FESTIVAL
COMEDY | DANCE ANCE | KIDS | MUSIC C | T THEATRE HEAT | VISUAL ART
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LIAM WILLIAMS THE HARMONIUM PROJECT CT KEY CHANGE KATHERINE RYAN ALEX EDELMAN HOTEL PARADISO ALFIE WHITE: SPACE EXPLORER LE GATEAU CHOCOLAT HOWLIN’ FRINGE KENNARDPHILLIPPS PHILIP RIDLEY STEF SMITH
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6–13 AUG 2015 | WEEK 1 LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
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Festival
CONTENTS
FRONT
4
Top 20 Frontlines Big Pic
4 10 11
FEATURES Liam Williams Key Change Puddles Pity Party
FESTIVAL 2015 | ISSUE 1 | LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
FOOD & DRINK Fringe fare
COVER STORY
COMEDY Katherine Ryan Seriously Funny Pun Merchants Sarah Callaghan Joseph Morpurgo Joe Lycett
PUDDLES PITY PARTY With his permanent sadface and teardrops, Puddles is far more than the coulrophobia-inducing clown of your nightmares. His Pity Party is all emotion, all the time, resonating with audiences in a way it’s hard to imagine any clown doing before. The Atlanta native takes on melancholic anthems and reimagines them in tragic yet beautiful ways. Check out his ‘Royals’ by Lorde on YouTube – 12.5 million views can’t be wrong. See interview, page 18.
DANCE Hotel Paradiso Sylvie Guillem: A Life in Progress Ockham’s Razor The Elephant in the Room
KIDS Alfie White Shakespeare Untold A Pocketful of Grimms Cinder-Ella
MUSIC Lost Map’s Howlin’ Fringe Robert Glasper Trio Le Gateau Chocolat Play Kathryn Joseph
THEATRE
23
PHOTO © 59 PRODUCTIONS
13
LIAM WILLIAMS
After last year’s hit Capitalism, the Pilsner socialist is back, with real talk about the 1%, but also throwing in climate, career and break-up woes.
HARMONIUM PROJECT
Get down to Festival Square to see a series of animations projected onto the outside of the Usher Hall, to mark the EIF’s opening night.
GREAT OFFERS Win tickets to see SJ Watson
6
Win a bottle of The Glenrothes whisky
6
Win tickets to Art Late North
7
Win tickets to Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat
7
Win a year’s supply of Graham’s ice cream
7
Win tickets to see Phill Jupitus at EAF Detours
8
Win tickets to Museum After Hours
Trans Scripts The Encounter Tonight with Donny Stixx Roundabout @ Summerhall Am I Dead Yet? Baba Brinkman
We’ve got a whole host of interviews, previews and reviews covering comedy, theatre, visual art, music, kids and more, across all of Edinburgh’s various festivals. Plus, we are still accepting Big Fat Fringe Bribes: see page 4 to find out how you can curry our favour.
28 28
31 31 33 38 44 48 49
53 53 55 56 58
59 59 61 63 64
65 65 67 69 69 70
73 73 75 86 82 91 91
VISUAL ART
95 95 98 101
EVENTS
102 102
INDEX
103
ARCHIVE
104
Daniel Kitson in 2002
THIS WEEK ON LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
13 15 18
Phyllida Barlow: set Hanna Tuulikki MC Escher
Museum After Hours
8
13
104
Festival
MAILBOX
Our first festival issue goes to press before any shows have taken place, which makes reviewing them pretty difficult. That’s never stopped internet commentators, however, and there are already some hearty debates in some of our comment sections. Here are some of the best – you can join in the conversation at list.co.uk/festival or by tweeting us at @thelistmagazine
Interview: Stewart Francis – Pun Gent ‘4:20 may have been when he punter 1st Pun’ Comment posted by @JWMP220 (Nope, we’ve no idea either). Best Theatre Show at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015 Loving @thelistmagazine’s #edfringe #BigFatBribe . Alas we’re already in their picks so no bribe ;) but we owe you. Comment posted by @GFN_Play Surprising day jobs of comedians,
BRIBE
Publisher & General Editor Robin Hodge Director Simon Dessain
Jena Friedman
PHOTO © SETH OLENICK
Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2015 ‘You can please some of the people all of the time, but you’ll never please an Edinburgh comedy act that you missed. Yours, one of the 1100-odd acts who’ll be telling everyone they were 21st on this list.’ Comment posted by Kev Sutherland.
CONTRIBUTORS
artists and authors headed to Edinburgh Festivals ‘I wish I still worked with sex offenders so I could be in this list.’ Commented posted by @FernBrady Interview: Jena Friedman – American C*nt Well, no humour in THAT succinct interview. Saving it for er’customers ? [sic] Comment posted by @yeshuabyoseph; retweeted by @jenafriedman. Ten unusual Fringe experiences for 2015 ‘Go Centaurs is right @thelistmagazine! Now drop and give me ten!’
