grant Joesef
Optimo (Espacio) | Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler
Moses Boyd | Charlotte Adlgery & Bolis Pupul I. JORDAN | Future Utopia | LYRA | Maeve | Cloth | Hammer Jealous of the Birds | TAAHLIAH | LVRA | Pocket
SATURDAY 27 AUG
The Chemical Brothers Bonobo | The Twilight Sad Caribou | Ride
playing Nowhere
Holly Humberstone | Erol Alkan | Krystal Klear Chloe Moriondo | LOW | Matt Maltese | Willie J Healey NewDad | Swim School | Opus Kink | Dance System Nightwave | Push It | Nadia Summer B2B DIJA
SUNDAY 28 AUG
The National
Mogwai | Bombay Bicycle Club Little Simz
Idlewild playing The Remote Part | Self Esteem Black Country, New Road | Horse Meat Disco
Admiral Fallow | Sudan Archives | Sam Gellaitry Jamz Supernova | DEHD | Rae Morris | Rachel Chinouriri Hamish Hawk | Lizzie Reid | Barry Can’t Swim Rebecca Vasmant | Geese | Kathleen Frances | Karma Kid
26 – 28 AUGUST 2022 ROYAL HIGHLAND CENTRE SHOWGROUNDS, EDINBURGH
4
Editor Arusa Qureshi
Deputy Editor Ben Venables
Sales Team Tom McCarthy David Hammond Christian Gow
Design Team Phoebe Willison Dalila D’Amico
Writing Team Jenni Ajderian, Eilidh Akilade, Anahit Behrooz, Evan Beswick, Deborah Chu, Katie Goh, Katie Hawthorne, Becca Inglis, Laura Kressly, Tamara Mathias, Nicola Meighan, Jay Richardson, Claire Sawers, Peter Simpson, Kirstyn Smith Cover Image Magnus Hastings
Fringe Dog Illustration Lauren Hunter
Radge Media Editor-in-Chief Rosamund West Commercial Director Sandy Park
General Manager Laurie Presswood
Digital Editor Peter Simpson
Digital Editorial Assistant Lewis Robertson
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Contact festmag.com hello@festmag.com @festmag
Published by Radge Media Limited., M9 Codebase, Argyle House, 3 Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh, Scotland EH3 9DR. Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but we cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate. Show times and prices are subject to changes – always check with the venue. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by Think Solutions, Glasgow
Fest 2022 Preview
5 Contents
EE FR
2014 PREVIEW GUIDE
THIS IS
Tim Key AND THIS YEAR, HE’S GOING GRAND
8 It’s Jinkx Monsoon Season Drag Race royalty arrives at the Fringe
12 Fest turns 20 A look back at two decades of magazine memories
+
KIM NOBLE JIM DAVIDSON TOBY THOM TUCK & SIMON MUNNERY PAINES PLOUGH
EDINBURGH’S BIGGEST AND BEST FESTIVAL PREVIEW GUIDE Preview 2014.indd 1
21/07/2014 03:03
Comedy 31 A Zeus Cannon Garry Starr speaks about tackling all of Greek mythology in under 60 minutes
Theatre 45 A Breath of Fresh Airdrie David Keenan on adapting his novel This is Memorial Device
Cabaret and Variety 67 Cabaret for Everyone Aidan Sadler, Baby Lame and Eric Schmalenberger big up the genre
EIF 70 Taking Refuge Farah Saleh on A Wee Journey
Music 77 Sounding it Out Jess Williams, Kate Marlais, DJ Simonotron and Anna Meredith on music in theatre
Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus 83 Fever Pitch We talk about our planet with Penny Chivas and Debra Batton
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Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): José Alberto Guzmán Colón; Fest Magazine; Aaron Walker; Heather Leigh; Nik Pate; Mihaela Bodlovic; Gem Harris; Claudia Sangiorgi-Dalimore; Rebecca J Michelson
festmag.com
Editorial Arusa Qureshi
I
t’s near-impossible to think of a clever or succinct way to sum up the past two years, so I won’t try. Instead, I’ll defer to our cover star Jinkx Monsoon, who mused during our conversation: “Maybe we were all getting to a place where we were taking certain things for granted.” Looking back at August 2019 – the year of the last Edinburgh Festivalsproper – I think I might have been taking things for granted. As someone born and bred in this city, the Fringe and the wider Edinburgh Festivals have always been a constant in my life but their absence the following year was strange; a feeling mirrored more widely by loss – of culture, events, jobs and even people. This issue holds a great deal of meaning for the team, not just as our official welcome back to the Edinburgh Festivals in this 75th anniversary year, but also as a celebration of 20 years of Fest. I’m honoured to be part of the team for the first time, and to be following in the footsteps of former editor Evan Beswick. Obviously, we couldn’t just let him leave without a proper goodbye so we asked Evan to pen a love letter of sorts to this little magazine, where he recounts the good, the bad and the weird along the way. We’re also extremely grateful to our designers Phoebe and Dalila for their mammoth efforts in redesigning
6
Fest. What you’re holding in your hands right now is Fest 2.0 – doesn’t it look amazing?! Elsewhere in this preview issue, we catch up with Garry Starr about his new Greek mythology-inspired extravaganza and we also interrogate discussions around mental health and stand-up with Rich Hardisty, Sikisa and Chelsea Birkby. David Keenan, author of This Is Memorial Device, gives us a run down on the new Fringe and Book Festival adaptation of his cult-classic about “the best band you’ve never heard of”. And we meet Seattle actor and playwright Justin Huertas, who’s bringing his pop rock musical Lizard Boy to the UK for the first time. In conversations with clarinettist Sharon Kam, musician and composer Anna Meredith and choreographer Farah Saleh, we find out more about highlights across the International Festival. Plus, we delve into site-specific theatre, puppetry for kids, bombastic cabaret and so much more. Since 2019, a lot has happened and so many of us have experienced every emotion under the sun, ranging from waves of sadness through to huge bursts of joy. But against all odds, we’re back and we’re collectively ready to celebrate. In the words of the great Beyonce, “I can’t believe we made it, have you ever seen the crowd goin’ apeshit?”
Meet the Team
7 Meet the Team
We asked: What’s your weirdest Fringe experience?
George Sully Director “Shared a hot tub with a comedian, only to discover I’d be reviewing them later.”
Arusa Qureshi Editor “Betty Grumble gifting me a personalised print of her vagina.”
Ben Venables Deputy Editor “Being punched in the stomach while leaving a Daniel Kitson show.”
Phoebe Willison Lead Designer “The existential crisis that comes as a Glaswegian when realising Edinburgh isn’t actually that bad.”
Dalila D'Amico Production Manager “I drank a thousand beers and turned into a Fringe.”
Peter Simpson Digital Editor “Red Bastard chasing some old ladies around a free BBC showcase. Truly, he didn’t need to go that hard.”
Lewis Robertson Digital Editorial Assistant “Street magician somehow guessing what song I was listening to in my earphones. Still don’t know how he did it.”
Tom McCarthy Creative Projects Manager “I attended a press conference hosted by Basil Brush. You could clearly see his sad puppeteer squatting below the table.”
Sandy Park Commercial Director “Sitting on a cushion on the floor in one of the Pleasance Courtyard breakout areas, drinking a hip flask of Disaronno with two elderly gentlemen.”
Christian Gow Marketing and Commercial Assistant “When I was 12 going to see a play about a mole investigating who left their 'business' on his head.”
Rosamund West Editor-in-Chief “[redacted]”
Laurie Presswood General Manager & Accounts “I chose Beowulf because I thought it would have dragons. It was a 3-hour, 1-man reading in Old English. I was 11.”
festmag.com
It’s Jinkx Monsoon Season Arusa Qureshi speaks to the drag superstar about her Fringe debut and return to Drag Race
I
n episode nine of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, the competing queens are tasked with creating a viral dance fit for social media. Most go by way of Gen-Z TikTok – simple and recognisable moves that can be easily replicated. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Werk Room, where the all stars prepare for the show’s challenges, Jinkx Monsoon is stuffing a peanut butter sandwich into her mouth as her fellow queens look on with confused and concerned expressions. “Fighting to stand out against seven other winners is very hard,” she says. “This might be a risk, but I’m going to trust my gut.” The end result, the bizarre yet brilliant ‘Monsoon Munchie’, lands her in the top two of that week. Known fondly as “Seattle’s premier Jewish narcoleptic drag queen”, Jinkx has been a centrepiece in the behemoth that is drag culture since winning season five of RuPaul’s Drag Race. She has since released albums, toured the world, appeared in a feature-length holiday film and undeniably, become a firm fan favourite. Jinkx admits there were numerous anxieties ahead of her appearance on the new series, which sees eight past winners return to the reality competition. But, as she explains,
8
Cover Feature
it helped that these feelings of self-doubt and uncertainty were shared amongst the other queens. “The eight of us really formed our own tight knit little sisterhood and we were all so supportive of each other. The competition was real, but the love and the support was real as well. I think it’s really important at this point in time to see that really good stuff can come out of supporting each other just as much as cutthroat competition can inspire good work.” As well as appearing on All Stars, which is still airing and in progress when we speak, Jinkx’s next move takes her to Edinburgh, where she makes her Fringe debut with her musical partner in crime Major Scales. The show, called She’s Still Got It!, is an opportunity to spend an hour in the presence of the wit, humour and musical prowess that has made Jinkx the star she is today. “I first went on TV 10 years ago,” she says, “and I’m on TV again. For anyone who’s returning or anyone who’s a newcomer, we’re putting
Jinkx’s best foot forward. So if you’re a new audience member, and you’ve never seen me perform live before, get ready to get a crash course in the live Jinkx Monsoon experience. We’re going to give you a little bit of everything that I’m best at. So you can expect a lot of really raunchy candid stories, a lot of irreverent humour, and you can expect Major Scales and I to be flexing our musical muscles together.” Jinkx and Major have been performing together since they first met in college, and She’s Still Got It! is the latest in their long history of collaboration. “We’re very distinct from one another,” Jinkx says of their camaraderie on stage, “but we share a sense of humour and we share a lot of musical taste. Major’s wildly entertaining but he possesses this rare
skill, which is that he can share a stage with a drag queen and be the foil and be the straight man, and set me up to shine while still being absolutely captivating and holding his own against a really big personality.” In their 2018 album and show of the same name The Ginger Snapped, Jinkx and Major provided something chaotic and simultaneously harmonious, combining comedy, music and storytelling with frank discussions on mental health. It was powerful in its subject matter, but also resulted in these discussions becoming a permanent fixture in Jinkx’s onstage narrative. “It’s actually very cathartic to talk about it openly because I find that the more I just put my own experiences and my own story out there,
Features
Photo: Magnus Hastings Jinkx Monsoon
9
festmag.com
Photo: José Alberto Guzmán Colón Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales
the more I hear people say, ‘Oh, that’s so similar to me’, or ‘I deal with my own version of that’. ” While mental health remains at the core of much of Jinkx’s writing and performing, She’s Still Got It! attempts to take audiences down a different route. In the context of the misery and hardships of the last two years, the duo want to offer some collective breathing space. “Ultimately, we just wanted to create a show that gives our audiences an hour of levity in whatever’s going on in their life,” Jinkx explains. “A big part of how I entertain my audiences is just being extremely candid with them. So while the show is not about mental health or ageing or existentialism, like some of my past shows, all of that is in there. I always say I get my demons out on stage so that I can live a joyful life.” While the ‘Monsoon Munchie’ peanut butter dance was just one example of Jinkx’s inexplicable comedic genius, that episode served as a reminder not to underestimate that which we might not immediately understand. Drag has been catapulted to the forefront of popular culture in more recent years, and as a part of this, 10
Cover Feature
Jinkx not only strives to embrace her quirkiness but also takes her responsibility as a leader in the LGBTQ+ community and beyond seriously. “I look at it a little bit as a responsibility, but also as a big opportunity to unlock the same kind of passions and realisations in other people that drag has done for me multiple times in my life. So I just think I’m taking everything I learned from the drag queens who came before me and passing it on to whoever is watching what I do now. “We’re talking so much these days about how much representation matters in our media and in our culture,” she continues, “and so, for me it’s about getting on stage and sharing my stories, and sharing the things from my life that other people can relate to. Because living my life unapologetically is how I pay it forward.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Jinkx Monsoon: She’s Still Got It! (with Major Scales) Assembly George Square Gardens 8:10pm – 9:10pm, 6–18 Aug
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Fest turns 20 Outgoing editor Evan Beswick takes a moment to look back on twenty years of Fest, and then moves on
I
t’s hard to pinpoint just where it sticks: in the mind or in the craw. Memorable, and terrible. It was 2008 and, against all advice, we went to print with a feature that was an attempted pastiche of the film poster for Face/Off, only subbing Nicholas Cage and John Travolta for Jim Jeffries and Andrew Maxwell. The execution was abysmal; the premise, arguably, worse. Two mainstream, acerbic, white comics, in conversation with each other, slapped on a print run of 10,000. But in 2008, that’s where the festivals were, and that’s were Fest was, too. I remember seeing Jeffries that year and thinking contemporary performance couldn’t plausibly get any better. Reader. It did. This was the feature that I dreaded unearthing as I sat down one afternoon and
hauled out an archive box holding every issue of Fest since 2007. The Fringe marks its 75th year in 2022, and Fest has been with it now for 20 of those. I’ve been around since 2007 when the upstart tabloid switched to the glossy brochure audiences have been able to pick up ever since in venues across Edinburgh. I’m struck by the extent to which, thumbing those glossy pages, a modern chronicle of the festivals leaps out, for better and worse. Worse than that Face/Off travesty, between 2007 and 2010, not a single woman featured individually on the front page of the magazine. That’s not to say there weren’t some significant splashes. But from 2022’s vantage point, the blind spot feels painful. I could go on: there’s a masochistic pleasure in cringing at the past. But it’s also
Cometh the man…
EE FR
EE FR
EE FR
2014 PREVIEW GUIDE
70+
Full hour byhour- ings list
d ws an revieeatures f
ADAM RICHES GRAPPLES WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN ALPHA MALE
THIS IS
Tim Key AND THIS YEAR, HE’S GOING GRAND
+
KIM NOBLE JIM DAVIDSON TOBY THOM TUCK & SIMON MUNNERY PAINES PLOUGH
E ENUS RISTEER CH O RK&DANG DA
EDINBURGH’S BIGGEST AND BEST FESTIVAL PREVIEW GUIDE Preview 2014.indd 1
12
21/07/2014 03:03
Front Feature
12–14 August 2014 — YOuR COMPLEtE guIDE tO tHE FEstIVAL Issue 3 2014.indd 1
10/08/2014 18:36
8–11 AUGUST 2014 — YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE FESTIVAL Issue 2 2014.indd 1
06/08/2014 22:31
13 70+ Reviews | Full Listings | Venue Map
70+ Reviews | Full Listings | Venue Map
2020 2019 Previews | City Guide | Venue Map
Features
Meow Meow
KICKING
BUTT
INTERNATIONAL SINGING SENSATION
WITH DEANNA FLEYSHER’S DAZZLING DETECTIVE Plus:
Dave Johns The Bugle Live Podcast Hannah Gadsby Simon Munnery Meet Me at Dawn Cirkopolis Werelband Buried: A New Musical Kid Critics
Daniel Kitson Aurora Nova Michael Legge Felicity Ward Tomorrow Ringside Camille O’Sullivan Hairy Maclary Morgan & West
Plus
“Thumbing those glossy pages, a modern chronicle of the festivals leaps out”
Your FREE Festival Guide
Festival Preview
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Your FREE Festival Guide
11 – 14 August
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Your FREE Festival Guide
21– 24 August
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Listings by the hour
and not a joke. That Bo Burnham piece, in which Jonathan Liew (now a Guardian sports writer) walked around Edinburgh with the boy with six million YouTube views and no one noticed. Fern Brady – then an aspiring writer, now a fully aspired comic – on her first standup gig, done as a piece of gonzo journalism. And some of that delight is in the way that our criticism has alternately chased, followed, overlooked and seen so clearly the Evan Beswick restless currents of creativity at the festivals. Bouncy Castle Dracula deserved all one of a chronicle of how the festivals have exthose stars for charging 2008 audiences nine panded, sometimes by force, our collective pounds for a student piss about. “Languid arimagination. In 2009 we went to Amsterdam to rogance” remains a great way of summarising interview Hans Teeuwen, the Dutch comedian a theatrical crime, though “slag heap theawhose equal-opportunities baiting of minoritre” is perhaps not how we’d aim our lances ties made him quite the man about town. Fast now. More than ever this year, with artists forward to 2018 and we interviewed the team re-emerging from a painful cold storage, we’ll behind Queens of Sheba, a play which placed be recognising the emotional cost of artistic the voices of women of colour centre stage. endeavour, while still trying to make judgeThey baited every bit as much as the Dutchments about its artistic quality. man, and enlightened much more. Looking On a personal note, I’ll step back as editor back, it feels like revelation in too-slow motion. of Fest this year – the dignified retreat of The exciting bit, though: that process contina sub-cub journalist on a magazine whose ues both this year and the next. professionalism has grown far beyond love If there’s a constant, though, it’s the delight of the arts and criticism. Those issues have in re-reading, year in year out, some stone cold gone back in the box, perhaps never to be bangers. There are, inevitably, favourites. Some flicked through again. That’s no bad thing. It’s of those stick out as superb pieces of writing. cute to mark anniversaries and look back. This Junta Sekimori’s 2008 essay on his one-night restless, relentless colony of festivals which transition to a Ladyboy of Bangkok was both occupy Edinburgh every summer have always colourful and utterly, beautifully sensitive encapsulated the present, and heralded the about a form of gender play that’s an art form future. Fest will be right on its tail.
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“There’s no one else we’d rather watch onstage” PENN & TELLER
BEN HART WONDER BROADWAY BABY GLAM ADELAIDE
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14
Top Picks: Comedy
15 Top Picks
Comedy returns to the Fringe with three years' worth of newcomer shows and skilled hours from familiar faces
PBH’s Free Fringe @ Banshee Labyrinth, 6-28 Aug, 4:50pm
As a member of the Weirdos collective, Ali Brice is always one of the most alternative comedians to arrive in Edinburgh. But this year he’s reflecting on how to celebrate life, and recover, after trying to take his own.