EK E W E OF TH
Comment posted by @TigcoRiches [Adam Riches] Aisling Bea: Plan Bea ‘She will fill your ears with comedy and put downs for as long as you can bear it.’ Comment posted by Paul Reilly Fringe Preview - The Tubes ‘Knebworth 1978? Saw Fee and the girls and boys . . . fabulous!!’ Comment posted by Graham Leadbitter Top Tips for Using Tinder at the Edinburgh Fringe ‘Guys. Guys guys guys. Lol guys.’ Commented posted by @miriamattwood
THE C WORD Week one’s winner in our annual shout-out for Fringe show freebies comes from Lord Byron (sort of). We won’t pretend we weren’t a little disconcerted when we unwrapped the colouring book we didn’t know we always wanted, but brightened up when we thought of the down-time fun we could have between shows. The gift is courtesy of More C*nt Than Cant, a play based on the sordid life of Byron, starring Paul Huntley-Thomas. Q More C*nt Than Cant, Momentum Studio @ St Stephen’s, 516 2880, 7-30 Aug (not 18), 8.30pm, £9.50£10.50. Preview 6 Aug, £5.
If you’re not above exchanging presents for Fringe performance exposure, send some of your best swag to Big Fat Festival Bribe, The List, 14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE. 2 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
EDITORIAL Editor Yasmin Sulaiman Senior Writer & Content Editor Scott Henderson Research Manager Kirstyn Smith Senior Researcher Murray Robertson Research Alex Johnston, Rowena McIntosh, Rebecca Monks, Henry Northmore Subeditors Mercy Breheny, Paul McLean, Claire Ritchie Editorial Assistants Claire Flynn, Carolina Morais SALES & MARKETING Media Sales Manager Chris Knox Senior Media Sales Executive Debbie Thomson Media Sales Executive Jade Regulski Sales Support Executive Jessica Rodgers Digital Business Development Director Brendan Miles Partnership Director Sheri Friers PRODUCTION Production Director Simon Armin Senior Designer Lucy Munro Designer Jen Devonshire DIGITAL Senior Developer Andy Carmichael Senior Designer Bruce Combe Software Developer Iain McCusker Senior DBA Andy Bowles Newsletter Editor Hamish Brown ADMINISTRATION Accounts Manager Sarah Reddie Events and Administration Assistant Claire Cooke SECTION EDITORS Comedy Brian Donaldson Dance / Kids Kelly Apter Food & Drink Donald Reid Front / Music Kirstyn Smith News Rebecca Monks Theatre Gareth K Vile Visual Art Rachael Cloughton
Published by The List Ltd HEAD OFFICE: 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE Tel: 0131 550 3050, Fax: 0131 557 8500, list.co.uk, email editor@list.co.uk GLASGOW OFFICE: at the CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3JD Tel: 0141 332 9929, glasgow@list.co.uk ISSN: 0959 - 1915 ©2015 The List Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without the written permission of the publishers. The List does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. The List provides this content in good faith but no guarantee or representation is given that the content is accurate, complete or up-to-date. Use of magazine content is at your own risk. Printed by Acorn Web Offset Ltd, W.Yorkshire.
Herstory
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@followthecow
Festival
TOP 20
The number of acts performing at this year’s Festival might seem a trifle overwhelming, so here’s a round-up of 20 unmissable shows
PHOTO © ROD PENN
THEATRE
THEATRE
The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven
Blake Remixed
Beatboxer and rapper Testament mashes together hip hop and the poetry of William Blake with aplomb. See feature, page 85. Underbelly Cowgate, 6–29 Aug (not 19).
Familiar stories told from the viewpoint of a transgendered Jesus. See feature, page 85. Summerhall, 5–30 Aug (not Mon & Tue).
PHOTO © ALLISON ORENSTEIN
COMEDY
COMEDY
VISUAL ART
Katherine Ryan: Kathbum Inspired by an impending trip back to Adrienne Truscott’s a her native Canada for her sister’s wedding, Ryan’s newest show explores One-Trick Pony! Not so much themes of home and why she chose to seek out fame and fortune in the UK. Always personal, always worth listening to, this rising comedy talent is one of this Festival’s hottest tickets. See preview, page 31. The Stand 3 & 4, 6–22 Aug (not 17).
a one-trick pony, but a Gimmicky Pantless Rape Lady (her words, not ours). See preview, page 49. Gilded Balloon, 5–17 Aug.
Nish Kumar: Long Word . . . Long Word . . . Blah Blah Blah . . . I’m so Clever A new show packed with quirky observations and intelligent storytelling. See interview, list.co.uk/edinburghfestival Pleasance Courtyard, 5–30 Aug.