Underbelly, Bristo Square, 3-29 Aug (not 15), 5:30pm
After graduating with a media degree, Bilal Zafar spent a year not employed in the film industry as he’d hoped, but working in a care home for the rich. Only now is the Comedy Award Best Newcomer nominee ready to tell his story.
Pleasance Courtyard, 3-28 Aug (not 15), 6pm
As part of the Pleasance Comedy Reserve in 2018, it’s been a long wait for Edinburgh audiences to see Chloe Petts return with her first full hour. A darts-throwing, feminist stand-up, Petts crosses the gender divide with a deft lightheartedness and dexterity.
Just the Tonic at The Mash House, 4-28 Aug (not 15), 3:15pm
Cutting her teeth on the UK comedy circuit, Dalia Malek was already getting noticed as a student. Now the acerbic Egyptian-American stand-up arrives from California to bring her first full show to Edinburgh.
Chloe Petts Photo: David Korman
Dalia Malek: Another Castle
Bilal Zafar Photo: Matt Crockett
Chloe Petts: Transience
Ali Brice Photo: Leslie Byron Pitt
Bilal Zafar – Care
Photo: Miranda Holms
Ali Brice: I Tried To Be Funny, But You Weren’t Looking
Dalia Malek
festmag.com
The Delightful Sausage: Nowt but Sea
Eleanor Conway: Talk Dirty to Me
Monkey Barrel Comedy, 2-28 Aug (not 17), 12:45pm
Laughing Horse @ The Three Sisters, 4-28 Aug, 8:15pm
The Comedy Award nominees new show sees the duo stranded on a remote island. There’s more ridiculousness on offer with both Amy Gledhill and Chris Cantrill bringing their solo newcomer shows to Monkey Barrel too.
Are women having enough orgasms to feel a fair society is within reach? Firecracking comedian Eleanor Conway returns to Edinburgh with a focus on gender equality.
Photo: Jen Ives
Photo: David Titlow
Photo: Ed Moore
Jen Ives
Jen Ives: Peak Trans The Delightful Sausage
Eleanor Conway Photo: A D Zyne
Photo: Polly Hancock
Rob Auton Photo: Andy Hollingworth
John Hegley
John Hegley’s Biscuit of Destiny Summerhall, 3-28 Aug (not 15, 22), 2pm
The shortage of biscuits observed by a romantic poet acts as a starting point for John Hegley’s new show. They’ll be no shortage of treats in Hegley’s own poetry as he lifts the lid in an hour suitable for most ages. 16
Comedy
Paul Sinha
Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 3-28 Aug (not 15), 7pm
A de-toxifying look at trans rights from J.K. Rowling’s favourite ‘niece’. Jen Ives, one of most promising comedians in the UK, brings her newcomer show after its short WIP run at the 2021 Fringe.
Rob Auton: The Crowd Show Assembly George Square, 3-29 Aug (not 16), 2:50pm
Rob Auton's thoughtful attention on any topic that interests him, from water to hair, now turns to crowds. Expect the poet-comedian to stand out from the crowd in his return to Edinburgh.
Paul Sinha: One Sinha Lifetime The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 4-28 Aug (not 16), 4:40pm
An established success as a stand-up and on The Chase, the former physician Paul Sinha now finds himself with a belated case of ‘sophomore syndrome’. Told he had Parkinson’s disease in 2019, his second post-diagnosis show might be his most ambitious yet.
17 Glynis Henderson Productions in association with Pleasance present
ONE NIGHT ONLY
I WANNA BE YOURS with special guests
24 AUG 2022, 7.30PM
0131 226 0000 tickets.edfringe.com
‘STILL AS FUNNY AS F**K’ John Robb for louderthanwar.com
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Top Picks: Theatre
Our pick of the best theatre at the Fringe, from surreal political comedy to hard-hitting tales of loss and betrayal Photo: Ste Murray
Masterclass
Pleasance Dome, 3-28 Aug (not 10, 15, 22), 5:40pm
Adrienne Truscott parodies the “great male artist” in this absurd masterclass, also starring Brokentalkers’ Feidlim Cannon. In their use of the arts world as a metaphor, the pair savagely interrogate themes of gender, privilege and power.
Masterclass Photo: Pete Dibdin
Exodus
Traverse Theatre, 6-28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), times vary
Uma Nada-Rajah’s new play Exodus is a dark, surreal comedy that takes aim at systems of power. The narrative follows Home Secretary Asiya Rao and her indifference to human suffering, as she bids to become the country’s next leader.
Exodus Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Silkworm
Assembly Roxy, 3-29 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 6:50pm
Written by Vlad Butucea, Silkworm is the story of two young women living in a Glasgow tower block, seeking asylum on the basis of their sexual orientation. As they wait to hear the result of their case, we’re immersed in their navigation of this brutal system.
Feeling Afraid as If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen
Self Service
Samuel Barnett plays a deeply flawed and professionally neurotic stand-up in his Fringe debut. This darkly humorous play from Francesca Moody Productions examines vulnerability, intimacy, ego and truth.
Described as a “(meta)physical dive into how to keep going”, Self Service sees the award-winning Anne Rabbitt emerge from the invisible role of Mother to find herself still invisible inside the skin of Middle-aged Woman.
ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall, 3-28 Aug (not 4, 9, 16, 23), 7pm
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Silkworm
Theatre
theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 5-27 Aug (not 14, 21), 7:15pm
19
ZOO Southside, 5-11 & 15-20 Aug, 5:40pm
A moving story which follows Okumu’s journey from childhood innocence to child soldier in Northern Uganda. This one-man performance is told powerfully through love and betrayal.
Runaway Princess: A Hopeful Tale of Heroin, Hooking and Happiness
Greenside @ Infirmary Street, 5-27 Aug (not 14, 21), 2:55pm
Former New York City call girl Mary Goggin shares the story of her trauma, addiction and prostitution in this moving one-woman show. Expect humour and unflinching honesty as we follow her from darkness to joy. Self Service
Runaway Princess
Underbelly, Cowgate, 4-28 Aug (not 15), 3:30pm
Inspired by real events, Love Them to Death follows a mother who continually pulls her ill son out of school. But everything is not as it seems in this story which explores Fabricated and Induced illness (previously known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy).
Photo: Devin De Vil
Photo: Ben Mankin
Image: courtsey of Chloe Nelkin Consulting
Photo: Ilayda McIntosh Feeling Afraid as If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen
Love Them to Death
Hamlet
Love Them to Death
Jack Docherty
Hamlet with Ian McKellen
Jack Docherty: Nothing But
Veteran actor Ian McKellen prepares to take on the role of Hamlet once more, collaborating with Peter Schaufuss in this new production of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
The BAFTA award-winning star of Scot Squad and Absolutely brings this playful and darkly comic story of a one-night stand from 30 years ago to the Fringe. Expect explorations of lost youth, love, secrets and more.
Ashton Hall, Saint Stephens Stockbridge, 2-28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), times vary
Gilded Balloon at the Museum, 3-19 Aug, 8pm
Top Picks
Photo: Smart Banda
Photo: Luigi Scorcia
Photo: Finn Rabbitt Dove
Far Gone
Far Gone
There’s something for all music tastes across Edinburgh this Fringe Six Stories
Photo: KCCUK
Nothing Ever Happens Here
theSpace @ Symposium Hall, 8-18 Aug, 10:40pm
Summerhall, 3-31 Aug, times vary
Part of the Korean Showcase, Six Stories takes inspiration from the Korean shamanic rituals known as Gut. In this concert, WeMu combines Western and Korean instruments to create modern music based on ancient customs. Image: courtesy of Los Bitchos
Saved
ZOO Southside, 5-28 Aug, 4:35pm
Created by performer, composer and instrument maker Graeme Leak, Saved is a musical journey built around rescued 70s home organs, which explores the mundanity of everyday life.
Los Bitchos Photo: Hazel Palmer
Photo: John Need Sing Sistah Sing
Six Stories Photo: Alan McCredie
Summerhall’s year-round music programme shines bright during the Fringe, with an almost daily medley of acts of all genres. This year’s headliners include Cate LeBon, Efterklang, Jenny Hval, tUnEyArDs, Deerhoof, The Weather Station, Cassandra Jenkins and Los Bitchos.
Saved
Sing Sistah Sing! Tales of Transatlantic Freedom Pianodrome at the Old Royal High, 19-20, 23-26 Aug, times vary
Singer Andrea Baker and composer and pianist Howard Moody weave song, spoken word and piano together across centuries and continents in this celebration of the African diaspora.
Fun Lovin Crime Writers Photo: Pat Mazzera Hip-Hop Orchestra Experience
Hip-Hop Orchestra Experience theSpaceTriplex, 5-14 Aug, 11.35pm
California based Ensemble Mik Nawooj collaborate with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland for a programme that fuses hip hop with classical music. Expect deconstructed works by Mozart, Bach and Beethoven reimagined with rapid rhymes and beats.
Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers
The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 8-11 Aug, 9pm
Crime-writing super-group – Mark Billingham, Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Luca Veste, Doug Johnstone and Stuart Neville – are back to perform their rocking covers of much-loved songs.
Top Picks
Top Picks: Music
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Top Picks: Cabaret and Variety
What to see if you’re after subversive performance and a party atmosphere
Photo: Steve Ullathorne
Sugarcoated Sisters: Bittersweet Just The Tonic at The Caves, 4-28 Aug (not 15, 22), 8:50pm
TikTok stars and real-life siblings bring their original songs to the Fringe for the first time, using the opportunity to launch musical attacks on everyone who’s ever wronged them.
(not 15, 22), 9:55pm
Expect an evening of drag, burlesque and more from some of the most subversive stars in the international cabaret and circus scenes. This hedonistic party, born out of the underground queer nightlife of New York, offers the ultimate dose of weird and wonderful.
Blunderland Photo: Melissa Stephens
The Idiot Circus: Death is Coming
Assembly George Square Gardens, 3-28 Aug (not 15, 22), 8:55pm
Original songs and existential banter from this theatrical cabaret band, who present tales of murders, magicians, drunken regrets and more.
Summerhall, 3-14 Aug (not 4), 8:20pm
Turner Prize-winning artist and performer Martin Creed is back at the Fringe with his mix of folk-punk tunes, experimental theatre, heartwarming cabaret and thought-provoking chat. 22
Cabaret
Life’s a Drag
The Idiot Circus Photo: Hugo Glendinning
Life is Soft
Photo: Jason Matz
Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows, 5-27 Aug
Photo: Jacinta Oaten
Blunderland
Sugarcoated Sisters: Bittersweet
Life is Soft
Life’s a Drag
Laughing Horse @ The Pear Tree, 4-28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 6pm
Australian cabaret queen Dean Misdale gives us a behind the scenes look at the world of drag, taking us from early career moments through to current dating horror stories.
Our selection of the best shows from circus on a treadmill to a provocative tomato Photo: Petr Chodura
Antigone, Interrupted
Dance Base, 17-28 Aug (not 22-23) 8:40pm
Joan Clevillé brings a moving solo piece to Dance Base as part of the Made In Scotland showcase. Watch Solène Weinachter reinterpret the classic myth – with its themes of oppression, autonomy and family – under a modern gaze.
Runners Photo: Maria Falconer Antigone, Interrupted
ZOO Southside, 5-28 Aug (not 10, 16, 22), 8:30pm
Award-winning Czech outfit Cirk La Putyka return to Edinburgh with two shows. Performed partly on a huge custom-built treadmill, Runners is as breathless, impatient and afraid of inertia as modern life forces us to be.
Taiwan Season: Tomato
Summerhall, 3-28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 3:10pm
Described as “both playful and provocative”, Tomato is a dance production by Taiwanese choreographer Chou Kuan-Jou that uses analogue bodies and digital screens to explore sex and gender through a feminist lens.
Taiwan Season: Tomato
Hotel Paradiso
Underbelly Circus Hub on the Meadows, 6-27 Aug (not 15, 22), 3:20pm
Channelling the mounting chaos of hotel farces like Fawlty Towers, Hotel Paradiso is a whole-family circus extravaganza. Expect a full house of acrobatics blended with thigh-slapping antics, from one the UK’s leading family circus companies.
Photo: Camilla Greenwell
Photo: Stella Chen
Photo: The Other Richard Hotel Paradiso
Runners
Dance Body
Dance Body
Summerhall, 3-27 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 4:15pm
For a discipline ostensibly about self-expression, dance can be fiercely prescriptive about physicality. In Dance Body, BAFTA-nominated playwright/actor Yolanda Mercy seeks to reclaim the dancefloor for plus-sized bodies and challenge an industry that excludes them.
Top Picks
Top Picks: Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus
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Top Picks: Kids The best of the Fringe’s kids programme, from magical realism to an acerbic comedian Assembly Roxy, 4-29 Aug (not 16), 11:10am
Gemma Soldati’s Sleepyhead invites us to a slumber party that promises to aid a blissful sleep, using her clowning skills and opening our imaginations. Suitable for babies and their grown ups.
The Adventures of Sleepyhead Photo: Nathan Gallagher
Marcel Lucont: Les Enfants Terribles – A Gameshow for Awful Children Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3-14 Aug, 1pm
Shlomo's Beatbox Adventure for Kids
Pleasance Courtyard, 3-28 Aug (not 17), 12:05pm
Suitable for all ages, SK Shlomo is looking for the next adventurous generation of beatboxers, and inspires his audience to think about music while they’re playing it.
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Summerhall, 3-28 Aug (not 15, 22), 10am
An adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s inverted fairy tale where an angel appears for a family in need – only for the family to take advantage of their guest. Puppetry and subtle multimedia effects will hold the attention of school age children. 24
Kids
Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic
Shlomo’s Beatbox Adventure for Kids
A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
Marcel Lucont
Image: courtesy A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings
The acerbic Frenchman hosts a family gameshow. Playing off the children against the adults, Lucont wants to discover just who is the worst child in the room. Recommended for comedy fans with boisterous kids who can more than match the surly host. (From age six, but ideally ages eight plus).
Photo: Jason Read
Photo: Dan Derby
The Adventures of Sleepyhead
WhirlyGig
WhirlyGig
Dance Base, 11-21 Aug (not 15), 12:30pm
A wild musical adventure, WhirlyGig’s four musicians (and 30 instruments) are setting families countless puzzles to entertain children from around six-years and older.
The home of dance at the Fringe
LIVE ORCHESTRA! From Mozart to Muddy Puddles!
‘An introduction to music conducted by Peppa Pig had kids snorting with pleasure’ The Sunday Times
EDINBURGH 4 - 21 August 2022 Assembly Hall
0131 623 3030 assemblyfestival.com
www.peppapiglive.com
#peppapiglive
Peppa Pig © [2021] ABD Ltd/Ent. One UK Ltd
We scour the International Festival programme for the best in theatre and dance
The Lyceum, 8-14 Aug, times vary
This profound play tells the tale of love and political strife through one Sri Lankan-Australian family over four generations, from 1956 to 2004. Performed in English, Tamil and Sinhalese, with live translation into English.
Photo: Nirvair Singh
Counting and Cracking
The Lyceum, 18-20 Aug, times vary
An Untitled Love
King’s Theatre, 20-21 Aug, times vary
Photo: Christopher Duggan
Festival Theatre, 20-22 Aug, times vary
Acclaimed director Ivo van Hove adapts Hanya Yanagihara’s novel, which follows four men, bound tightly together by friendship, over a period of more than thirty years.
as british as a watermelon
The Studio, 23-26 Aug, 8pm
Zimbabwean performer mandla rae presents a personal exploration of childhood migration memories, using unflinching narrative, poetry and storytelling together with colourful chaos.
Counting and Cracking
Photo: Jan Versweyveld
A Little Life
UK/Indian dancer Aakash Odedra and Chinese dancer Hu Shenyuan take on this piece inspired by the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, exploring the Buddhist philosophy of the cycles of birth, misery and death.
Image: courtesy of the artist
An Untitled Love
Samsara Photo: Brett Boardman
Choreographer Kyle Abraham draws from D’Angelo’s rich catalogue of R&B and soul music for his newest fulllength work, which pays homage to self-love and Black love.
Samsara
A Little Life
as british as a watermelon
See our pick of contemporary and classical music at the Edinburgh International Festival in Issue 1 of Fest (out 10 Aug)
Top Picks
Top Picks: Edinburgh International Festival
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Top Picks: Edinburgh Art Festival
Expect leading international and UK artists alongside the best emerging talent at this year’s Art Festival Duncan Shanks: The Riverbank - A Landscape of Sorrow and Hope The Scottish Gallery, until 27 Aug, times vary
An exhibition of new work, featuring vibrant and energetic paintings heavily inspired by lockdowns and subjects closer to home.
Edinburgh Printmakers, until 18 Sep, times vary
Tell Me of Your Boats and Your Waters – Where Do They Come From, Where Do They Go? features newly commissioned work across print, installation and sound from the Montreal-based artist, responding to the 200th anniversary of the Union Canal. Image: Courtesy of the artist and The Scottish Gallery
Ashanti Harris: Dancing a Peripheral Quadrille
Nadia Myre
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, until 28 Aug, times vary
Multi-disciplinary artist Ashanti Harris presents a series of sculptural and performance works. Using Faustin Charles’ novel Signposts of a Jumbie as a starting point, she explores ideas of communal and grassroots cultural production through the lens of the Caribbean Carnival.
Winter Wild, Duncan Shanks
French Institute for Scotland, until 28 Aug, times vary
The festival’s annual showcase of early career visual artists, now in its eighth year. This year’s cohort includes Saoirse Amira Anis, Emelia Kerr Beale, Lynsey MacKenzie and Jonny Walker. 28
Art
Ishiuchi Miyako
Stills Centre for Photography, until 8 Oct, times vary
The first exhibition in Scotland of work by the influential postwar Japanese photographer. Expect selections of work from some of her most celebrated series, including Frida (2012), where Miyako photographed Kahlo’s belongings.
Edinburgh, Union Canal
Image: Courtesy Ishiuchi Miyako and The Third Gallery Aya
Platform 2022
Image: Courtesy of HES
Image: courtesy EAF
Image: courtesy of the artist
Ashanti Harris Portrait, Emilia Beatriz Untitled, Emelia Kerr Beale
Mother’s#38, Ishiuchi Miyako
Ca
All Together Now Edinburgh International Book Festival 13–29 August 2022
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Hollie McNish Gemma Cairney Jarvis Cocker Maggie O’Farrell Martha Wainwright Ellen Renton Patricia Lockwood Sinéad Gleeson Travis Alabanza
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Kayo Chingonyi Lola Olufemi Charlotte Church Nick Drnaso Amy Liptrot Julia Armfield Torrey Peters Jenni Fagan
...and hundreds more.
Watch in-person, online and on-demand Book now at: edbookfest.co.uk
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Ali Smith Diana Gabaldon Douglas Stuart Val McDermid Frankie Boyle Irvine Welsh Armando Iannucci NoViolet Bulawayo Ottessa Moshfegh Alan Cumming
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Join us in Edinburgh or online from home as we bring hundreds of the world’s best writers, artists and thinkers to stage and screen. Enjoy over 600 events featuring:
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40 Years of Assembly Festival at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
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COMEDY X THEATRE X MUSIC X MUSICALS & OPERA X CABARET & VARIETY DANCE, PHYSICAL THEATRE & CIRCUS X CHILDREN’S SHOWS and MORE
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3 – 29 AUGUST
£5 tickets
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£5 tickets for EH, G, KY and FK postcodes from 3-7 August Head to assemblyfestival.com to find out more
A Zeus Cannon
31 Features
Damien Warren-Smith talks about Garry Starr’s latest odyssey into Greek myths Interview: Jenni Ajderian he Ancient Greeks understood better than anyone that the gods are out to get us. Plagues and political incompetence aside, the residents of Mount Olympus tinkered in the lives of mortals, their exploits recorded by the playwrights of the time. Writing two and a half thousand years ago, the stories by Euripides and Sophocles, alongside all of the myths and legends, have stood the test of time. After spawning spin-offs, retellings and even psychological complexes, audiences still recognise the ancient plots and flock to productions in numbers suited to an amphitheatre. For Damien Warren-Smith – alias Garry Starr – that recognition is key to crafting and re-crafting his show: “It’s something that everyone knows something about,” he says. “I was able to make a list of all the famous figures from Greek mythology and the one thing everyone knows about them – then draw a misunderstanding from that.”
Photo: Aaron Walker
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festmag.com
Photo: Aaron Walker
“Oedipus is the original motherfucker” Damien Warren-Smith
In his clown persona Garry Starr, WarrenSmith brings Greece Lightning to Edinburgh, an attempt to perform all of Greek mythology in one Fringe hour. “The general idea is that Garry has discovered his Greek heritage. He discovers the economy isn’t doing well in his homeland, so he thinks ‘What if I help boost tourism by performing all of Greek mythology in an hour? Surely, everyone will want to go to Greece!’ “This is the type of high stakes, low intelligence of this character. It’s this impossible task and this utter arrogance of this character who thinks he can do everything.” Starr previously set himself the task of performing every genre of theatre in an hour: “I needed something else that has a big pool to draw from,” he says. Greek Mythology is a huge pool, even if you only skim across its surface. Warren-Smith uses the recognisable parts of these stories as a starting point, then jumps off into play-time, creating a highly interactive show that is different each night: the twist coming from the performance. “Oedipus is the original motherfucker,” he says, an observation which inspired Greece Lightning’s barnstormer Oedipus rap. To a modern audience, these tragedies are larger-than-life in their turmoil and excessive death. But the same audience would likely recognise the utter heartbreak of losing half your family to war, or being ostracised for your lover. These stories were meant to be experienced live. Clowning is, in Warren-Smith’s view, “one of the oldest art forms. I could take my show to anywhere in the world and it would work. I can do it non-verbal, it crosses all kinds of barriers. Essentially clowning is an adult behaving like an infant, and that’s something that we’ve always done. Play involves other people, and play is as old as time. 32
Comedy
“I want my shows to be pure escapism,” he adds, “I think that’s one of the reasons people come back. They say ‘I’m going to bring my mum, my grandma, my racist uncle’. In a world where we’re so divided, families can’t agree on comedy shows to go and see together, because everything’s got something political in it. “I would describe what I do as playing with the audience. This new show I hand out props at the beginning, and they don’t know when or how they will be used. As soon as people realise that I am the butt of every joke, no one is ever made to look more stupid than me. I don’t prescribe to what I want people to do, I just give them the prop and they think ‘Oh wow, I think this is the moment I need it!’”
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Garry Starr: Greece Lightning Underbelly, Cowgate 8:55pm – 9:55pm, 4–28 Aug, not 17
HHHH
‘GREAT PUNCHLINES GALORE’ EDINBURGH FESTIVALS MAGAZINE
IVO GRAHAM MY FUTURE MY CLUTTER HHHH
‘HAS STAR-IN-THE-MAKING COMING OFF HIM LIKE STEAM’ TELEGRAPH
‘A MASTERCLASS’ THE SCOTSMAN
MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE
‘IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN HIM LIVE, THEN YOU HAVEN’T SEEN HIM AT HIS VERY BEST’ MIRROR
festmag.com
Tragedy plus Time Rich Hardisty, Sikisa and Chelsea Birkby talk about finding therapy in stand-up Interviews: Kirstyn Smith
T
he adage ‘comedy = tragedy + time’ has been part of public consciousness for decades. Variously attributed to Mark Twain, Carol Burnett and Lenny Bruce, its general conceit is that everything is funny given enough space to reflect, mull and conjure humour from something as raw as pain and devastation. But what about the more immediate need to find comedy in anguish? We don’t live in a leisurely world – one look at any social media platform reveals that today’s horror quickly becomes tomorrow’s afterthought. So when it comes to personal tragedy, sometimes there’s a more immediate need for The Bad Thing to be released, mocked and moulded into something less terrifying or saddening than it is. For some, that’s where stand-up comes in. “It’s like exposure therapy,” says Rich Hardisty. “With other forms of writing, you send it off, you wait months for feedback, then someone might say ‘no’. Whereas with stand-up, you think of it in a day, go out that night and get immediate feedback.” Comedians often make reference to therapy in relation to the art of stand-up, but
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with different takes on how this should be considered. Chelsea Birkby is keen to state that, crucially, stand-up is not therapy. “The two should be very distinct,” she says. “Making and playing are brilliant for mental health, but I’m not fully convinced that being in pubs most nights asking strangers if they love you is.”
"Doing stand-up is a great way to get therapy for free" Sikisa
Meanwhile, Sikisa counters with, “It’s an inside joke that doing stand-up is a great way to get therapy for free.” No matter how seriously or jokingly they mix-and-match stand-up with therapy, it’s an interpretation that plays on their minds. And that makes sense when you’re a stand-up who
Sikisa
shared bond, forge a connection, or reach out towards people who get you? Sikisa’s show is about a party, which is pretty high up there in terms of togetherness and communication, but she also delves into topics like immigration, race and gender roles. “Talking about subjects that are personal to me allows me to educate people as well as making them laugh. It’s very important in this day and age, especially when we talk about things people have misconceptions about. Being able to address these issues through telling jokes is a great way for me to put a point across and not feel preachy.” Birkby’s show centres around the concept of accepting the things about us that aren’t
Features
Photo: Adrian Tauss
lives with episodes of poor mental health. It’s not as if mental illness is a switch that can be flicked on or off: if you wake up unwell, there’s often very little you can do about it. Where stand-up differs from other careers is in the notion that you can employ the humour card as a way of making connections with people in a way other professions don’t really get to do. “I suspect there’s a similar (high) frequency of people struggling with their mental health in every field”, says Birkby, “I wonder if stand-up attracts people equipped at making difficult things palatable for others, which has its pros and cons.” Humour is a vehicle that makes tough conversations a little easier to bear for the audience. Yet, it can have a profound effect on the person behind the mic too. “You can be unhinged on stage,” says Hardisty. “My personality works on stage, but not in an office. [Stand-up helps to] stop the noise in my head. If I say a joke and you laugh, I know you understand me. So as long as I have that, everything is okay.” There’s also something to be said about the freedom to present a different version of yourself – perhaps only minimally tweaked – when you’re on stage. Sikisa maintains there’s something essential about exaggerating who you are, getting into a different mindset and not having to be relentlessly introspective about your problems. “I don’t like cancelling gigs,” she says. “So being forced to get out of bed, get ready and perform on a stage has saved my life. It’s a great way for you to tell your story – and for people to relate to your story, because you never know what they are going through.” Isn’t this why any artist puts their work out on display, after all: a scrabble to find a
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Photo: Chris CW Cox Chelsea Birkby
“nice”, discussing what being nice actually even means, and why we should all spend some time exploring our darker sides. “Audiences can unpack where they learned to be lovely,” she says. “And question if it’s still serving them. I want my audiences to come away caring less about pleasing others.” Hardisty deals in empathy and compassion – looking beyond initial impressions and trying to see what might have caused people to be and act in the ways they do. “When you’ve truly lost your mind you’ll realise how little control you have over it. And that’s the thing I’ll never be able to forget now. I can’t judge anyone ever again. And that’s what my show is about: what it feels like to be me and how I see the world.”
We all have different ways of coping. For these acts - and dozens more during the Fringe - that’s getting up on stage and spilling their guts in the most vulnerable ways and trying to build a relationship, if only for 55 minutes (aka, fittingly, a therapist’s hour). SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
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Sikisa: Life of the Party Pleasance Courtyard 8:25pm – 9:25pm, 3–28 Aug, not 17 Rich Hardisty: Silly Boy Pleasance Courtyard 4:30pm – 5:30pm, 3–29 Aug, not 15 Chelsea Birkby: No More Mr Nice Chelsea Just the Tonic at The Caves 3:40pm – 4:40pm, 4–28 Aug, not 15
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3 - 28 AUGUST
LY US E O D IV ENESS P U R E S TI M P AG T S HE -T
VEN U E 26 1 SU M M ERHALL, EDI N BU RGH, EH9 1PL
DEFYIN GENDER G BOTH N A N D G R AO R M S VITY 17:20 4 - 28 AUG (not 8, 15 + 22)
HALL MOUND PLACE
festmag.com
Now We Know They’re Funny As comedy’s premier new act competition turns 35, we caught up with past So You Think You’re Funny? winners Interviews: Ben Venables
“I
remember reading the list of former winners and finalists,” says Maisie Adam on the Gilded Balloon’s So You Think You’re Funny?: “It was a Who’s Who of all the comedians I’d grown up watching. I applied straight away.” Following the path of comedians such as Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan and David O’Doherty – all SYTYF? winners before we knew their names – Adam reached the final in 2017: “exactly six months after my first gig. I thought I was a ‘seasoned act’ by then. What a tit!’” Since winning the competition, Adam’s success makes it easy to forget the rookie she was to stand-up just five years ago: “To suddenly be on this massive stage, in this huge hall, with a well-known comedian hosting the gig... it’s a big step up.” Ivo Graham was less seasoned even than Adam when he entered in 2009. He says: “I’d been doing comedy for approximately five months and was already feeling this attention-seeking university hobby might have run its course.” Encouraged by comedy producer Corry Shaw, Graham spent that August doing 15 minute slots each day in a split-bill show and progressing through the SYTYF? competition heats – a summer that turned him “from a chancer into a comic.” For Luca Cupani, the 2015 competition offered him a kind of redemption in Edinburgh. The Italian comic had made a shambles of attempting a Fringe-run the year before, where he thought: “I’ll improvise every night a new hour of material, in a second language, without any experience.” Not that it’s easy on the Gilded Balloon stage. Adam describes being a “bag of nerves”
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and so too was Heidi Regan in 2016. Regan says: “I struggled to get the mic out at the very start and just assumed I’d lost the crowd from that point on.” She adds: “The room felt huge at the time, though the audience was friendly so I was able to enjoy myself by halfway. Going back a year later the room suddenly felt so much smaller. But maybe I just got taller?!” The contrast from the ramshackle nature of early gigs to the grander surrounding of Teviot House may have helped Finlay Christie in 2019: “I was doing lots of open mics in London, sometimes performing to five or six people who were clearly unwell. The Gilded Balloon audience was massive and largely mentally stable. After I walked off stage it felt like I was on a very tiny amount of MDMA.” As ecstatic as Christie felt, he still didn’t expect to win. He even assured a fellow competitor they had the victory in the bag: “This person had absolutely smashed it. I showered them with praise as soon as they came off and told them they were going to win. The first thing I said after they read my name out was ‘Shit, I’m really sorry’. I must have come across like a complete tosser.” Like the comedians that won before them, all agree the competition propelled their comedy careers forward. Ivo Graham says: “It got me an agent, filled my diary with gigs and gave me an accolade of ‘youngest ever winner of...’ – which has been following me around in various promotional materials ever since; next to a photo of a greying long-adulted man who should surely have something else to bang on about now.” Adam agrees: “Oh it changed everything, for sure!” she says. “It put my name on people’s
radars – other comedians who might have been looking for support acts, producers who wanted to hear ideas, bookers who then gave me gigs.” Regan adds: “The competition also sent me to Montreal, which was mind blowing and also introduced me to established UK comics, like Joe Lycett and Aisling Bea, who were so supportive and kind that it made a huge difference at that key time in my career.” The recognition that there’s a future in comedy is perhaps as important as the industry boost that winning a competition helps with. As Cupani says: “Most of all, it happened when I really needed a sort of recognition. I started doing comedy because I love the idea of being on stage, being myself and connecting with an audience of strangers through humour and laughter.”
Maisie Adam
Where to Find the SYTYF? Winners Maisie Adam: Buzzed Gilded Balloon Teviot, 5pm, 3–29 Aug Finlay Christie: OK Zoomer Gilded Balloon Teviot, 6pm, 3–28 Aug (not 17) Luca Cupani: Happy Orphan Just the Tonic at The Caves, 2:20pm, 4–28 Aug (not 15) Ivo Graham: My Future, My Clutter Use Pleasance Courtyard, 7:30pm, 3–28 Aug (not 6) Heidi Regan Gives Birth Live On Stage Every Night Or Your Money Back PBH’s Free Fringe @ Voodoo Rooms, 5:55pm, 6–28 Aug (not 20, 21) SHOW VENUE: TIME:
So You Think You’re Funny? Competition Heats Gilded Balloon Teviot 10:15pm – 11:30pm, 6–16 Aug, not 10, 11, 12, 13
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
So You Think You’re Funny? Grand Final Gilded Balloon Teviot 7:30pm – 10:00pm, 25 Aug
Features
Maisie Adam
Luca Cupani
Photo: Matt Crockett
“Oh it changed everything, for sure!”
Ivo Graham
Photo: Steve Ullathorne
Heidi Regan
Photo: Matt Stronge
Photo: Karla Gowlett
Photo: Piers Alladyce Finlay Christie
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41 Features
Writer Jon Canter and stand-up Sarah Keyworth discuss collaboration in comedy Interviews: Jay Richardson
Photo: Marshall Stay Spoons
S
tand-up so often expresses a deeply personal experience that it rarely occurs to us it might have been written by a team. Panel shows euphemistically employ “programme associates”, while comics writing for bigger names’ arena tours sign non-disclosure agreements but are indiscreet. Generally though, it’s not talked about. “Nor should it be,” argues Jon Canter. “When you go to see Lenny Henry, you don’t for one moment want to think of someone like me in a room coming up with stuff. There’s skill in hiding yourself in the artist.” Canter, writer of the play Spoons, about a marriage guidance counsellor sublimating care for her own relationship into others’, has penned lines for everyone from Peter Cook to Richard Wilson and has worked alongside Henry for 30 years. Dubbed a “comedy butler”, he admits “I’ve done a fair bit of sublimating, although I’d say I’ve had a very good time doing it.” He scoffs at the idea of his friend struggling to come up with material. “Lenny never
had any trouble getting stuff out of his head, he writes reams,” he explains. “He’ll say: ‘I really want to do something about my mother or what it was like for me at school’. And I will take what he’s written, reshape it, add gags where necessary and try to give it more structure. I can’t dictate to him, I simply respond.” Jewish and from North London, rather than from the Midlands with a Caribbean background, “it was curious to be sitting in a room by the Suffolk coast pretending to be Lenny Henry growing up in Dudley,” he admits. Yet the “gulf between us wasn’t ethnicity but class. I’m a middle-class guy who went to Oxbridge, while he left school at 15 and worked in a factory. Amusingly, he’s since become far more educated than me, doing a PhD and an MA. I can hear his voice in my head now, simply by virtue of the amount of time I’ve spent with him. As a butler, you’ve got to just serve it up, you can’t impose your own ego.” Henry hasn’t hid their collaboration, dedicating a chapter to Canter in his forthcoming memoir Rising To The Surface, whom he says
festmag.com
“So much of the joy is writing with other people”
Photo: Matt Crockett
with an audience rather than a monologue after all, and “so much of the joy is writing with other people. “When you see a comedian coming up with stuff on stage in the moment, it’s because that little flame, that bit of their brain is flicked on,” she says. “It’s very hard to generate that on Sarah Keyworth your own. It helps to be in a light and frivolous zone with your mates, that social aspect is has “neuroses up the wazoo”. Canter tours with what gets your brain working.” him, “maybe for the first 12 gigs and we’ll be Byrne, younger brother of stand-up Ed, changing the script. worked with the likes of Brendon Burns, “I’d be in the wings and he’ll be turning to Andrew Maxwell and Phil Nichol. Keyworth got me, calling ‘Jack!’ after a line bombs and saying to know him while working on her debut show ‘well, that’s no good Jack, we’re going to have in 2018. “There was a specific bit that wasn’t to cut that’. Like it’s Jack’s fault.” quite clicking into place. I asked him to come To a greater or lesser degree, most standand look at it and he solved the problem within ups workshop with other comics. Complete two minutes. He had that knack and we got on auteurs are in the minority. so well that he directed my second show.” “It’s never occurred to me to be secretive Byrne could push Keyworth to share the about it,” explains Sarah Keyworth, whose unsayable. “He was willing to say all the things third solo hour, Lost Boy, deals in part with the I was unwilling to,” Keyworth recalls. He never passing of her writing partner, Paul Byrne, from suggested ideas but “often saw potential in Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Stand-up is a dialogue bits that I didn’t. As a straight man in his 40s, he was always going to look at things slightly differently to me. He’d say, ‘well, if I heard you say that, I’d be thinking this’, questioning me on it.” Most helpfully, “Paul had this ability, without being explicit, of blowing smoke up your arse, making you feel really good about yourself. He never said something was a bad idea. He would run with it, we’d take it to a point, before I’d realise it wasn’t going anywhere. He always indulged me.” She adds: “I would be alone in my room, writing, and I’d get this excitement thinking, ‘God, I can’t wait to see what Paul thinks of this’, to hear him laughing at it. One of the hardest parts of moving forward is that I didn’t realise how much I wrote for Paul.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW
Sarah Keyworth
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VENUE: TIME:
Sarah Keyworth: Lost Boy Pleasance Courtyard 5:40pm – 6:40pm, 3–28 Aug, not 16 Spoons Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 6:00pm – 7:15pm, 4–28 Aug
It’s great to be back!