PHOTO © BILL COOPER
COMEDY
The Harmonium Project Fergus Linehan
4 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Bailey’s most iconic images are brought together in a showcase of his remarkable talent. See review at list.co.uk/edinburghfestival Scottish National Gallery, until 18 Oct.
PHOTO © STEVEN ULLATHORNE
PHOTO © 59 PRODUCTIONS
MUSIC starts his first International Festival with a bang, as 59 Productions – together with a little help from the Edinburgh Festival Chorus – project a visual spectacle onto the Usher Hall. See feature, page 23. Usher Hall, 7 Aug.
Bailey’s Stardust David
DANCE
Sylvie Guillem
Sylvie Guillem embarks on her final world tour, beginning with this performance which features new works by Akram Khan and Russell Maliphant and existing creations by Mats Ek and William Forsythe. See feature, page 55. Festival Theatre, 8–10 Aug.
PHOTO © MANDEE JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPHY
COMEDY
THEATRE
THEATRE / MUSIC
COMEDY
Joseph Morpurgo: Soothing Sounds for Baby An hour of multimedia
The Christians The team
Puddles Pity Party The singing clown comes to town, pushing at the boundaries of theatre and cabaret as he does so. See feature, page 18. Assembly George Square, 6–31 Aug (not 18, 25).
Sam Simmons: Spaghetti for Breakfast Surreal humour
absurdity from this actorly comedian. See feature, page 48. Pleasance Courtyard, 5–31 Aug (not 18).
behind 2013 hit Grounded present a new play about a preacher who is about to shake his congregation’s foundations. See feature, page 85. Traverse, 8–30 Aug (not Mon).
KIDS
COMEDY
A Pocketful of Grimms
Liam Williams: Bonfire Night Morose ‘Pilsner socialist’
A rich mix of clowning, physical theatre, puppetry and music from the award-winning Story Pocket Theatre. See preview, page 63. Gilded Balloon, 5–31 Aug (not 18, 24).
from this self-styled professional idiot. See feature, page 42. Underbelly Potterrow, 5–30 Aug, (not 17, 24).
chats breakups, the 1% and other semi-important to important things. See feature, page 13. Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters, 6–19 Aug (not 17).
Balletronic The world premiere of Balletronic, straight from Havana. The
Alfie White: Space Explorer Fringe regulars Tall Stories present
Ballet Revolucion Company present 10 of their best, blending classical moves with DJ loops and music from Avicii, Daft Punk, Paloma Faith and a bit of Chopin too. Pleasance Courtyard, 5–31 Aug (not 18).
a cosmic tale of a young boy and his best pal who set off on a mission of discovery to find his dad. See preview, page 59. Pleasance Courtyard, 5–30 Aug (not 19).
PHOTO © JOSE GUSMAN
PHOTO © MARK VESSEY
KIDS
PHOTO © JAN VERSWEYVELD
DANCE
THEATRE
MUSIC
THEATRE
MUSIC
Antigone Juliette Binoche swaps
Robert Glasper Trio
Trans Scripts The story of six
Hollywood for the King’s Theatre, as she stars in Ivo van Hove’s Antigone. See interview at list.co.uk/festival King’s Theatre, 7–22 Aug (not 10, 17).
Grammy winner Robert Glasper leads his acoustic piano trio, combining freewheeling improv with irresistible grooves. See feature, page 67. The Hub, 10 Aug.
transgender women’s lives unfolds in their own words, from awardwinning theatre-maker Paul Lucas. See preview, page 73. Pleasance Courtyard, 5–31 Aug (not 18).
Le Gateau Chocolat: Black This Fringe favourite showcases his magnificent voice in a repertoire ranging from Wagner to Whitney. See preview, page 69. Assembly Hall, 6–30 Aug (not 17). 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 5
READER OFFERS 2 FOR 1 GIN DISTILLERY TOUR TICKETS
Get 2 for the price of 1 tour tickets for Summerhall Distillery when you quote ‘LIST241’ upon booking. Summerhall Distillery is the first distillery to open in Edinburgh for 150 years and the home of the multi award winning Pickering’s Gin. See how hand crafted, small batch gin is made and enjoy a perfectly poured Pickering’s & Tonic. Whilst you are here, explore the labyrinth of exhibitions and events within Summerhall Pickering’s Gin are delighted to host guided tours and tastings for List readers by appointment Mon – Fri, from 12pm to 4pm. Saturday tours are also available between Easter time and the autumn. Tours last around 45-50 minutes. See list.co.uk/offers for further details. Summerhall Distillery 1 Summerhall Edinburgh, EH9 1PL 1 Sep - 31 Dec. Subject to availability Tickets £10 Email or call to book your tour now: 0131 290 2901 | tours@pickeringsgin.com
pickeringsgin.com TERMS AND CONDITIONS: OFFER ENDS 31 OCTOBER. TOURS MUST BE BOOKED BEFORE 31ST OF DECEMBER 2015. TOURS ARE AVAILABLE BETWEEN 12PM AND 4PM MONDAY TO SATURDAY UNTIL 31 OCTOBER, AND 12PM AND 4PM MONDAY TO FRIDAY 1 NOVEMBER TO 31 DECEMBER 2015. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY. UNDER 18S WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TO SAMPLE ALCOHOL. MUST SHOW VOUCHER TO REDEEM.