3rd - 29th August Book now at Pleasance.co.uk
David Keenan and Stephen Pastel chat about adapting hallucinatory novel This Is Memorial Device Interviews: Nicola Meighan
I
used to have a radio show that didn’t exist called Radio Thistle. My best friend and I taped ourselves transmitting to no one from our teenage bedrooms in Stirling, and invited imaginary guests to join us for a rock‘n’roll grilling. A recurring phantom interviewee was subterranean pop legend Stephen Pastel. (Spoiler alert: it was me, aged 15, doing a dubious, if audacious, impression.) This would have been the early-mid 90s, and his band, The Pastels, had already been blazing a trail for over a decade. It would take a while longer for them to have a number one seven-inch (with a Sonic Youth split of New York Dolls covers in late ‘21), and to star in a headline Glastonbury slot, via Paolo Nutini’s recent take on their ‘89 album cut, ‘Nothing To Be Done’. But there was never any rush. The Pastels work on Pastels time; they’ve never been shackled by hands on a clock. Lately, Stephen Pastel has been toing and froing in place and time – specifically, to Airdrie in the early-mid 1980s. It’s thanks to a novel, a virtual cult, and a forthcoming theatre show with sound design by Pastel – all inspired by an
underground band so magical that they never existed. You might even have heard them. Who can ever say for sure? Anyway, they’re called Memorial Device. David Keenan first conjured them in his brilliant 2017 novel, This Is Memorial Device: An Hallucinated Oral History of the Post-Punk Music Scene in Airdrie, Coatbridge and Environs, 1978-1986. Its cabal of misfits and visionaries has since spawned a wildly popular Twitter account (Keenan doesn’t know who runs it), and a forthcoming prequel – Industry of Magic & Light – not to mention this stage production
“Art gives you that opportunity, that permission, to step out into the adventure” David Keenan
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A Breath of Fresh Airdrie
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Photo: Heather Leigh
from Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Royal Lyceum. Adapted by Graham Eatough, it stars Paul Higgins (The Thick of It, Line of Duty) as frenzied protagonist Ross Raymond. “Such an incredible community has sprung up around Memorial Device,” Keenan muses on a sunny Monday in Glasgow subcultural paradise, Mono. “People read it, and it becomes their story. I had no ambition to do a theatre production, but very early on, I realised that Memorial Device doesn’t belong to me. All these people coming on board, it’s exactly part of the life of this book. And what Graham and Stephen are doing with it – it’s pretty bold.” At its heart, in every incarnation, Memorial Device is a psychotropic love letter to Lanarkshire. “I’ve always wanted to write about how amazing it can be in small towns,” Keenan says. “I’d go shopping with my gran when I was a kid, and I’d watch all these incredible characters walking down the high street. That’s been my fantasy world since I was 14. But it’s a fantasy that taps into a lot of people’s reality. It’s about falling in love and discovering poetry and listening to John Coltrane and painting. It’s set in Airdrie, but it’s every town, and any town. It’s about these beautiful moments where the world seems to open up to you through art, somehow. Art gives you that opportunity, that permission, to step out into the adventure.” The Pastels make an early appearance in This Is Memorial Device – their seven-inches are on-sale upstairs at the Savoy Centre – so when Stephen Pastel joins us in Mono, he emerges from fantasy into reality in more ways than one. “I was blown away by the book’s real sense of adventurism when I first read it,” Pastel says, pulling up a chair beside us. “It’s that idea of starting from things that are almost prosaic experiences, then ascending into this absolute madness. I didn’t grow up in Airdrie, but when I read the book, it had a real truth about the time.” Keenan nods. “I think you can get closer to the truth through fiction than you can through a purely objective telling. That’s why it gets to that hallucinatory level – it’s that fevered 46
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David Keenan
Photo: Robin Gautier
47 Features
moment where you’re getting so into art and music, and it’s so radically changing your life, that it’s almost as if reality itself is up for grabs.” “The true story of post-punk, or underground, or independent music is not about the huge bands that had massive hits,” Keenan adds. “It’s about the bands that recorded one demo cassette, people who put on three shows, who published a fanzine. They’re the real heroes. It takes a level of belief and bloody-minded commitment to come through with that kind of art.” Pastel first got involved with the theatre production during an on-stage EIBF exploration in 2019. “We had a really good experience collaborating on it,” he says. “I think Graham and [Lyceum Artistic Director] David Greig always liked the idea of doing a more developed version in the future. And so it’s come back round again.” As for what the show might sound like, Pastel’s clear on what it’s not. “I always knew it shouldn’t sound like The Pastels,” he offers. “I also felt very strongly that Memorial Device’s music shouldn’t feature, because people have such a strong image in their minds of what that is. The first time we staged it, I saw the role of music more as providing the atmosphere and the noise of the time – the way it sounded, the way it was recorded.” Some Pastels-related archive recordings are rumoured to feature. These tapes are unlikely to include the fake Radio Thistle sessions, but never say never. One thing that’s assured is total immersion. “It’s got to have that same thing as the book,” Keenan says. “You come staggering out the other side of it going – what the fuck just happened?” Magic happens, everywhere, all the time. Nicola Meighan speaks to David Keenan as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival at the Wee Red Bar on 13 Aug, 8:30pm SHOW VENUE:
Paul Higgins stars in This is Memorial Device
TIME:
This Is Memorial Device Wee Red Bar times vary, 13–29 Aug, not 17, 24
festmag.com
Common Wealth Games Site-specific theatre company Common Wealth discuss the two shows they’ll be sharing with Edinburgh audiences Interviews: Eilidh Akilade
“E
ven getting working class people into a theatre is political,” says Rhiannon White, Co-Artistic Director at Common Wealth. That’s why the site-specific, political theatre group, based in Cardiff and Bradford, are setting the stage a little differently. Specialising in speaking to and from the working class, many of their productions see experimental sound, lighting, and design meet verbatim theatre and new writing to create something as crucial as it is captivating. This year, Common Wealth are taking two shows to the Fringe with this mission statement in mind: Payday Party and Peaceophobia. A collaboration between director Darren Pritchard and Common Wealth, Payday Party consists of six cast members, who each give a monologue and performance, with the entire production held together by a host. It’s joyful
Photo: Jon Pountney
and funny while also reflecting on the (undeniably politicised) hardships experienced by the cast. But Pritchard – and the show itself – is clear: “I’m not making poverty porn.” Peaceophobia is likewise celebratory – particularly, of cars and the peace that the three actors in the show have found in Islam. Set in a car park, the show explores the rise of Islamophobia, reflecting on the men’s own experiences of growing up in Bradford. It’s a Common Wealth collaboration with several groups: Speakers’ Corner, a political and creative collective of women based in Bradford; Bradford Modified Club, a community-based car group; and, Fuel Theatre. For Iram Rehman, a member of Speakers’ Corner and one of several co-directors of Peaceophobia, that collective feeling is experienced by the audience themselves. “It’s quite rare to have a play in a car park,” she says, “and then [even rarer] to be sat in between the cars and to see the actors work on the cars.” Common Wealth’s site-specific approach isn’t just a gimmick: these community-used spaces allow for a connection and a closeness that simply cannot be accessed in a traditional theatre. Payday Party takes a slightly different approach. The radical, socialist celebration was originally put on in a Conservative club (yes, with a capital C) in Cardiff – in the Payday Party ‘Margaret Thatcher Room’, no
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less. It’s a place for gatherings – weddings, birthdays, christenings, wakes – and so, ironically perfect for Payday Party, a show all about bringing people together. “Being in the heart of that Conservative club – like politically, professionally, socially – that for us was a mad catalyst,” says White, who worked closely on the show. “But then to take the essence of that and move it onto a stage in Edinburgh – it still holds all of that fire in its belly with the cast politically. It shows that you can move these things into different spaces.” For Common Wealth, site-specific doesn’t mean site-fixed; there’s a real desire to take things elsewhere. “It’s not just a Bradford thing,” Rehman adds on Peaceophobia. “We want to reach out to people who don’t have the same opinion and to educate people from different backgrounds and from different cities.” The show is inextricably bound to Bradford but the strength of this bond allows it to take Bradford, its people, and their stories, elsewhere. “If I’m designing a show that’s for working class people, we need it to be a show that we can take to those communities,” says Pritchard. As such, it’s not reliant on any elaborate sets. “We could do it around a dining table and the cast could tell their stories and sing their songs and tap-dance on the table.” With Payday Party, the audience become
“It’s quite rare to have a play in a car park” Iram Rehman
complicit; eating crisps, shouting and dancing while playing politicised party games. In the midst of a cost of living crisis where so many feel powerless, Payday Party seeks to return agency to audiences, simply by refusing to let them be passive. Through their innovative work, Common Wealth emphasise the fact that theatre is anything but fixed. Spinning away from traditional theatre, and touring from city to city on their own terms, they create a political movement imbued with joy and unity. Times are bleak – but, as Common Wealth prove, theatre doesn’t have to be. SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Peaceophobia Q-Park Omni Car Park times vary, 24-28 Aug Payday Party Pleasance Dome 2:40pm – 3:40pm, 23–27 Aug
Features
Photo: Ian Hodgson Peaceophobia
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Haley McGee and Helen Wood discuss mortality Interviews: Kirstyn Smith
T
heatre has been obsessed with death for centuries. “Take Hamlet questioning life and death in his famous soliloquy,” points out writer and performer Helen Wood. (‘To be, or not to be, that is the question’, if you’re not in the know). “However, as successive generations are less inhibited, there’s a gradual and beneficial change to people being more open about mental health issues, suicide and death.” This could partly be to do with the destigmatisation of therapy, of the anti-small talkification of modern society and constant ‘It’s good to talk’ campaigns, but after the two years we’ve just had, death is on a lot of people’s minds. Nearly 6.5 million people have
died of Covid (so far) – it would be odd to think that, given this level of loss and grief, death is something anyone can ignore. “Western culture has shied away from death, especially in the last 100 years,” says Haley McGee. “But as more people confront their fears on a personal level, their ability to share that can liberate those around them to discuss their own fears. And when those conversations are recorded, so that millions can listen in, the willingness to talk about the things we’re scared of snowballs.” So that’s what Wood and McGee are doing – portraying their experiences with death in front of audiences in order to open up the
Features
Photo: Thea Courtney
Meeting Death
Haley McGee, Age is a Feeling
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Image: Rebecca Pitt
“It’s a covert rallying cry against cynicism and regret” Haley McGee
conversation just a little bit more. Wood’s Let’s Talk About Philip is a fast-paced, darkly comic journey she embarked on to discover the circumstances that led up to her brother Philip’s death by suicide decades ago. And McGee is showcasing Age Is a Feeling, a show about how our relationship with mortality radically changes the way we live. “Thirty years of family silence is broken just after my mother’s funeral when my father says, ‘Let’s talk about Philip’,” says Wood. “I embark on a quest that takes me back to scenes from my childhood, exotic Asian locations, a coroner’s court, and the rooftop from which my brother jumped.” An outpouring of death onto the stage is useful in many ways. It’s about illuminating not just the people we’ve loved and lost, but the need to think about death and how it affects each of us. McGee’s Age Is a Feeling makes innovative use of the audience to help create a show that’s never the same two nights in a row. The audience chooses six out of thirteen stories that can be told each night. The rest are left by the wayside to remind us that our paths can change dramatically due to seemingly insignificant choices. “It’s a covert rallying cry against cynicism and regret. A call to seize our time,” says McGee. “I want people to reflect on their lives, and 52
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Let's Talk About Philip
their relationship with mortality, regret, and things unsaid.” Both Wood and McGee agree that there are no cons when it comes to talking about death onstage. How could there be when it only serves to put this difficult topic front and centre where it should be, particularly for people who are grieving or considering it, or afraid to open up about confusion, fear and pain. From Wood’s point of view, shielding people from death is fatal. “It’s something that will happen to us all, but a subject that’s so often kept hidden,” she says. “And that is often to the detriment of people in crisis, just as my brother was.” “The inevitability of death is perhaps the only universal truth for all living things,” adds McGee. “This strikes me as excellent fodder for a live performance, something experienced among a collective of strangers.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Age Is a Feeling Summerhall 12:10pm – 1:20pm, 3–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22 Let’s Talk About Philip Pleasance Courtyard 4:00pm – 5:00pm, 3–28 Aug, not 15
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Pride and Joy Tabby Lamb and James Ireland talk about unwrapping joy in their theatre shows Interviews: Katie Goh
“L
et’s be honest, the last three years have been fucking awful,” says the writer Tabby Lamb, half laughing, half sighing. “Every day there’s another transphobic article and a new tweet from awful people, and it all feels inescapable. But when you go into a theatre, you have to turn your phone off. If I can offer an hour’s respite from the world, I will be very, very happy.” Theatre as a joyous escape is something on several LGBTQ+ playwrights’ minds this year at the Fringe. While shows about traumatic, and often painful, subject matters have always had their place at the festival, they often overshadow the need for a diverse range of queer storytelling, particularly shows which celebrate queer happiness over queer suffering. “Happy Meal is all about joy,” Lamb explains firmly about their show. “I wanted to create a
trans show that trans people could watch and not be triggered by, and one that depicts the reality of our lives but focuses on the joy, happiness, romance, and gives us a happy ending.” A nostalgic rom-com, Happy Meal is about two teenagers who meet online and, via MySpace, MSN and chatrooms, figure out who
“I wanted to create a trans show that trans people could watch and not be triggered by” Tabby Lamb
Photo: Piers Foley Photography Happy Meal rehearsals
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Rajesh & Naresh
subverted expectations. “When he first came up with the 10 minute concept, Arjun was reacting against a perception that the UK is the liberated west where everyone can be queer no problem, and India is repressed,” says Ireland. “We flipped that perception on its head because it’s not true to many queer people of colour’s experiences in the UK. The Rajasthani character, Naresh, is comfortable being out to his friends, whereas the British character, Rajesh, is very emotionally locked down. For Arjun, that was a radical statement.” Like Lamb, Ireland hopes that Rajesh and Naresh can also offer a safe space for LGBTQ+ audiences at the Fringe. “There’s just something really powerful about being able to put a happy story on stage. The kind of stories that tend to be written for theatre in the UK are often very difficult and very painful to sit through. We wanted to create a story that centred queer joy, so that an audience member could see that, despite there being some difficult parts in any journey, there are happy endings for them.” SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Happy Meal Traverse Theatre times vary, 4–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22 Rajesh and Naresh Summerhall 2:45pm – 3:45pm, 3–14 Aug
Features
Image: Hugh Tarpey
they want to be. Rather than focus on the negatives of our current online world, Happy Meal is about the power of the internet to bring communities together. “My life was spent using the internet to find out who I am and who I could be,” says Lamb. “I think that’s a very trans thing. For example, a lot of trans people play The Sims because you get to build the person you want to be.” Another show at the Fringe unapologetically centring queer joy is Rajesh and Naresh. “We wanted to make something that was a positive story that didn’t subscribe to the 'bury your gays' trope or punish people for daring to be queer,” explains the show’s writer, James Ireland. “We wanted to put something positive out into the world, particularly given the lack of queer and South Asian theatre in the UK.” Originally written as a 10-minute script in 2019 by Arjun Singh, Rajesh and Naresh is a collaborative work, comprising numerous perspectives. Ireland came on board to help develop the short script into a 60-minute show, as Singh, the show’s director, Sophie Cairns, and performers, Brahmdeo Ramana and Madhav Vasantha, each brought their own experiences to the rom-com. “A fundamental part of the process was bringing as many people as possible into the room,” explains Ireland. “We invited many research participants to see the original play and give us feedback. You’ve got to get the balance right, and not write something that’s detached from reality, but balancing the happiness with the grim which feels more true to our research participants’ experiences.” Ireland and Rajesh and Naresh’s creative team sought to create a rom-com that also
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SOHO WALTHAMSTOW EDINBURGH MUMBAI ONLINE
A Site to Behold
57 Features
An adventure in space with the ingenious minds behind Muster Station, Dreamachine and Pianodrome Interviews: Katie Hawthorne
W
Leith Academy, a large state school near Easter Road. Students will be back in classrooms from mid-August, so the task is to “respect the fact that it’s a working building”, he says, and to tell a story that’s deeply intertwined with its specific setting. “We begin by asking the question we always do – why are the audience here?” Photo: Laurence Winram
here’s the strangest place you’ve ever seen a show? In August, it can feel like every single basement, attic and courtyard in Edinburgh has been co-opted into a venue. From the sticky dancefloors of the Cowgate to University lecture halls transformed into comedy clubs, Fringe audiences quickly grow accustomed to spotting rising stars in the most unlikely of places. But look more deeply, and you’ll find that some shows this summer are exactly where they need to be. Which is where we meet the creatives behind three intensely site-specific performances, created in loving response to deeply unusual spaces: a busy secondary school, an amphitheatre made of pianos, and an art deco ice rink – naturally. Edinburgh theatre company Grid Iron are experts in shaping a performance to fit its surroundings. Or, in playwright and director Ben Harrison’s words, at making theatre that really “listens to a space”. “You might go in with one idea, but the building will tell you if it works”, he laughs, recalling previous exploits in underground vaults, open-air playgrounds, and the hubbub of Edinburgh Airport. This summer, the target in question is
Muster Station
festmag.com
Photo: David Levene Dreamachine
building nestled into Calton Hill, you’ll find the city’s most idiosyncratic venue: an amphitheatre crafted out of over 40 disused pianos. “It’s 100% piano!” says musician and producer Matt Wright, “Right down to every single bolt and screw!” Constructed in the round, the Pianodrome is part treehouse, part boutique lounge, and it can hold over 100 audience Ben Harrison members within its warm, wooden embrace. Muster Station is the result. Set 10 years This Fringe, there’s a free lunchtime concert from now, in the moment of an “extinction-lev- every day at 1pm, as well as the flagship show el climate change event”, the school has Pianodrome Live every evening: “The quality is become a processing point for citizens evacu- just immense,” enthuses Wright, “it’s a handating Edinburgh ahead of a catastrophic flood. picked selection of musicians from Edinburgh The audience will learn the stories of eight and around the world, and it’s different every different characters as they move through time: that’s 23 shows and 46 different acts.” school, all the while awaiting emergency Peformances include star harpist Esther Swift, transportation. The multiplicity of voices, improv with a 140 year old Beckstein grand, perspectives and experiences is central to and soprano Andrea Baker’s exploration of folk the play, so much so that each scene has been traditions through the lens of Scotland’s colowritten by a different playwright: Harrison, nial history. Wright suggests that you expect Nicola McCartney, Tawona Sitholé and Uma the unexpected: “Improvisation runs through Nada-Rajah. “In a crisis we all need the same everything the Pianodrome does – not just in things,” Harrison says. “So we want to capture music, but in life!” the voice of the city.” Community-led right down to the on-site Exchanging a dystopian future for a food and drink (supplied by homeless charity music-lover’s utopia, the Pianodrome is and no-waste cafe Cyrenians and hyper-local similarly dedicated to showcasing the sound brewery Bellfield) the Pianodrome carves out of Edinburgh. In the historic Old Royal High Fringe space for a celebration of Edinburgh’s School, a grand and only recently repurposed year-round creative communities.
“In a crisis we all need the same things”
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In a car park outside Murrayfield Stadium, Dreamachine is conjuring brand new communities. A wildly ambitious project dreamed up by producer Jennifer Crook, the temporary installation twists together scientists, philosophers, technologists, Grammy nominated electronic musician Jon Hopkins and Turner Prize-winning art collective Assemble – all with the goal of giving you a “portal to the powers of your brain”. The original dreamachine is a cult art-object invented by beat artist Brion Gysin in the late ‘50s, and uses flickering light to create extraordinary visions in the viewer’s mind’s eye. “You experience it with your eyes closed!” clarifies Crook, who first became fascinated with the concept as a teen. But it was after attending one of Hopkins’ concerts in 2014 that Crook realised that Gysin’s invention could be expanded and teamed with music – with transformative results. “I just thought, what if it became a whole environment? What would that feel like?” Crook’s iteration of the Dreamachine will take residency in Cardiff, London, Belfast and Edinburgh, and each time in a public building – a market, a temple or, in our case, a baby blue art deco ice rink. “It’s a new kind of community centre,” she says, “the minute you step inside, you’re in the Dreamachine. But ultimately, the real show is in your head.”
And after the show, Crook enthuses, the community starts: “The minute people connect back to the world, they just want to talk! People are itching to hear what other people have seen.” The experience is free but ticketed, and there’s unlimited time and space for audience members to draw, write and talk together, sharing their innermost visions. “The human mind is one of the biggest mysteries there is,” Crook says, “so what could this experience reveal about people across the world? Do we all see and feel the same things?” Dreamachine makes the case that the most unique venue of all is the one inside of your brain. SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Muster Station: Leith Leith Academy times vary, 15–26 Aug, not 16, 22 Dreamachine Murrayfield Ice Rink times vary, 13 Aug – 25 Sep Pianodrome Free Lunchtime Concerts Pianodrome at the Old Royal High 1:00pm – 2:00pm, 5–27 Aug Pianodrome Live Pianodrome at the Old Royal High 9:00pm – 11:00pm, 5–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22
Features
Photo: Douglas Roberts Pianodrome Amphitheatre at the Old Royal High
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AN OLDHAM COLISEUM THEATRE PRODUCTION
Or the Amazing Adventures of the Woman with a Fist in Her Head Written by Clara Darcy & Ian Kershaw Directed by Tatty Hennessy & Raz Shaw
“Beautiful”
“Life-affirming”
West End Best Friend
The Play’s The Thing
Theatre Reviews North
15:40
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“Uplifting”
GEORGE SQUARE
The industrious hands crafting Temping and Work.txt on making a job of the Fringe Interviews: Katie Hawthorne
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ick of your job? Try a new one! Two plays making their Fringe debut will put the audience to work, helping us explore our love-hate relationship with our daily grinds. In Temping, a show for one audience member at a time, you’re subbing for middle-aged actuary Sarah Jane. Sat at her desk, you’ll uncover her story through emails and Excel spreadsheets and possibly, as director Michael Rau puts it, “exorcise some demons” in the process. “You can write that email you’ve always wanted to write to your boss,” he laughs. Playwright Michael
Photo: Alex Brenner
Crowley expands: “You’ll do ‘work’ but you can be good or you can be bad at it! Both ways make for a great show.” More than a workplace revenge fantasy, Temping encourages brave, big-hearted questions about how humans spend the majority of their waking hours. “What is this strange world that we call ‘going to work’?” asks Crowley. “At some point, it’s going to stop. Maybe because you quit, or get fired, or get sick, or you die… the work will stop. How do you get your head around the meaning of that work, and how much of yourself do you want to give to it?” Intimate and mindful, Temping’s not the kind of ‘interactive’ show where an actor will come and “touch your face”, as Rau puts it. “Neither of us are fans of that!” Yet the visceral responses it receives continue to surprise its creators: “We’ve even had people quit their real jobs and write to us to tell us.” And since the pandemic, they’ve realised that Temping’s depiction of life in an average office cubicle has morphed into something of a period piece. “The world has changed, and so has the way that we work,” reflects Crowley. “There’s this noticeable new element of nostalgia.” Over in Summerhall, Work.txt by Nathan Ellis takes a more communal approach: in this show, fellow audience members become colleagues Work.txt
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Photo: Alley Scott
“It’s a show about being always on, turning all of your hobbies into work” Nathan Ellis
as you perform the show together, through a series of gentle, optional, text-based instructions. The initial ‘job’ taken to task is that of a social media manager (“because I’ve done that job” Ellis laughs, darkly) but it’s designed to poke fun at “bullshit jobs” across the board. Influenced by the book Bullshit Jobs, by anthropologist David Graeber (who died in 2020), Work.txt picks at the boundary between our self-worth and our work selves. “It’s a show about being always on, turning all of your hobbies into work: these questions of optimisation and labour just stretching out into everything that we do,” says Ellis. The play took digital form in 2020, but Work.txt was always intended for a room full of people – and the labour crises of 2022 have made it particularly timely. “We had this a moment when a lot of people got paid not to work, and we haven’t metabolised that yet,” Ellis muses. “What does it mean to be useful, or essential? To have purpose? These were difficult, risky questions before the pandemic, but even more so now.” The last years have devastated the theatre industry, and Fringe economics are stretched 62
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tighter than ever before. Have these shows cracked the code to prosperity by casting their audiences as performers? “Nope!” says Ellis, and Work.txt confronts this head on: “Is the value in theatre in your enjoyment? Or are you paying to see actors cry?” Behind the scenes, Temping is staffed by two people – that’s a 2:1 ratio for every audience member. For Crowley, it stands against the capitalist urge to consider value in terms of prices and profit. “This is not that show. To experience it is to accept that there’s a different way of thinking about art.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Temping Assembly George Square Studios times vary, 9–28 Aug Work.txt Summerhall 1:15pm – 2:15pm, 3–28 Aug, not 15, 22
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Houses Fit for People Tessa Lynch
28 Jul – 18 Sept Tue – Sun 10–6 1 Dundee St, EH3 9FP
edinburghprintmakers.co.uk
★★★★
“Visceral storytelling and a bold, defiant performance.” The Stage
★★★★
“Extraordinary... a tour-de-force.” Dance Tabs
Joan Clevillé’s
ANTIGONE, INTERRUPTED Venue 22 I Wed 17 – Sun 28 August 0131 225 5525 I dancebase.co.uk BSL Interpreted 19, 20, 21, 25, 26 August
scottishdancetheatre.com
festmag.com
Criminal Minds
Is theatre the deadliest weapon of them all? Interviews: Tamara Mathias
F
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ries from a Whatsapp group of female actors. The play will transport mystery lovers to the dark underbelly of showbiz and hinges on the unreliable narration of a beleaguered actress in her 40s who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation. It pays homage to Hitchcock’s Psycho and was scripted specifically to be performed as a monologue by Emily Bruni. Image: courtesy Francesca Moody productions
rom a classic whodunnit to a musical murder mystery, crime is on the rise in Edinburgh. While some of us spent lockdown brewing artisanal coffee and swearing off formal wear, several writers and performers were carefully plotting grotesque murders. But scratch beyond the veneer of suspense and you will find that creators had very different motives for using crime in their plays. Take Closure, an intimate, three-person drama starring writer Faye Draper and director Maz Hedgehog, where audiences attend a disturbing dinner party from which not everyone might leave alive. The performance is designed to be an intense, unsettling, claustrophobic experience with dark humour and wicked twists. “You think that the crime in this story is murder, but then you realise there is a painful theme of violence against women underpinning everything,” Hedgehog says. Both Draper and Hedgehog (of Manchester-based theatre company Ink and Curtain) are survivors of sexual assault and delved into their own experiences to create a show that gives voice to “feminine rage”. “This is a potent, slow-burning anger against systematic sexism, sexual violence and misogyny. It is rage at how women’s pain is trivialised and justice is denied,” explains Hedgehog. “I feel my job as director is to build and maintain tension, without exhausting the audience. There’s a pressure valve to the humour and getting the pacing right is very important.” Also drawing on real-life experiences, Matt Wilkinson’s Psychodrama was inspired by sto-
Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder
Photo: The Other Richard
65 Features
“It is rage at how women’s pain is trivialised and justice is denied” Maz Hedgehog
Psychodrama
“This play is in part a love letter to actors and the particular demands we face,” she says. “How you look is subject to discussion, being vulnerable is part of the deal… Psychodrama borrows real stories from actors who love their jobs but land in horrifying, and sometimes hilarious situations because of them.” Bruni serves up a whole cast of suspects, playing eight characters brought to life amid a soundscape by Gareth Fry (who worked on the Olympic Ceremony and Harry Potter and The Cursed Child), and lighting by Elliot Griggs (of Fleabag fame.) “I’m breaking the fourth wall all the time. I don’t feel alone on stage as the audience becomes the other character I’m in conversation with.” Yet not all killer shows rely on foreboding to serve their purpose. In Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder, the hunt for a killer is brought to life with music and lyrics. Writer-musician team Jon Brittain and Matthew Floyd Jones took up the challenge of combining two unlikely genres into a show where clues are hidden in bangers and every scene has its own song. “Murder mysteries and musicals are so different: one demands intrigue and plot
twists, the other pushes you to be emotional and reflective,” Brittain says. “If we’ve done our jobs right, the audience will be thoroughly entertained and end up really investing in the characters and their friendship.” Like the play’s protagonists, a pair of amateur true crime podcasters, Jones says he’s always harbored a secret wish to crack an unsolved case. “Kathy and Stella are exactly like that. We don’t have an Agatha Christie cast of 30 people, but we’re aiming to be very ambitious with five absolutely amazing musical theatre performers and just me on the piano.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Closure Pleasance Courtyard 3:10pm – 4:10pm, 3–29 Aug, not 15 Psychodrama Traverse Theatre times vary, 4–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22 Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall 9:50pm - 11pm, 3-28 Aug, not 4, 9, 16, 23
festmag.com
#DANISH
At Edinburgh Festival Fringe
presented by The Danish Arts Foundation
ROCKY!
by Fix&Foxy 17.55 ❙ Aug 5 – 20 ❙ ZOO Southside - Main House Fiercely entertaining award-winning political theatre based on the movie about the boxer.
WALKMAN by Don Gnu
12.15 ❙ Aug 14 – 28 ❙ ZOO Southside - Main House You will never cross the street in the same way again!
TUESDAY NIGHT SLEEPING CLUB by hello!earth
21.00 ❙ Aug 9 – 26 (only Tuesday-Friday) ❙ ZOOTV An immersive live streamed audio experience at your home. Prepare to enter the night like you never did before!
AN EVE AND AN ADAM by Granhøj Dans
18.50 ❙ Aug 9 – 14 ❙ DANCEBASE NB: Granhøj Dans presents works the whole month A rather naked duet.
www.danishedfringe.com 66
Cabaret for Everyone
67 Features
Aidan Sadler, Baby Lame and Eric Schmalenberger, share their thoughts on the value of cabaret Interviews: Laura Kressly
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you want to live... this show is about learning to control your own narrative and confronting your inner demons in the best possible way.” Sadler’s approach also focuses on the self. “Rather than playing a character, I am simply me,” they say. Ultimately, performers can find inspiration anywhere and they can inspire all sorts of forms and styles. According to Baby Lame, “there aren’t really any hard and fast rules in contemporary cabaret”. It’s this adaptability that helped cabaret not only survive COVID-19, but thrive. Eric Schmalenberger, creator of Blunderland, believes difficult circumstances Image: courtesy Baby Lame
abaret’s popularity has been growing for some time now. However, the flexible and wide-ranging genre that overlaps with circus, drag, improv, theatre and variety hasn’t gone stale. It regularly offers new and exciting shows instead of falling back on established tropes. According to three of this year’s acts, this is still the case despite being more than two years into a pandemic. “Cabaret is an art form that is rooted in constant development,” says Aidan Sadler, which explains why it hasn’t stagnated with time. This is reflected in both their company and their show Tropicana’s flexibility: “We’re very grassroots and we like to do things differently, there’s no real hard script to the show.” They've found that the Fringe is particularly conducive to experimentation. They explain: “Festivals, like the Fringe, allow cabaret artists to push boundaries and explore performance concepts... you can see a performance on the first day and by the last it’s something completely different.” This approach doesn’t just allow performers to improvise and find new content as they go. It also means cabaret can tell a huge range of personal stories. Baby Lame says Final Baby Girl! is “ultimately about giving yourself permission to be what you want to be, and live the life
“I think rough times make for great cabaret” Baby Lame
Baby Lame, Final Baby Girl!
festmag.com
Image: courtesy Blunderland
Photo: David Myers Photography Aidan Sadler
like this make better shows. “I think rough times make for great cabaret. There is so much going on in the world, throwing glitter and camp on reality and turning it into a show makes it a little easier to swallow,” he argues. Baby Lame compares cabaret artists to cockroaches, then explains, “when venues were closed, cabaret adapted much quicker than conventional theatre spaces did.” This combination of resilience, flexibility and constant evolution means that audiences can always find something different. Sometimes it’s a matter of seeing an artist an individual doesn’t know. Sadler says: “It’s a dialogue between the artist and the audience which is personal on so many levels.” Schmalenberger doesn’t think it’s possible to exhaust cabaret. “People have not seen everything. I love taking taboo acts or subjects and finding ways to invert or surprise with them,” he adds. These artists hope that audiences try out cabaret or get to know the genre even better. For one thing, as Baby Lame points out, “cabaret artists don’t get the same level of credibility or critical acclaim that theatre does and we definitely don’t receive the big commercial 68
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opportunities or pay packets that comedians do.” By supporting cabaret, you’re supporting an art form that’s outside the mainstream and artists that may struggle to find regular, well-paid work. Schmalenberger challenges audiences to look beyond the glitz and glamour. “What happens on a cabaret stage is often a good example of the temperature of the world outside... There is a delicacy though, even in the most aggressive performances, in reaching deep places with our audiences.” Sadler sums it up with his nan’s simple, but effective, saying: “Cabaret is for everyone.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Blunderland Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows 9:55pm – 10:55pm, 5–27 Aug, not 15, 22 Final Baby Girl! Assembly George Square Studios 7:00pm – 8:00pm, 4–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22 Aidan Sadler: Tropicana Assembly George Square 10:20pm – 11:20pm, 3–28 Aug
Truth’s A Dog Must to Kennel The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Heart Blood and Gold
This is Memorial Device Samsara Counting and Cracking You Know We Belong Together
TICKETS 0131 248 4848 | lyceum.org.uk
Design www.MadeBy.Do
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Taking Refuge Farah Saleh talks about bringing the experience of migration into focus Interview: Anahit Behrooz
E
very year, it seems, the refugee crisis hits a new and previously unimaginable peak. Conflict mounts in Syria as the West tightens its borders; a war in Europe breaks out as Ukrainians abandon their homes; asylum seekers drown in the Channel as the UK government forms plans to ship them to Rwanda. The refugee crisis has become a crisis not just of the conditions that create displacement, but of the responses from those who should offer a safe haven, peace amidst the wreckage. What does it mean to be a refugee now, in a world of unprecedented hostility? What does it mean to maintain borders, in a world where they are increasingly proved untenable?
“Refugees keep on arriving, moving everywhere. It’s ongoing and it has been since the beginning of the world” 70
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Refuge, a season of dance, theatre, visual arts and conversation at the Edinburgh International Festival, sits unflinchingly within these questions. “The hope is first to acknowledge that this is ongoing – it’s not a topic that curators or programmers can talk about one year and then it’s over,” explains choreographer and dancer Farah Saleh, whose work A Wee Journey, co-created with composer Oğuz Kaplangı, explores the potential universality of migration. “Refugees keep on arriving, moving everywhere. It’s ongoing and it has been since the beginning of the world.” A Wee Journey emerged out of Kaplangı’s physical and emotional journey of arrival to Scotland, from his initial feelings of displacement and alienation to a state of acceptance and hope. His collaboration with Saleh is adroitly chosen; not only has Saleh been making waves in Scottish dance this year with her pieces PAST-inuous and Gesturing Refugees, but her work has always been deliberately collaborative – deconstructing ideas of authorship and belonging within her very practice. “I don’t want to ruin it for you or the audience,” she laughs, “but there are also a couple of moments where we invite the audience to participate with their senses, let’s say. So when they’re sitting and watching, they’re not passive observers.”