WIN TICKETS TO SEE S J WATSON AT THE EDINBURGH BOOK FESTIVAL S J Watson had a huge hit with his first novel Before I Go To Sleep, a psychological thriller which became a bestseller in countries across the globe and went on to be made into a blockbuster film starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth. Now he’s back with his follow-up thriller Second Life, which promises to be as nailbiting as the first. He appears at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Sat 15 Aug to discuss his new book and how he has approached the challenge of writing successful ficton. The List are giving away a pair of tickets to see S J Watson on Sat 15 Aug at 6.45pm.To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
What was the title of S J Watson’s debut novel? S J Watson at Edinburgh International Book Festival Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh Sat 15 Aug, 6.45pm Tickets £8 | £10
edbookfest.co.uk TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 11 AUG. TICKETS MUST BE COLLECTED FROM THE BOX OFFICE AT LEAST 15 MINUTES BEFORE THE START OF THE PERFORMANCE. LATECOMERS WILL NOT BE ADMITTED TO THE EVENT. NOT TRANSFERABLE. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY.
WIN A BOTTLE OF THE GLENROTHES VINTAGE RESERVE
50p off a bottle of 500ml Deuchars IPA in Tesco stores To celebrate Deuchars IPA’s sponsorship of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, you can claim 50p off a bottle of 500ml Deuchars IPA in Tesco stores! To claim your offer, simply cut out this voucher and present it to the cashier upon payment. TO THE CUSTOMER Terms and conditions: Hand this coupon to the checkout operator along with your Tesco Clubcard to receive the benefits as above. Customers must be 18 years or over to purchase or receive alcohol. This coupon has no cash redemption value and can be redeemed only once and by the person to whom it was issued. Valid in the UK and IOM only. Not redeemable through Tesco.com. Offer is subject to availability. Copied, damaged and defaced coupons will not be accepted. This coupon is, and shall remain, the property of Tesco Stores Ltd and is not for resale or publication. Offer is not valid in conjunction with any other offer or discount. Valid from 26.08.15 – 15.09.15
6 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
‘Vintage Reserve’ is the latest whisky from award-winning Single Malt, The Glenrothes. It was first tasted at the Lord Provost of Glasgow’s Burns’ Night Supper in January - which set the official record for the biggest such event. Beautifully crafted by malt master Gordon Motion, it is The Glenrothes’ most complex whisky yet, featuring a blend of vintage malts from the last three decades. Vintage Reserve continues The Glenrothes’ unique approach of marrying the finest whiskies of a particular year and bottling at the precise moment they are ready. This is in contrast to many distillers who bottle simply based on the age of a whisky. The List has a bottle of Vintage Reserve to give away to three lucky List readers. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
Which malt master crafted Glenrothes Vintage Reserve? whiskyshop.com royalmilewhiskies.com theglenrothes.com TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 28 AUGUST 2015. ENTRANTS MUST BE OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE AND ABLE TO PROVIDE AGE IDENTIFICATION. NO CASH ALTERNATIVE. THE GLENROTHES SUPPORT DRINKAWARE.CO.UK. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY.
READER OFFERS WIN TICKETS TO EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL’S ART LATE NORTH Throughout the festival period, the city is alive at every hour of the day. Art Late is a series of specially programmed late openings and events, taking in exciting live music, performances, artist talks and tours. The tour begins at: Old Royal High School and other venues include Ingleby Gallery, Collective, Edinburgh Printmakers and Rhubaba. Featuring the band WHITE - a cacophony of pink noise, huge drums, infectious hooks & an explosive frontman channelling Jacques Brel & Nick Cave - to close the evening at The Biscuit Factory. The List are giving away a pair of tickets to Art Late North supported by Blue Moon on Thu 13 Aug, 6pm.To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list. co.uk/offers and tell us:
WIN A VIP EXPERIENCE AT THE FAMOUS GROUSE HOUSE The Famous Grouse is giving one lucky winner a VIP evening at their destination pop up bar The Famous Grouse House. The winner will also receive four tickets to the hotly anticipated ‘Nina Simone Black Diva Power’ all the way from Australia for a fantastic evening of live entertainment as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. Situated in the central hub of the capital’s festival entertainment, on George Street, visitors will be transported to a whisky-infused world where drams and cocktails will be brought to life like never before. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
Which one of the Edinburgh Art Festival’s commissioned artists is exhibiting in Waverley Station?
What is the name of The Famous Grouse pop up bar?
Art Late North Old Royal High School New Parliament House 11 Parliament Square, Edinburgh, EH7 5BL Thu 13 Aug 6pm Tickets £5
The Famous Grouse House Freemasons Hall, 96 George Street Edinburgh, EH2 3DH Thu 6 - Mon 30 Aug 11am - 12pm
edinburghartfestival.com @EdArtFest
thefamousgrouse.com @TheFamousGrouse #famousforareason
TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 10 AUGUST 2015. ENTRANTS MUST BE OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 12 AUG. TICKETS ARE FOR THU AND FRI EVENINGS SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY. OPEN TO OVER 18’S ONLY. COMPETITION IS NOT OPEN TO EMPLOYEES OF THIS OUTLET OR OF THE EDRINGTON GROUP OR MAXXIUM UK LTD THEIR FAMILIES, AGENTS AND AGENCIES AND ANYONE ELSE PROFESSIONALLY CONNECTED WITH THIS PROMOTION. NO CASH ALTERNATIVES.THE LIST’S RULES APPLY.
WIN A YEAR’S SUPPLY OF GRAHAM’S THE FAMILY DAIRY ICE CREAM
WIN TICKETS TO NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE IN ASSOCIATION WITH BLACK T
In celebration of Graham’s The Family Dairy becoming the official ice cream partner for The List Festival Party, the lovely family farming and dairy business is also offering one lucky reader the opportunity to win a year’s supply of ice cream. Graham’s The Family Dairy has a new ice cream collection of fresh natural flavours based on traditional family favourites including Traditional Vanilla, Scottish Tablet and Vanilla, Lemon Curd, Salted Caramel, Toffee Caramel and Raspberry Ripple. All made using the finest Scottish milk sourced from the 98 Scottish dairy farms Graham’s works with. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
How many new ice cream flavours has Graham’s The Family Dairy launched? Graham’s The Family Dairy @GrahamsDairy
We have teamed up with Black T from Tennent’s to give you and up to nine friends the chance to enjoy a VIP experience at Nothing Ever Happens Here in association with Black T presents: Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat on Wed 12 Aug at Summerhall . Winners will be treated to food and drinks courtesy of Black T at the Royal Dick and tickets to the gig. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
Where is Black T Brewed? Nothing Ever Happens Here Summerhall, Summerhall Place, Edinburgh EH9 1PL Wed 12 Aug 2015, 8pm Tickets £16/£14
summerhall.co.uk TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 31 AUGUST 2015.ONLY ONE WINNER WILL BE SELECTED. NO CASH ALTERNATIVE. ICE CREAM WILL BE DELIVERED EVERY TWO MONTHS AT A MUTUALLY AGREED DATE AND TIME. THE LIST’S USUAL RULES APPLY.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 8 AUGUST 2015. ENTRANTS MUST BE OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE. WINNER WILL BE EMAILED. THE LIST’S USUAL RULES APPLY.
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 7
READER OFFERS WIN TICKETS TO SEE PHILL JUPITUS AS PART OF EDINBURGH ART FESTIVAL DETOURS
WIN A FAMILY TICKET TO SHAKUNTALA A ROCK OPERA Shakuntala A Rock Opera, an exciting and original new take on the classic Indian drama performed by students from the GEMS Modern Academy school in Dubai will make its Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut from 16 – 21 Aug. First dramatized by the fifth century Indian poet Kalidasa, Shakuntala is written, scored and directed by Kevin Oliver, a seasoned theatre producer in his own right. Based on a folk tale from the pages of the Indian mythology Mahabharata, Shakuntala has been reimagined as a rock opera with 19 original songs ranging from pop to rap and a cast of 30 singers and dancers. A modern day fairy tale of love lost and found. The List has three pairs of family tickets to give away for Tue 18 Aug, 6.45pm. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
Which poet first dramatized the story of Shakuntala? Shakuntala A Rock Opera Church Hill Theatre (Venue 137) Morningside Rd Edinburgh EH10 4DR
edfringe.com TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 14 AUG 2015. FAMILY TICKET INCLUDES FOUR TICKETS PER FAMILY. NO CASH ALTERNATIVE. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY.