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Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic
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Taking place in the intimate space of The Studio, right at the heart of the festival, A Wee Journey is the first of Saleh’s works in a long time to return to the theatre space – itself a deliberately political decision. “The last few years I’ve been working in unconventional spaces – galleries, outdoors – as a choice,” she explains. “I really abandoned the black box [of the stage], and for me, going back is really about reappropriating the theatre space. A lot of works presented about refugeehood and migration don’t really involve people from refugee or migration backgrounds, or they are not really part of the creative process.” This is a deliberate thread that runs throughout the broader Refuge programme, which unequivocally centres the voices of those who have been through the refugee and migration process. Zimbabwean performer mandla rae’s as british as a watermelon is an inexorable examination of trauma and forgiveness told through the queer migration experience, while Akeim Toussaint Buck’s
dance and spoken word piece Windows of Displacement speaks to the tangled history of British oppression, from the transatlantic slave trade to Windrush. Works such as Amber and Detention Dialogues, meanwhile, draw directly from verbatim testimonials to place refugee voices centre stage of the festival. It feels unusual, in many ways, to see a festival as large and established as EIF bring the margins into the spotlight. But, for Saleh, it is only appropriate: “The founder of EIF, as I understand, was a refugee,” she points out. “I think this fact should be very much celebrated on the website of the festival – to make people reflect on it, to have it always there. To remember, to make history alive. It’s not a fact in the past. It’s ongoing.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
A Wee Journey The Studio times vary, 16–20 Aug, not 19
festmag.com
by Extended Play
12.50pm 3 - 29 Aug
(not 15/16)
18:15 3 – 28 AUG
assemblyfestival.com
CHECKPOINT
presents
THE CHARLIE WILLIAMS STORY By Chris England (An Evening with Gary Lineker) Starring Tony Marshall (Casualty, Only Fools and Horses, Life On Mars)
8TH - 29TH AUG | 3:10PM Pleasance Two Pleasance Courtyard
simonfielder.com
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Sharon Kam on the joy of the clarinet Interview: Evan Beswick
I
’d prepped for this interview, with the clarinettist Sharon Kam, hoping to big up the joy that comes with playing instrumental music. Quite recently, I bought a new clarinet, my first and only upgrade of a clunker of a school instrument. I’d spent time with the pieces in Kam’s eclectic International Festival programme, enjoying some of the easier passages, toiling my way through some of the trickier runs, giving up on whole sections of impossible woodwind acrobatics. But I’d loved it, and wanted to bring that pleasure to the conversation. Turns out I needn’t have primed, since Kam, it transpires, radiates her own extraordinary level of joy. There’s times when an interviewer need to be circumspect, critical and analytical. And there’s times when it’s much more enligtening to just enjoy it. Without a doubt, our hour fits the latter category. Describing that magical moment of hitting your stride with a new instrument, Kam says: “the ‘bang’ of the sound is just there, and that is such a great feeling!” It’s spot on, and could just as well describe the German-Israeli’s winning energy. We’re speaking after a hard day’s rehearsal at the Staatstheater Darmstadt, Hesse, where Kam is premiering a clarinet concerto by the Israeli composer, Tsvi Avni – a still-energetic 92-year-old who attends practice via Zoom and has to be brought down from the ceiling
afterwards with reassurances that the sound quality he’s hearing isn’t reflective of the upcoming two performances. Kam describes him as a “legend” and the experience as “really very special”. She is tired but seems exilarated. “I am!” she agrees. “I’m always excited about what I do, and I’m always 100 per cent inside what I do, and I’m always really needing to feel like I gave my best, not hanging behind an experiment or something”. And so it is with the programme she’s bringing to Edinburgh, with the Italian pianist Enrico Pace (“he is exceptional so you gotta use him!”). It stands out in the brochure as a setlist of extraordinary ambition and diversity: from the Brahms clarinet sonata which set the tone for piano and clarinet ensembles for the next century, to Alban Berg’s Vier Stücke, which puts tonality and rhythm to the sword; from the folk dance rhythms of Lutosławski’s Dance Preludes to the syncopation and latin rhythms of the Horovitz Sonatina; from the melody of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke to the incredible frenzy of notes that combine for Francaix’s
“Why not just show off all the stuff we can do?”
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Photo: Nancy Horowitz Sharon Kam
Tema con Variazione. “It’s a scary programme for me, because it’s like it’s having too many notes, and too many things to do.” We talk through the setlist, me effusing on my attempts to muddle through the pieces with the naive zeal of a recent convert, Kam warmly embracing my enthusiasm while offering more insighful reflections of her own. Generous doesn’t even cover it: “I am a big fan of every person who has another profession, and still takes the time to touch their instruments. Don’t give up! The passion for it is so much more important than how it sounds, really!” she offers. Thanks Sharon. 74
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But it’s the Horovitz that Kam most lights up over. “He just passed away and it’s one of those things we just have to play to keep him in our memories. It’s very close to my heart. Twice he heard me playing it. I met him twice and he commented on my playing. He was thankful and always happy when his piece was being played.” She goes on: “I don’t know anything else like it. It’s very, very emotional, and it’s very short and but it still leaves you with this sort of taste for more.” SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Sharon Kam & Enrico Pace The Queen’s Hall 11:00am – 12:45pm, 11 Aug
I Was Naked, Smelling of Rain Aidan Moesby
186
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Peaceophobia Common Wealth, Speakers Corner and Bradford Modified Club
22–28 AUGUST
The Dan Daw Show 22 Dan Daw Creative Projects
Ten vital, genre-defying performances
Dykegeist Eve Stainton with Mica Levi
→ horizonshowcase.uk 0131 226 0000
He’s Dead 26 Marikiscrycrycry
Civilisation 82 Jaz Woodcock-Stewart with Morgann Runacre-Temple
Look At Me Don’t Look At Me RashDash
23
I Am From Reykjavik Sonia Hughes 22
EXPOSURE the vacuum cleaner
@hrzn_showcase
The Dan Daw Show. Photo © Hugo Glendinning
NUTCRUSHER Sung Im Her
@hrznshowcase
Thanks to our media supporters The Fest & Skinny
Sounding It Out
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Jess Williams, Kate Marlais, DJ Simonotron and Anna Meredith chat about the role of music in theatre productions Interviews: Becca Inglis
O
“We talk about the show having two worlds: the real world and the emotional world,” adds Williams. “The songs are everything that’s unsaid, everything that they’re feeling, and their sisterly connection as well.” Music’s capacity to say the unsayable emerges in the tracks that DJ Simonotron selected for Ode To Joy, a queer clubbing chronicle set in Berlin’s Berghain. “For me, the music in this show, and the way the performers interact with it, demonstrates the transformative nature of people dancing together,” he says. “There’s something inherently silly about flinging your arms and legs about and smiling Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
f all the ways to look for inspiration for your next show, listening to your favourite band is rather a nice one. Sister trio The Staves provide the soundtrack to ThickSkin’s Blood Harmony, which, mirroring the band’s own loss in 2018, explores the emotional fallout for three sisters after their mother’s death. When asked why they chose The Staves, co-director Jess Williams shares that, well, she and Jonnie Riordan just really love their music. But the group’s harmonies also evoke the evolving relationship between the three sisters onstage. “We wanted to look into blood harmony – when siblings sing together, the sound that they make,” says Williams. “We thought it would be a great way of showing how siblings are connected in an unspoken way.” Part of the appeal of using a band’s existing lyrics, rather than working with a traditional composer, is the emotional punch they lend to the action. Music director Kate Marlais differentiates between what she calls “room songs” and “corridor songs” in musicals, where “corridor songs” exist solely to drive the story forward. “I think we’re sitting more in ‘room songs’ here,” she says. “It frees you up to get to the depths of how a lyric is supposed to feel.”
“We thought it would be a great way of showing how siblings are connected in an unspoken way” Jess Williams
Ode To Joy (How Gordon Got To Go To The Nasty Pig Party)
festmag.com
Photo: Lawrence Winram
with strangers in a room. There’s a joy and freedom that can be conveyed onstage.” Writer and director James Ley frequents Hot Mess, the queer club night that Simonotron DJs in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Simonotron believes that its euphoric atmosphere is what inspired Ley to recruit him to Ode to Joy, which presents a uniquely optimistic picture of hedonism. “Within popular culture, you often get stories about people losing themselves in the joys of drugs, sex, and dancing, but there’s always a dark side,” he says. “Someone will end up dead or diseased or life in pieces. This is not that story. This is a story of men enjoying that hedonism and falling in love, and there’s no apology.” Another story getting a refresh this August is that of Robert Burns, whose struggles with poverty and mental health will complicate his tartan and shortbread brand. Music by Anna Meredith backs Burns’ choreography, though she says it was the lack of any obvious national identity in her compositions that got her the gig. “They said they wanted something that didn’t necessarily sound Scottish,” she says of director Alan Cumming and choreographer Steven Hoggett. “Stuff that didn’t just romanticise, and showed the human struggle stuff that he had.” Uniquely for a production about Scotland’s national bard, his linguistic prowess takes a backseat while music and movement reveal
Burn
Image: courtesy Blood Harmony
new facets of his character. “It shows his journey rather than his output,” says Meredith. “It’s more about why he was writing like that, or what was going on for him.” For musicians involved in a production like this, there is intrigue in seeing how their music will be interpreted. Meredith says she feels in safe hands with Cummings, while The Staves have praised the Blood Harmony script in a private letter. “It’s quite a fresh approach that is having a surgence,” says Marlais. “There’s so many artists clamouring to put their music into a theatrical context. As a music writer myself, to reframe your songs in a new way is really exciting.” SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW
Blood Harmony
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VENUE: TIME:
Burn King’s Theatre times vary, 4–10 Aug, not 8 Ode to Joy (How Gordon got to go to the nasty pig party) Summerhall 6:20pm – 7:20pm, 3–28 Aug, not 15, 22 Blood Harmony Traverse Theatre times vary, 6–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22
festmag.com
Photo: Kevin Berne
Musical Scales
Justin Huertas talks about his pop rock musical Lizard Boy Interview: Claire Sawers
T
he Seattle actor and playwright Justin Huertas grew up on a diet of superheroes and comic books. He loved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Spider-Man and X-Men, carving out his own identity from all the characters that he loved to follow. Huertas has also been playing the cello since he was 10 and his high school obsession with musicals like Hello, Dolly! and Les Misérables led to him composing his own music and writing lyrics. So when he was commissioned to write a show for Seattle Repertory Theatre seven years ago,
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he decided to write himself in as the hero, and play his cello too. Lizard Boy is his pop rock musical; a story about a boy called Trevor who acquires superpowers after dragon’s blood is spilled on him. He grows green scales which, alongside his telekinetic powers, almost jeopardises his chances of romance with Cary, who has been flirting with him... It’s a queer, sci-fi, coming-of-age story about Grindr, catfishing, shapeshifting and first dates, with songs that have earned it a
cult following in the States, and more recently, new fans in Manchester. Huertas brought the show over to the Mill Theatre where it had its UK debut in July. As a gay American Filipino man writing Lizard Boy back in 2015, Huertas was unaware of the impact his show would go on to have. “My own coming out story was very boring and uneventful,” he explains. “I was privileged to have the most supportive parents and a great community at high school. I needed to make it more interesting when I wrote about it, so I gave myself green lizard skin and made that the point of drama instead. It was only later that I came to realise, that I came up with that metaphor because I had a lot of trauma related to my skin. I was a young brown person existing in very white spaces. The lizard metaphor was my response to my upbringing and trying to fit into this world where I don’t feel like I fit.” Over the seven years that Lizard Boy has been performed, representation for queer people of colour has thankfully changed for the better according to Huertas, who was touched by some of the early responses he got to his musical. “In 2015 people came to see the show and told me afterwards how much it meant to see someone like me be onstage, and be quirky and weird and also be in love, and be a hero, and save the day. I really didn’t know until we were in performances how kind of revolutionary that was. “I’m so happy to see that there are more and more works and spaces being created now by and for queer people of colour. It’s amazing.”
Bringing Lizard Boy to Edinburgh for its debut Fringe performance, Huertas hopes the audiences will like it, and hopefully leave with some of his songs stuck in their head. “Whoever you are, wherever you’re from, however you identify, or whoever you love, I hope we help you make you feel not only more comfortable in your own skin, but more empowered in your own skin. You should feel powerful standing in your identity and sharing your identity with the world. That’s kind of the whole message behind the show.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Lizard Boy Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 6:30pm – 7:30pm, 3–28 Aug, not 15
Features
Photo: Kevin Berne
“The lizard metaphor was my response to my upbringing and trying to fit into this world where I don’t feel like I fit”
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Remote Goat
Mumble Music
TW Edinburgh
The List
Broadway Baby
ThreeWeeks
A fun-packed, joyous drumming extravaganza!
HHHH ‘ACHINGLY FUNNY...
WORTH SEEING AGAIN AND AGAIN.’ TIME OUT
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Fever Pitch
83 Features
Penny Chivas and Debra Batton discuss the climate crisis and the diversity of life on earth Interviews: Deborah Chu
I
n late 2019, Glasgow-based dance artist Penny Chivas was in Australia visiting family when the bushfires broke out. “The air was so thick [with smoke], particularly in Ngunnawal Country (Canberra) — you couldn’t see more than 20 or so metres in front of you,” she says. The fires raged on for months. By March 2020, 19 million hectares of land had been burned, thousands of homes destroyed, and more than a billion wildlife killed. This August, Chivas grapples with the history and legacy of the Black Summer through her dance-theatre work Burnt Out. “It feels important to bring my perspective on all this, as an Australian, to a country like the UK, that doesn’t quite seem to feel the same devastating effects of climate change yet,” she says. The key word: yet. Due to the climate crisis, catastrophic natural disasters such as these are growing in frequency and scale. The future of humanity, says UN Secretary-General António
Photo: Sarah Walker
Photo: Claudia Sangiorgi-Dalimore Zoë
Guterres, is at ‘code red’. The evidence is there for all to see, black and smouldering. Yet three years on, true progress has been stifled by ineffectual governments and the rapacious fossil fuel industry. In the most decisive decade of human history, our window of opportunity is closing. In end times such as these, what can we do? Many shows at this year’s Fringe centre around this very question. Some seek to educate, such as Matt Winning’s stand-up hour Hot Mess, or David Finnegan’s blend of science and storytelling in his own account of the Australian bushfires, titled You’re Safe Til 2024. Others use the space to feel and reflect – the play The Kettling brings the drama of a climate protest to a fever pitch, while Shrimp Dance stages a heady blend of Butoh and ecocide. Aussie circus company A Good Catch looks at the question from a slightly different perspective: maybe how we do it matters
You're Safe Til 2024
festmag.com
Photo: Brian Hartley Penny Chivas, Burnt Out
too. Their show Zoë sees three performers set out to embody and express nothing less but life itself, in all its forms. “There is a liveliness in a dog, a table, an imaginary creature, a molecule, and a virus,” says Debra Batton, a performer and co-director of the company. “As circus artists, we understand this. We have relationships with apparatus and fellow acrobats; with lighting, sound and the groups of strangers who attend our performances.” The show explores the necessary entanglements of all kinds of life – both human and non-human – and its chaotic, beautiful consequences. As part of this thinking, much of Zoë’s choreography came together organically, in response to what Batton calls “the conditions of life”. “We allow[ed] the show to emerge through skills training, discussion, play and the everyday,” she says. “There [was] no line between the end of training and the beginning of making.” The value of play and discovery for its own sake in Zoë stands in opposition to what the trio term ‘the trans-species commodification of life that is advanced capitalism’. That is, the idea that our planet exists merely as a resource to be extracted, and that all living things within it – including humans – are measured in terms of their monetary value. “Nothing can exist for its own sake, for the wonder of it,” says Batton, “including art!” 84
Dance & Circus
“The UK doesn’t seem to feel the same devastating effects of climate change yet” Penny Chivas
A circus rebuttal to neoliberal capitalism is “absolutely absurd”, acknowledges Batton, and also wholly necessary. Zoë’s love letter to the planet and the inherent mess of living creates room for manifold possibility. Also known as: hope. “It’s the unforeseeable outcomes of each entangled encounter that casts new light and creates new shadows,” says Batton. As we enter into a messy, chaotic month, entangled with millions of other in this city, that’s something to hold onto.
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Zoë Assembly Roxy 3:30pm – 4:30pm, 3–14 Aug Burnt Out Dance Base 1:30pm – 2:15pm, 23–28 Aug
85 MOSAICO ERRANTE
blackbluesbrothers
2020
2020
The Advertiser Global Post Media
All About Entertainment
Into our Hearts
One 4 Review
an The Scotsm
BOOK assemblyfestival.com ONLINE @AssemblyFest 0131 623 3030
16:45
3 - 28 AUG
ASSEMBLY ROOMS
festmag.com
Freedom To Move Creatives involved in three productions – The Dan Daw Show, Kvartetto and Ice Age – discuss how disability is no longer a boundary in dance Interviews: Eilidh Akilade
T
here’s a certain image of contemporary dance – it’s all arched backs and stretched out arms and bare feet against a scuffed black floor. It’s not an issue. What is, however, is that this image of contemporary dance almost always centres only able-bodied dancers. This year, a number of disabled-led dance shows at the Fringe are shifting the focus. Queer, disabled dancer and choreographer Dan Daw had spent much of his career hearing how much of an inspiration he was to others; now, The Dan Daw Show is all about him inspiring himself. “It looks at the ways pride and shame intersect, looking at the pride and shame associated with having a disability in the world,” Daw says, “but also the pride and shame of being kinky in the world.” Daw’s disability is explored in relation to his kinkiness, with such topics so rarely given the limelight and disabled folk routinely desexualised in mainstream media.