WIN TICKETS TO MUSEUM AFTER HOURS: FRIDAY FRINGE TAKEOVER
Providing fresh perspectives on visual art, Detours, part of Edinburgh Art Festival, are a series of intimate live performances in Edinburgh’s leading galleries by artists from the worlds of music, poetry and theatre. Phill Jupitus’s hugely successful standup tours have included Jedi, Steady, Go and Quadrophobia, and he has worked extensively on radio, variously as a contributor, panellist and presenter. The List are giving away a pair of tickets to see Phill Jupitus perform at Inverleith House on 12 Aug, 4pm. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
What year was Edinburgh Art Festival founded? Festival Detours Inverleith House Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Arboretum Place/Inverleith Row, EH3 5LR 0131 248 2971/2849 Wed 12 Aug, 4pm Tickets £4
rbge.org.uk/inverleith-house edinburghartfestival.com @EdArtFest
Enjoy a unique flavour of the Fringe and explore the National Museum of Scotland After Hours across three exhilarating nights. Guest-programmed by the festival gurus at The List, each night of this adults-only extravaganza will offer a different and tantalizing taste of the Fringe, with hand-picked performers, music, comedy, bars and entry to the fascinating summer exhibition, Photography: A Victorian Sensation. The List are giving away a pair of tickets plus meal for two with bottle of wine at the Museum Brasserie for the opening night of Museum After Hours on Fri 14 Aug. To be in with a chance of winning just log on to list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
What is the name of the summer exhibition? Museum After Hours: Friday Fringe Takeover National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street 7.30pm - 10.30pm Fri 14, 21 & 28 Aug £16, £14 Members and Concessions, age 18+, includes admission to Photography: A Victorian Sensation
nms.ac.uk/afterhours TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 17 JUL. NO CASH ALTERNATIVE. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY.
8 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
TERMS AND CONDITIONS: COMPETITION CLOSES 10 AUG 2015. ENTRANTS MUST BE OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE. USUAL LIST RULES APPLY.
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6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 9
FRONTLINES DIARY • The longlist for the Fringe Sustainable Practice award has been announced. The award, which is run by the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Creative Carbon Scotland, recognises those mean, green Fringe shows that help to raise the audience’s awareness of, and responsibility for, their own environmental impact. There are 21 shows featured on the longlist, including Ndebele Funeral (pictured), Tim Spooner’s The Assembly of Animals, Paines Plough’s Lungs and last year’s winners, the HandleBards.
• Roll up, roll up: the Underbelly Circus Hub officially opens this week (7 Aug) on the Meadows. It’s the first ever Fringe venue dedicated exclusively to circus, and is made up of two big tops: the Lafayette (750 seats) and the Beauty (250 seats). However, the Lafayette won’t now open until 10 Aug as high winds have delayed its construction. • Let’s talk about the Edinburgh International Festival’s Conversations strand. Several
FESTIVAL NEWS IN A NUTSHELL
RESIDENT TOURIST Year after year, artists from all over the world return to Edinburgh for the Festival, and make it their home for the month. One of those people is Andrew Hunter Murray, one part of Jane Austen-inspired improv comedy group Austentatious
EIF participants will be taking part in a series of intimate chats about their work in front of a small Edinburgh audience, which will then be streamed across the world on bbc.co.uk/arts. Featured guests include dance star Sylvie Guillem (7 Aug), actor Juliette Binoche (13 Aug) and theatremakers Robert Lepage (18 Aug) and Simon McBurney (20 Aug). All events are being held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. • Tree’s a crowd it would seem, as the official meeting point for the Edinburgh Festival has been announced as an ‘alien tree’ in
#WTFRINGE The F word is all over Twitter, as Edinburgh gets ready for the Fringe @Gildedballoon: The countdown is on. Teviot transforms‌#before #getin #edfringe #gilded30 @bigsexycircus: Big top number one is up! Top number two nearly there #circus #Wtfringe @_JulianneMc: Route to work is now lined with huge #WTFringe posters. Strong urge to see a circus act before 9am @CityCabsEdin: I can hardly believe that the @ edfringe is just around the corner #WTFringe @orbitalsound: #FringeFacts Our supply of cable to #edfringe would stretch from Edinburgh to Glasgow! #WTFringe @edfringe @KellyTeruko: Beyond excited to spend an evening working on my @edfringe spreadsheet. #WTFringe
10 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
NEWS AND GOSSIP FROM ACROSS THE FESTIVALS
Waverley station. Yes, you read that right. The five-metre-tall artwork by Charles Avery, made up of 162 coloured acrylic rods hanging from bronze branches, has been commissioned by the Edinburgh Art Festival, and will be located next to platform two until the end of August. • Good news, Fringe-goers, you can now take as many #selfies as you want without fear of running your phone battery down. Bus stops on Princes Street have been equipped with mobile phone chargers, so feel free to text, tweet and talk away.