“The piece gives an opportunity for the audience to contemplate normality and ableism on the stage as well as in our own society” Kati Raatikainen
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Daw’s work incorporates spoken word and dialogue, ensuring nothing is left unsaid. There’s no room for ambiguity – and this is exactly Daw’s intention. Performing at this intersection of theatre and dance allows for a clarity which is often lost between the alienating angles and curves of contemporary dance. As Daw puts it, his work is just as much for the industry as it is “Margaret who plays bingo on a Thursday” – or anyone else for that matter. There’s not only a desire to limit who “gets” contemporary dance, but also an inclination to limit who has the title of “dancer”. Kvartetto sees choreographer Kati Raatikainen collaborate with three disabled performers, exploring their personal longings and desires, while claiming their identity as both dancers and participants in society. For Raatikainen, “The piece gives an opportunity for the audience to contemplate normality and ableism on the stage as well as in our own society and in our ways of thinking.” While disability is not a boundary within contemporary dance, disabled-led dance doesn’t need to always make a commentary on disablism or disabled-rights: that inherent desire and love for dance is enough. “Music makes me dance and move and feel good,” says Sanna Tornikoski, one of the dancers in Kvartetto. “Dance brings me joy and makes me surrender.” This notion of giving in is something that also comes through in Daw’s work, primarily in its exploration of kink. “I’m essentially being dominated on my terms and using Christopher Owens – who is a non-disabled performer and collaborator – to use his body to set my body free,” he says. “I want to feel this free when I’m out in the world – when I’m being stared at, when I’m being laughed at, when I’m being pushed over.”
Ice Age Photo: Ulla Nikula Kvartetto
To platform such vulnerability, the relationships off-stage are just as important as those on-stage. Daw has known Owens for over 15 years, having worked together throughout their careers. For Daw, that familiarity is key, allowing them “to really rely on each other in the work and to meet each other where we’re at during the piece.” Their full presence is required to emotionally and physically support each other. Ice Age – a collaboration between visually impaired choreographer Chang Chung-An and disabled choreographer Maylis Arrabit – explores this notion of mutual support across the stretches of distance and time created by the pandemic. “In the process of interaction, despite the language barrier and different cultures, we support each other in this journey of struggle but with hope and toward the same direction together,” says Chung-An. “Support sometimes means stepping back, giving space for someone else to ‘be’, sometimes it’s watching and listening, sometimes it’s finding allyship,” adds Arrabit. The show’s
inclusive choreography seeks to reflect this by drawing on the dancers’ simultaneous vulnerability and power. Yet again, it’s a far cry from inspiration porn. Rather, disabled dancers are approaching the Fringe on their own terms. Just as all contemporary dance doesn’t look one uniform way, nor does all disabled-led contemporary dance, a reminder of just how much these groups are bringing to the stage. As Tornikoski says, “Performing in Edinburgh is exciting and a little scary too, but still very interesting.” SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Ice Age Dance Base 4:15pm – 5:05pm, 5–21 Aug, not 8, 15 Kvartetto Summerhall 2:45pm – 3:30pm, 17–24 Aug, not 19, 22 The Dan Daw Show Dance Base 8:30pm – 10:00pm, 23–28 Aug
Features
Photo: Huang Jyong Jhe
Photo: Hugo Glendinning The Dan Daw Show
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40TH ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL
3 – 29 AUG “The jewel in the crown of the Fringe” The Scotsman
BOOK assemblyfestival.com ONLINE @AssemblyFest 0131 623 3030
23:55
5 - 28 AUG
HALL MOUND PLACE
The best place in town to catch rising comedy stars and your Fringe favourites
Bite-size tasters of the best comedy, music, family entertainment and circus across the Fringe
BOOK assemblyfestival.com ONLINE @AssemblyFest 0131 623 3030
12:50
GEORGE SQUARE
6 - 28 AUG
BOOK assemblyfestival.com ONLINE @AssemblyFest 0131 623 3030
GEORGE SQUARE
22:25
4 - 28 AUG
FREEDOM +++++
‘Meticulous and unstoppable … spirited and spectacular’
ADELAIDE ADVERTISER
‘A life affirming, exuberant tribute’
++++
THE NEW YORK TIMES
LIMELIGHT MAGAZINE
BOOK assemblyfestival.com ONLINE @AssemblyFest 0131 623 3030
16:45
3 - 28 AUG
GEORGE SQUARE
BOOK assemblyfestival.com ONLINE @AssemblyFest 0131 623 3030
13:40
4 - 29 AUG
HALL MOUND PLACE
Photo: Rebecca J Michel
The World on a String
Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster
Puppetry is coming out of the shadows across the children’s programme Interviews: Claire Sawers
T
he American children’s author Mo Willems was impressed after seeing a gothic puppet version of Frankenstein by the performance troupe Manual Cinema and decided they should adapt his books next. Having started out as a writer and animator for Sesame Street, Willems knew good puppetry when he saw it. He approached the Chicago-based company and they created the kids stage show Leonardo! inspired by two of his books: his 2005 bestseller Leonardo, the Terrible Monster, about a monster who can’t frighten anyone no matter how hard he tries, and Sam,
“It’s a story about empathy and reaching out to others” Sarah Fornace
The Most Scaredy-Cat Kid in the Whole World. The show combines Willem’s much loved original illustrations and pastel backdrops with live actors, puppets, DIY cinema effects and a brand new musical score. “My two-year-old is a big fan of Mo Willem’s books and absolutely loves Should I Share My Ice Cream? It’s a core philosophical text!”, says Sarah Fornace, who directs Leonardo!, and also plays Sam, the scaredy-cat kid in the show. “In Leonardo!, we see a kid who thinks being scary is cool, kinda like being famous. He’s in this white track jacket, everyone’s following him on cameras. He’s adorable, with boundless optimism. But bullies put pressure on him. He has to make a choice between being a wonderful friend to Sam, who needs him, or being a scary monster. It’s a story about empathy and reaching out to others – and the rich interior emotional life of children!” Leonardo! is coming to Edinburgh fresh from a run in New York, and is the follow up
festmag.com
Photo: KCCUK Puppet Pansori Sugungga
to Manual Cinema’s 2019 Fringe run of Frankenstein. It keeps the cute Calvin and Hobbes meets Maurice Sendak-style aesthetic from the original book but gives it the live action treatment with a combination of furry Muppetsesque puppets and moving paper cutouts. The company also uses an ingenious live filming technique where a folder of drawings is flipped through onstage like a stop motion animation, with props and stickers added as they go. The bar is high for puppetry in this year’s Fringe, with other kids’ productions giving imaginative updates to the genre once made famous by the likes of Punch and Judy, Sooty, Basil Brush and Pinocchio. A Ladder to the Stars at Gilded Balloon is a gentle, charming adaptation of a book by Simon Puttock, using floating lights, twinkling music and a tiny knee-high doll to tell the story of Olive, who wishes upon a star. It’s the first time Glasgow’s Visible Fictions have brought a show to the Fringe, but reviews of a pre-pandemic tour of A Ladder to the Stars declared it magical and enchanting. Two other shows carry an environmental message; The Man Who Planted Trees from Edinburgh’s Puppet State Theatre Company is an adaptation of a 1953 short story by Jean Giono, and Space Hippo is a science-fiction cautionary tale from Japan’s Mochinosha company. To set the scene in Provence for The Man Who Planted Trees, the Storytelling Centre will be filled with the scents of lavender and herbs as the allegory unfolds, about a man who plants acorns in a desolate valley. Meanwhile the eponymous Space Hippo at Assembly George Square has been tasked with saving a dying planet Earth. Her epic voyage is brought to life by over two hundred shadow puppets in the one-hour show. Puppet Pansori Sugungga shines a spotlight on the Korean art form pansori, a 90
Kids
type of musical storytelling performed by a singer and a drummer. Although criticised by Kim Jong-Il in North Korea, pansori singers are considered to be national treasures in South Korea, praised for keeping an ancient folk tradition alive. For Fornace, who became a mother in May 2020 during the pandemic, the opportunity to connect with children’s audiences IRL now is a pretty special one. “My toddler didn’t get to play with any other kiddos at first, and Leonardo! was the first live show he saw. Watching kids enjoying stories together now – especially after kids spent a long time not being able to connect with each other, with closed schools and everything, it’s very soul-filling to see.”
SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Manual Cinema Presents: Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster Underbelly, Bristo Square 1:45pm – 2:35pm, 3–29 Aug, not 15 Space Hippo Assembly George Square 10:20am – 11:20am, 4–29 Aug A Ladder to the Stars Gilded Balloon Teviot 11:30am – 12:30pm, 3–29 Aug, not 10, 16, 23 The Man Who Planted Trees Scottish Storytelling Centre 1:15pm – 2:20pm, various dates between 5 Aug and 29 Aug Puppet Pansori Sugungga theSpace @ Niddry St 6:05pm – 6:55pm, 5–20 Aug, not 14
91 Fringe favourites Theatre Fideri Fidera are back with a hilarious take on the legendary Swiss ‘Robin Hood’ - Wilhelm Tell
and and The The Wheel Wheel of of Science! Science!
Edinburgh49
‘This show is what you want live children’s theatre to be.’ BROADWAYWORLD.COM
Science. Science. Comedy. Comedy. Kaboom! Kaboom! 12:00 3 - 21August
PLEASANCE.CO.UK 0131 556 6550
Photo © 2022 Brighton Studio; Illustration © 2022 Lisa Smith
Dining Room 3 - 29 AUG 11.30am
Tickets: £7 - £10.50 (conc available) BOOK: gildedballoon.co.uk 0131 622 6552 Visible Fictions is a Scottish Charity (SC021724) and a Company Limited by Guarantee (Scotland 144133)
12:00 3 - 21 AUG
(Not 10/17) (60 miNs)
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Quintessential Edinburgh, in that it’s hilly, cobbled, a bit dank, and full of ‘character’. There are many places to eat and drink around the subterranean Fringe venues in the Old Town Words: Peter Simpson
Image: courtesy of the venue Cold Town House
The City Cafe If you’ve ever dreamt of going to an American diner in the 1950s, well... you can’t. Sorry. Luckily, The City Cafe is a pretty good alternative, with its chessboard floor and leather and chrome booths. 19 Blair St, @thecitycafe Civerinos The vibe is great; all flypostered walls and marble statues. The pizza is great: sourdough base, brilliant toppings, and big enough to fuel even the busiest flyerer. 5 Hunter Sq, @civerinos
Bannermans The back room of Bannermans is one of the favourite haunts of the city’s rockers, but the main bar is more laidback. A good-value, roomy haunt right in the centre of town. 202 Cowgate, @Bannermans
The Bow Bar One of the best pubs in the Old Town, head to the Bow for an impressive range of draught beer and whiskies, all in an extremely woody environment. 80 W Bow, @the_bow_bar_edinburgh
Cold Town House They’ve got a bar on the roof. Cold Town House is a threefloor hive of drinks, food and fun times, but its unquestionable ace in the hole is its rooftop terrace. 4 Grassmarket, @coldtownhouse
Banshee Labyrinth If a dive bar were designed by a crypt-keeper, it would look like Banshee Labyrinth. Endless caves, copious hiding places and free-flowing drinks. 29 Niddry St, @banshee_labyrinth
Chop House If the Fringe is getting you down, may we recommend the Chop House’s frankly outlandish breakfasts, or one of their incredible dryaged steaks? East Market St, @chophousesteak
The Hive The wild and cavernous Cowgate haunt is a notorious student haunt for good reason. If you only know The Hive for its Fringe programming, you haven’t lived. 3 Niddry St, @thehivenightclub
Cityguide
The Old Town
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Image: courtesy of the venue
Hula Bright and breezy, Hula does a great line in fresh fruit juices with exotic and outrageous blends that you never would have considered, as well as great coffee and exciting food. 103-105 West Bow, @hulajuicebar Lady Libertine Mezze, cocktails, multiple areas through which to sashay, and a late closing time all combine for an ideal end of day venue. 25 W Register St, @Lady_Libertine_ Mary’s Milk Bar A cute little gelateria inspired by the milk bars of the 1960s but with 2022’s flavours, Mary’s is the one place you must go while you’re in town. No ifs, no buts, have an ice cream. 18 Grassmarket, @MarysMilkBar The Milkman Or should that be Milkmen? Head to The Milkman at the top of Cockburn Street for an excellent flat white; if it’s too busy, go to the other Milkman at the bottom of the street. 7 & 52 Cockburn St, @themilkmancoffee Image: courtesy of the venue
96
Old Town
Moo Pie Gelato Exceptional modern ice cream in the heart of the Old Town, Moo Pie offers up small batch gelato and soft serve. Yep, Mr Whippy’s gone all fancy; we love to see it. 26 St Mary’s St, @moopiegelato
Salt Horse Salt Horse features one of the most comprehensive beer selections in the capital, an eclectic and impressively dense range that will take the whole month to work through. 57-61 Blackfriars St, @salthorsebar
OX 184 A lengthy bar stocked with a legion of beers, ciders and spirits and nightly DJs are a solid start. Then there’s a wood-fired grill and handsome BBQ menu served until 2.30am. 184 Cowgate, @ox_184
Sneaky Pete’s It’ll make your Fringe flat seem like a palace, but what Sneaky’s lacks in area it makes up for with energy. A huge range of club nights with an ever-present crowd of the city’s most discerning clubbers. 73 Cowgate, @sneakypetesclub
Room and Rumours There’s tasty coffee and exciting brunch options, yes, but a trip to R&R is about getting one of their delightful filled doughnuts, made fresh each morning. 25 E Market St, @roomrumourscoffee
Image: courtesy of the venue
The Milkman
Lady Libertine
Sneaky Pete's
The New Town
99 Cityguide
Big. Georgian. Energy. This is the ‘top half’ of the ‘city centre’ – the bit north of Princes Street – where you’ll find The Stand’s various comedy venues, the Assembly Rooms and the Rose Street Theatre, along with some phenomenal places for a pint Words: Peter Simpson
Black Rose Tavern The Black Rose is a Rose Street haven for rockers, moshers, and everyone else who wants to enjoy their pint with some good riffs. 49 Rose St, @blackrosetavern49 Bramble Arguably the city’s finest cocktail bar. It’s dark, the hip-hop bumps loudly, and the drinks are beautiful. 16a Queen St, @Bramble_Bar Chez Jules The chaotic basement bistro is an Edinburgh institution. Classic French dishes and ludicrous value; a three-course lunch for £12 is always gonna get a mention from us. 109 Hanover St, @chezjuleshanoverstreet
El Cartel Mexicana Some of the best Mexican food in Edinburgh can be found in the cosy (as in tiny) confines of El Cartel. It’s a tight squeeze inside, but the tacos and margaritas make up for it. 64 Thistle St, @elcartelmexicana Fierce Beer Bar The Aberdonian brewery have taken up residence at the west end of Rose Street, with their bar serving up some craft beer realness. 167 Rose St, @fiercebeer Fortitude Coffee In Fringe terms, Fortitude is a perfect fit – coffee, sandwiches, cakes – all on the literal doorstep of The Stand. 3c York Pl, @fortitudecoffee
Photo: Splintr Design
BABA Middle Eastern mezze are the order of the day at BABA. Expect a highly shareable menu packed with tasty Levantine dishes. 130 George St, @babaedinburgh
Fortitude Coffee
Nightcap Great cocktails, a moody yet welcoming interior, lovely bar staff, and an ideal location next door to The Stand. 3 York Pl, @nightcap2016
Image: courtesy of the venue
Noto Exceptional small plates in a pared-back and super cool Lowdown Coffee setting, we love Noto. We parA small but perfectly-formed ticularly love their crab butter, Scandi-style basement bewhich is one of the single best neath George Street, Lowdown things to eat in the city. is a calming environment from 47a Thistle St, which to escape the madness @notoedinburgh of the street above. 40 George St, The Voodoo Rooms @coffeelowdown Its performance spaces get plenty of shine in August, but the amazingly ornate bar deserves its own entry. Big leather booths, very fancy ceiling. 19a W Register St, Fierce Beer Bar @thevoodoorooms
festmag.com
Bristo Square During August, a cluster of university buildings generates its own gravity. Pleasance Dome, Gilded Balloon Teviot and Bedlam Theatre are all within a few hundred yards of one another – surrounded by a pick of great bars and restaurants Words: Peter Simpson
Che Falafel cures all ills, so if you’ve hit it a bit too hard, head to Che for a chickpea nightcap. The freshly-fried falafel, wrapped up with salad and pickles, will see you through. 21 Forrest Rd
George Square Street Food Expect to find a raft of street food vans parked up in-andaround the George Square homes of Underbelly and Assembly. We recommend seeking out The Buffalo Truck (black van, amazing fried chicken).