WHAT A SELL OUT Tickets don’t last forever, y’know. Here’s what’s selling fast at the fest, and what’s already sold out* (5–11 Aug).
GOING, GOING . . . • Aisling Bea: Plan Bea • Alan Davies: Work in Progress • David O’Doherty: We Are All in the Gutter, But Some of Us Are Looking at David O’Doherty • Flight • Gruffalos, Ladybirds and Other Beasts • James Acaster: Represent • Jason Byrne: 20 Years A Clown • Oh Hello! • Reginald D Hunter: Bitchproof • The Colour Ham – One. Last. Time • Tommy Tiernan Alive in Edinburgh
GONE • Avenue Q • Bridget Christie: A Book For Her (limited availability on 11 Aug) • Katherine Ryan: Kathbum • Nina Conti: In Your Face • Paul Foot • Polyphony • Rob Beckett: Mouth of the South (sold out 7, 10 & 11 Aug)
Describe the Fringe in four words. Exhausting. Exhilarating. Expansive. Expensive. Why do you bring your work to the festival? It’s a wonderful festival to be a part of, like nowhere else in the world. Also, frankly, we crave the attention. What do you take away from the experience? a) The attention (see above), and b) the sheer delight of making up a new story every day based on nothing more than a suggestion from the audience. What was your most surreal festival experience? Watching a man wearing nothing more than underpants, a lanyard and make-up judging people’s personalities based on which of the Rocky films was their favourite. What is the best thing reviewers have written about you? The Guardian once said our show was ‘one of the most enjoyable 60 minutes on the Fringe’, which was very nice of them, not to mention unstintingly accurate. Where are you likely to be found this festival? Propping up bars, playing frisbee in the Meadows, and in the Underbelly at 1.15pm every afternoon, in breeches. Why do you think acts return to Edinburgh year-on-year? For the glamour, the enormous paycheques, and the sunshine. Q Austentatious, Underbelly George Square, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 1.15pm, ÂŁ11.50–£12.50 (ÂŁ10.50–£11.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, ÂŁ7. See page 48 for an interview with Murray’s fellow cast member, Joseph Morpurgo.
Pic of the
WEEK
LIMBO
PHOTO © DAVID SOLM
A dazzling combination of circus and cabaret has just landed in Edinburgh. Full of passion, daring dance moves, compelling illusions and gutsy manoeuvres, Limbo is performed by a troupe of international artists. So come along and join the insanity of a world between heaven and hell. Even Madonna has been there twice . . . Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 0844 545 8252, 8–29 Aug (not 12, 17, 24), 7.25pm, £20–£22.50. Preview 7 Aug, £17.50.
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 11
#birramoretti 12 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Liam Williams | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
FIRED UP
After a hugely successful Fringe 2014, Liam Williams is back to set the festival alight. Brian Donaldson hears from a stand-up with lofty literary ambitions and one big deadline to meet
D
avid O’Doherty used to have a routine about being the third most-searched David O’Doherty on Google. Liam Williams is experiencing that exact same problem with two of his own namesakes. ‘There’s a rugby player and a boxer who have both helped me break my self-Googling habit because in recent years they’ve become much more famous than me,’ the Yorkshire stand-up notes. ‘So it can be a bit depressing just to look at my own name. I’m still vaguely toying with the idea of having a reality show called The Liam Williams, Liam Williams and Liam Williams Show. Perhaps it could have a chat show format or maybe we’d try each other’s disciplines?’. Williams has been one-third of the Sheeps sketch team for some time now, and they’re back again this year, on the tiny stage at the Cellar Monkey. ‘Compared to previous Sheeps shows, it’ll be pretty light on props,’ he says. ‘But we’re committed to doing a satirical and topical show with a Sheeps spin on it.’ That self-same venue, somewhat off the Old Town / New Town beaten Fringe track, also housed Williams for last year’s Capitalism, an hour which earned him deservedly strong reviews and an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination. On at least one occasion, three critics were in the room. In such a tight space (1980s estate agents would call it ‘compact and bijou’) where both act and audience can spy the whites of one another’s eyes, being party to that amount of notepad-turning and critical glare must be a little disconcerting? ‘When you know there are people in the room, there can be a strange phenomenon of you filtering the show through what you imagine they’re thinking. I’m trying to stay quite clear-headed and zen. I’m still meditating, though not so much. All that stuff has become a bit fashionable and a little bit embarrassing so I try not to bang on about it. I used to be prone to getting angry and anxious, so whenever I feel that coming on, I’m much better at going, “why is this happening, then?” and taking myself off to one side and having a word. Which you can’t always do on stage; there, I just try to tell the audience what’s going on and get them involved in my private fears.’ What he’s not overly keen on revealing at this stage of his Fringe build-up (it’s early July when we talk), is too much about his new show, Bonfire Night. ‘I don’t want to give away all my jokes, but there’s a bit about the fact that we’re celebrating a failed revolution and the real anti-Catholic feeling in there. It’s a very weird thing to do to burn an effigy