Civerinos Slice Need to recharge after running from show to show? Head to Civerinos Slice and get a piece of a 20-inch pie. Seriously, these slices are enormous. 49 Forrest Rd, @civerinos_slice
Paradise Palms A genuine lynchpin for Edinburgh’s creative community, Palms has a bit of everything. It’s a performance space, a record shop (and record label), a veggie diner, and a hugely fun bar. 41 Lothian St, @edinburghpalms
El Cartel Mexicana This branch of El Cartel is in the belly of the Fringe beast, but grab some tacos and soon that staircase queue in Teviot will be far from your mind. 15 Teviot Pl, @elcartelmexicana 100
Bristo Square
Saboteur South Asian street food with a great range of veggie options, Saboteur is right next to illustrious sibling Ting Thai Caravan, but without the queues. 19 Teviot Pl, @saboteurrestaurant
Image: courtesy of the venue
Image: courtesy of the venue Civerinos Slice
Paradise Palms
Thomas J Walls Taking up residence in the former opticians on Forrest Road, Thomas J Walls is a pretty grand place for a coffee. It’s also bloody enormous, so grabbing a seat is rarely an issue. 35 Forrest Rd Ting Thai Caravan Totally affordable, incredibly tasty and more than a little exciting, Ting Thai Caravan is in many ways the perfect lunch spot. Get down early for a seat at the canteen-style benches. 8 Teviot Pl, @tingthaicaravanedinburgh Union of Genius Soup’s great, and Union of Genius’ soup is greater than most. Loads of veggie options, plentiful servings and super-quick service make this a perennial favourite. 8 Forrest Rd, @unionofgenius
101
“Utterly Charming” – The Theatre Mirror
12:00
4 - 29 AUG
GEORGE SQUARE
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Newington and the Southside
103 Cityguide
One of Edinburgh’s student areas and home to Fringe heavyweights Pleasance Courtyard and Assembly Roxy. The main street runs from the Bridges to (off) the edge of the Fringe map with plenty of places to refresh Words: Peter Simpson The Auld Hoose An ‘old man pub’ and ‘rock bar’ cross-breed, this Newington pub covers both in style. Slick decor, varied drinks and ridiculous nachos. 23-25 St Leonard’s St, @AuldHooseEdinburgh
Black Medicine Coffee Co. A much-loved Fringe spot, Black Medicine is a sanctuary. Lovely wooden tables, delicious smoothies, and great coffee. 2 Nicholson St, @blackmedicinecoffee
Brass Monkey Tucked in between the Pleasance and the Bridges, Brass Monkey matches a great location with a relaxed atmosphere and warrenlike layout. 14 Drummond St
Bits Bake Shop If you need a pick-me-up, Bits is the place to go. Great homemade cakes and pastries, and excellent coffee via local roastery Williams & Johnson. 38 Dalkeith Rd, @bitsbakeshop
Bonnie Burrito Looking for a filling meal, but still need to keep one hand free for your emails? Bonnie Burrito has you covered – their burritos are packed with flavourful ingredients. 82 S Clerk St, @bonnieburrito
Breakfast, Brunch and Lunch Fun fact: BBL produce all their own sausages in-house. It’s a neighbourhood cafe that focuses on quality ingredients but doesn’t break the bank. Two thumbs up. 65 Pleasance Image: courtesy of the venue Brass Monkey
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Image: courtesy of the venue Mother India’s Cafe
The Dog House An all-action bar with endless decorations on the walls, great music on the speakers, and a kitchen residency from Mexican food truck Antojitos. 18 Clerk St, @thedoghouseedinburgh Dough You’re between shows, a bit hungover and you haven’t eaten in a day and a half. What you need is a slice of pizza – Dough are here to help. 47 South Clerk St, @DoughEdinburgh
Kebab Mahal Everyone knows about the Mosque Kitchen, but let’s flag up its oft-overlooked neighbour Kebab Mahal. Great curries, constant hubbub and big flavours; get into it. 7 Nicholson Sq 104
Old Town
Kim’s Mini Meals Truly putting the ‘family’ in ‘family restaurant’, Kim’s is all nooks and crannies, eccentric decoration and homely ambiance. The menu is full of great takes on Korean classics. 5 Buccleuch St, @kimsminimeals Mother India’s Cafe At Mother India, the tapas-style menu means that the breadth and variety of your dinner is limited only by your ability to share. 3-5 Infirmary St, @mother_indias_cafe _edinburgh On Bap This tiny Korean spot is simple but extremely effective. The bibimbap and kimchi pancake both come with our seal of approval. 57 Clerk St Photo: Gerald Warrack
The High Dive A cracking drinks list and some intriguing cocktails, plus food courtesy of Sando, a pop-up specialising in Japanese-style sandwiches. 81 St Leonards St, @the_high_dive
Kilimanjaro Coffee The perfect place to while away the hours, Kili matches its coffee with freshly baked muffins, freshly squeezed juice and a good selection of sandwiches and soups. 104 Nicholson St
Sando @ The High Dive
Piemaker What do you mean you’ve never had a macaroni pie? Macaroni cheese wedged into a pie crust is the kind of bigtime carb-loading this festival was built on. 38 South Bridge, @piemaker_edinburgh Pizza Posto An ideal spot for a whistlestop between-show meal, Posto turn out brilliant pizzas at a hell of a speed. It’s a massive space so waiting times are minimal, and it’s pretty reasonably priced. 16 Nicholson St, @pizzapostouk Sister Bao You there! Put down that Greggs! Head over to Sister Bao and get a freshly steamed bao bun for £1.50 instead. For something more substantial, check out their homemade noodles. 32 S Clerk St, @sisterbao_edinburgh Soi 38 This Thai restaurant sums up what’s great about eating in Newington. The dining room is chaotic (check out the L-shaped table), the flavours are impressive and punchy, and the prices are great. 38 Clerk St, @soi_38 Tanjore Step inside the bright yellow facade at Tanjore and you’ll find bumper dosas and brilliant South Indian curries, with a range of options for all tastes and diets. 6 Clerk St
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FESTIVAL AUGUST 2022 CHRISTIAN LÖFFLER 06 SACRED PAWS 06 MAGIC NOSTALGIC 10 RURA 11 HONEYBLOOD 12 WITHERED HAND 12 HEADSET PRESENTS… SUMMERSET 13 100% SOUL 13 AUNTIE FLO 14 START TO END - HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS (COCTEAU TWINS) 16 LOS BITCHOS 17 CATE LE BON 18 JENNY HVAL 19 JAMES YORKSTON & THE SECOND HAND BAND 19 HOBBES MUSIC SUMMER PARTY 20 MCLUSKY 20 REVOLT 21 CASSANDRA JENKINS 23 THE KAKATSITSI MASTER DRUMMERS 24 TUNE-YARDS 25 EFTERKLANG 25 MEDITERRANEO 27 TALISK 27 MESSENGER SOUND SYSTEM FT. MC AFRIKAN SIMBA 28 DEERHOOF 31 THE WEATHER STATION & CIRCUIT DES YEUX 05
TICKETS: SUMMERHALL.CO.UK
L AT E N I G H T S IN AUGUS T
DJs from 9pm in our Basement Bar & Restaurant WITH AUGUS T HEADLINER
N I N A S TA N G E R Friday 5th ALI OOFT Saturday 6th NINA STANGER Friday 12th CRAIG SMITH Saturday 13th MATTHEW K Friday 19th SCOTTIEBOY Saturday 20th LEL PALFREY Friday 26th BABES Saturday 27th SCOTT PROPER Find out more at www.ladylibertine.co.uk/whats-on @LadyLibertineEdinburgh @Lady_Libertine_ 25 West Register Street Edinburgh, EH2 2AA
The Meadows, Marchmont and Summerhall
107 Cityguide
This part of town is notable for its various parks and gardens. In the middle is George Square – home to Underbelly and Assembly – or you can head round the corner to Summerhall Words: Peter Simpson The Argyle Bar A cute corner bar just off the Meadows. Grab an outside seat and watch the student comedy troupes sprint by, or head down to the Cellar Bar for nightly jazz and vaudeville shows. 15 Argyle Pl, @argyle_cellar_bar Cult Espresso Cult pairs a stripped-back split-level aesthetic with delicious, expertly crafted coffees and a tightly curated food menu. 104 Buccleuch St @cultcoffeeedin Dagda A cracking real ale bar that’s also the size of a large living room, Dagda is a place to rediscover your convivial spirit over a pint. Grab a booth if you can. 93 Buccleuch St
Machina Espresso Machina roast their own beans, so they know what they’re all about. Their new spot in Marchmont is bright, breezy and hard to miss. 38 Marchmont Rd, @MachinaEspresso The Nile Valley Cafe This unpretentious Sudanese cafe is our top pick for an ad-hoc Fringe lunch – the Africa wrap (falafel, feta cheese, broad beans, hummus and spicy peanut sauce) is a particular favourite. 6 Chapel St Noodles and Dumplings A no-frills Chinese diner in the heart of Newington, this is where you go for glutinous hand-pulled noodles and delicious broth served in bowls the size of your head. 23 South Clerk St
The Original Mosque Kitchen An Edinburgh institution, the Mosque Kitchen serves up delicious curry all day long with huge plates of spicy goodness starting at just a few quid. If you haven’t been yet, go now. 50 Potterrow The Royal Dick Summerhall’s bar is stocked with beer from the on-site brewery and gin from the onsite distillery, and its courtyard is one of the city’s most sprawling beer gardens. 1 Summerhall, @summerhallery Soderberg The extensive outdoor seating might draw you in, but the food will keep you there – crispbreads, cardamom buns, sourdough breads, salads, sandwiches and more await. 1 Lister Sq, @soderbergbakery Image: courtesy of the venue
Detour Espresso Sat about halfway down the Meadows, Detour serves up an excellent cup of coffee in a light and airy space ideal for a pre-show pitstop. 39 Argyle Pl, @detourespresso
Elliott’s A combination of provisions shop, cafe and events space, all helmed by chef and food writer Jess Elliott Dennison. 21 & 27 Sciennes Rd, @elliottsedinburgh
Soderberg
festmag.com
Leith, Broughton and Abbeyhill
Heading Leith-wards is the contemporary music strand of Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe Central’s new home at the St James Quarter – don’t miss the street food and community cafes Words: Peter Simpson
Artisan Roast One of the forerunners of Edinburgh’s coffee scene, Artisan Roast are still firing out excellent espresso at venues across the city. 57 Broughton St @artisanroast Bross Bagels Deli Larah Bross’ Montreal-style bagels have become a local institution in just a few short years. You’ll find delicious flavours, inventive combinations and a generally cool vibe. 4 Little King St, @BrossBagels Image: courtesy of the venue Bross Bagels
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Image: courtesy of the venue
Alby’s Big. Hot. Sandwiches. Alby’s will give you one of the city’s best lunches, stuffing all manner of stuff into some suitably fluffy focaccia. 8 Portland Pl, @albys_leith
The Pitt
Kvasa The sourdough bakery moved into their Leith Walk shop a few months back, and have been impressing everyone with great bread and excellent sweets. 101 Leith Walk, @kvasa.bakery Leith Depot The Depot fought property developers and won, so we have to shout them out. Live music upstairs, community vibes downstairs, and great bar food with comically huge portions. 138 Leith Walk, @leithdepot138 Little Fitzroy One of the city’s best coffee spots, you’ll know you’ve arrived by the queues on the pavement outside. Great baristas, lovely folks, excellent espresso. 46 Easter Rd, @littlefitzroy
Leith, Broughton and Abbeyhill
The Pitt Edinburgh’s year-round street food market is home to some of the country’s best food vans. Get down there before it closes for good at the end of August, moving to a new location in 2023. 125 Pitt St, @thepittmarket Polentoni Excellent sandwiches, bakery staples, really good pastries and cakes, homemade soups and gnocchi – if you’re in need of some Italian comfort food, this is the place. 38 Easter Rd, @polentoni_ Razzo Edinburgh has its fair share of good pizza, and Razzo is near the top of the pile. Big puffy crusts, classic Neapolitan toppings, and slightly asymmetrical, which we find indicates quality. 59 Great Junction St, @razzopizzanapoletana Williams and Johnson The Leith roasters supply many of the city centre’s best cafes, but their own spot in the achingly cool Custom House complex by The Shore is an ideal place to check them out. 65 Commercial St, @ williams_and_johnson _coffee
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View full program
At 'The A Club' Merchants Hall, 22 Hanover Street, Edinburgh 4th - 27th August Other acts include ABBA, Just Beatles, The Queen Killers and many more!
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10:20 4 - 16
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GEORGE SQUARE
Tollcross and Lothian Road
111 Cityguide
Grab a bite or drink in this neck of the woods, which is also where you’ll find The Traverse, Lyceum, Usher Hall, Filmhouse and the new site of the Edinburgh Book Festival at Edinburgh College of Art Words: Peter Simpson Image: courtesy of the venue The Hanging Bat
Blue Blazer The Blue Blazer is a ‘proper’ Edinburgh pub, in the best possible sense. Boasting one of the city’s finest selections of real ales, whiskies and rums, the Blue Blazer’s walls have seen it all. 2 Spittal St, @blue_blazer_edinburgh
Cloisters Set into the side of a church, Cloisters’ huge beer selection and lively atmosphere make it a great spot for a pre- or post-show pint. 26 Brougham St @CloistersEdinburgh
Lovecrumbs An inventive sweet and savoury menu, tables made from old pianos, and a literal window seat give Lovecrumbs an anarchic air that turns the act of going for coffee into an adventure. 155 West Port, @hellolovecrumbs The Source Coffee Co This small but well-formed coffee shop is essential for serious coffee heads. Get a funky, boozy, fruit-packed espresso made with beans from their very own roastery. 4 Spittal St, @the_source_coffee_roasters
Taza in Town This no-frills Syrian and Levantine restaurant has something for everyone. The mezze is fantastic, the ma’anesh are excellent, the shawarma is lovely. 69 Bread St, @tazaintown The Ventoux Inspired by the Tour de France mountain of the same name, this is a great local hangout with fish tanks on the shelves, bikes on the ceiling, and an impressive host of German beers behind the bar. 2 Brougham St Image: courtesy of the venue
Bread Meats Bread Incredible burgers, outrageous sides – try the poutine – and a great location; Bread Meats Bread is ideal Fringe fuel, and their vegan menu has come on leaps and bounds recently. 92 Lothian Rd, @BreadMeats_EDI
The Hanging Bat A huge and ever-changing range of some of the best beers from all over the world, a mini-brewery at the back and super knowledgeable bar staff make this a must-visit. 133 Lothian Rd, @TheHangingBat
The Ventoux
festmag.com
West End and Fountainbridge
Stay fuelled with bakeries and bistros while exploring the Edinburgh Art Festival around the Grand Union Canal. The Film Festival and EICC are also nearby Words: Peter Simpson
Company Bakery You’ll find bread from the fantastic sourdough bakery at cafes and restaurants across the city, but check out their weekend market to get your loaves and pastries straight from the source. 5 Devon Pl, @companybakery Photo: Sally Price Nice Times
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West End & Fountainbridge
Image: courtesy of the venue
Cairngorm Coffee It’s a bright and airy corner unit with some lovely period touches. You’re in good hands, with the coffee roasted by Cairngorm themselves, alongside a carefully curated food menu. 1 Melville Pl, @cairngormcoffeeco
Maki and Ramen
The Palmerston This all-day bistro is equal parts grand and down-toearth. Expect modern variations on Northern European classics, and a focus on local ingredients and suppliers. 1 Palmerston Pl, @the_palmerston
Hula At Hula’s Fountainbridge branch, the aesthetic runs wild. Loads of neon and pattern, plenty of plants, bright green *everywhere* – and an insane mix of brunch classics and great juices. 94A Fountainbridge, @hulajuicebar
Polwarth Tavern An excellent local pub in Polwarth, the Tavern has an ace up its sleeve – Rob Casson’s King of Feasts pop-up in the kitchen. Expect brilliantly over-the-top sandwiches and burgers. 35 Polwarth Cres, @polwarthtavern / @kingoffeasts
Maki and Ramen Lovingly decorated and surprisingly spacious, Maki and Ramen’s Fountainbridge spot is part sushi bar and part noodle house. Expect quality in presentation, ingredients and execution. 97 Fountainbridge, @makiramen
Taco Libre Neon: everywhere. Tables: lots of them. Tacos: fantastic. Taco Libre is tucked away off Princes Street, but wriggle your way in and you’ll find some of the city’s best Mexican food. 3 Shandwick Pl, @tacolibre_edinburgh
Nice Times Sister venue to the excellent Lovecrumbs, Nice Times offers great baking, fantastic coffee, and a pleasingly assertive teal and pink colour scheme. 147 Morrison St, @nicetimesbakery
Teuchters An unexpected slice of country pub cosiness in the middle of the city, Teuchters is ideal for the nights when it’s pissing it down. Get in by the fire, grab a pint, refuse to leave until the rain stops. 26 William St, @teuchtersbar
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Broadway World
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Fairy Powered Productions Productions
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Creative Reviews UK
A PARODY MUSICAL ABOUT FRIENDS
20:00 3 - 28 AUG (not 11)
19:00 4 - 28 AUG (not 10, 15 + 22)
ROOMS GEORGE STREET
HALL MOUND PLACE
festmag.com
Fringe Dog meets
Susie McCabe Edinburgh’s canine journalist talks to one of Scotland’s best stand-ups about her new optimistic show, and her dog Baby Illustration: Lauren Hunter me trying to make light of the situations that arise.
when you come home after a gig, good or bad, how does baby support you ?!? Baby is quite aloof and doesn’t really pick up on the moments they say a dog is a “mans” I might need a cuddle, and best friend , would baby will certainly never accept describe you as their best affection simply on my terms, friend ??? but she is there to jump on my No. Baby would describe me head at two in the morning, as her best alibi, that is, when thinking that’s an acceptable blamed for eating the biscuits time to carry on, and that, to she knows she can count on her, must be nice. me to take the heat off. Her other mum is definitely her dogs tend to be happy-gobest friend. lucky as we lack the executive planning skills to think forward, how would baby describe do you think being cynical is your show ??! just part of being human ??? She would likely be offended Yes, absolutely. Expect the that she’s not mentioned more, worst and anything else is a but living in the shambles that bonus. However, I am trying is my life, she would approve of to be more positive and keep cynicism to a minimum – you’ll hopefully see this in my show! what is your favourite edimbrugh smell !?! My favourite Edinburgh smell is probably at the Christmas markets where it’s a mixture of ten thousand candles, mulled cider and pastries.
Baby
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Fringe Dog
what are baby’s tips to be happy about the world and do you agree ?!? Baby would definitely say sniff
Photo: Jiksaw – Aeman Sukar
hallo ms susie !!! i hear you doing great show about trying to be more optimistic as a cynical person. with this in mind i think it very important to ask you, what breed is your dog ??? Lhasa Apso.
Susie McCabe
everything at least twice, pee in as many places as possible, always trust your instinct and don’t stray from your pack. I’m quite happy with all of that!! what shows is baby most lookin’ forward to in edimbrugh ?!? Baby loves daftness and has a great sense of humour, but she’s smart and cultured so she’s definitely going to have a diverse Fringe. I think she’s hoping to see Ada Campe (she loves her) and might take in some poetry by Pauline Holmes that is all about dogs.
SHOW VENUE: TIME:
Susie McCabe: Born Believer Assembly George Square Studios 7:45pm – 8:45pm, 3–28 Aug, not 15