‘Burning an effigy on a fire is a very weird thing to do’
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 13
FESTIVAL FEATURES | Liam Williams
Liam Wil liams wit h sketch trio Shee ps
Top 5
FREE SHOWS Five more top acts whose laughter comes at a rather low price in August
MIKE WOZNIAK
RAPHY DAWSON PHOTOG PHOTO © MARK
on a fire. That feels really primitive: has anyone really had a think about what Bonfire Night signifies as it’s pretty dark stuff?’ One month ahead of show number one, Williams admitted to being quietly confident about Bonfire Night’s success: ‘I did a preview the other night that went well, so I’m going to be complacently and dangerously reckless from now. I’ll give up working on the show, abandon all the material, and just be swaggering on stage.’ While admitting that he considered giving Edinburgh a miss this year to concentrate on his literary ambitions (‘I have a literary agent; in fact, everything I need is in place except the book. Watch this space’), he believes that the Fringe helps build a solid structure into a stand-up’s calendar. ‘It institutionalises comedians in the build-up. The thing I like about stand-up is that deadlines are so imminent and so definitive. If you’ve committed to doing a gig, you’ve got be ready, and if you’ve committed to doing an Edinburgh show, it just has to be ready. There’s no postponing.’ There are certain names that have been dropped into reviews of Liam Williams, ranging from Les Dawson (for an ability to look like he’s losing his grip on a performance only to quickly regain it, a skill which can only be pulled off by owning a true mastery of the craft) to Bo Burnham and Alfie Brown for their shared Gen Y anger and neuroses, and Philip Larkin for the northern poetic quality. And there are certain words that recur, too, of which ‘nihilist’ might well be top of that particular hit parade. ‘It’s a strong word to use,’ reckons Williams. ‘But certainly in my teenage years I would proudly accept that moniker. And I haven’t really changed that much; my stand-up persona is a rehash of my teenage persona, so I can’t complain. Then again, a true nihilist wouldn’t care at all.’ Liam Williams: Bonfire Night, Free Sisters, 622 6801, 6–19 Aug (not 17), 11.30pm, free, 20–30 Aug, 7.30pm, free; Sheeps Skewer the News, Cellar Monkey, 221 9759, 21–30 Aug, 2.30pm, free.
14 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Promising ‘regime-changing stand-up’, the Fringe’s very own Magic Mike unleashes his One Man Dad Cat Band, a gruelling yet hilarious road comedy about a car journey Woz took from Edinburgh to Exeter with a feline animal in his boot. Free Sisters, 622 6801, 6–30 Aug (not 17), 1.15pm, free.
AHIR SHAH The man we once dubbed as ‘made for stand-up’ is here with Distant, his fourth solo Fringe hour. It appears to be featuring everything from economics to extremism and politics to pirates. Counting House, 667 7533, 6–30 Aug, 7.30pm, free.
PIPPA EVANS Letting her rock-country buddy Loretta Maine loose for a bit, Evans is in town as her actual self, insisting There Are No Guilty Pleasures, a show about not worrying if you happen to like ‘bad’ stuff. There will be songs. Bannermans, 226 0000, 8–29 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 1.45pm, free.
MORGAN BERRY Joe Rowntree once more transmogrifies into Morgan Berry: Pet Bereavement Counsellor. The show is called Watership Down. And if you’re not filling up right now, then you have no soul. Banshee Labyrinth, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 6pm, free.
DANIELLE WARD She’s been to a party at Sting’s house and written one joke for Harry Hill’s TV Burp. Now, Ward is Dani Frankenstein, Nottingham’s foremost feminist hip hop sensation. Voodoo Rooms, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug (not 11, 18, 25), 12.30pm, free. (Brian Donaldson)
Key Change | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
HOLDING THE KEY
Open Clasp Theatre’s latest play, Key Change, draws inspiration from the life experiences of women prisoners. Rebecca Monks caught up with its director, Laura Lindow
‘Y
piece reflects how they have dealt with different situations and different circumstances, which is with humour, with resilience, compassion, and optimism.’ After working closely with the women, writer Catrina McHugh then went away and translated the essence of the workshops into a piece of devised theatre, the result of which is described as ‘a raw and illuminating portrayal of women in prison’. It is clear speaking to Lindow that this piece belongs as much to the women as it does to Open Clasp, and this is rooted in the respect that the company has for them. As she says, the initial impact of entering the prison was dispersed instantly upon meeting the ‘brilliant group’ they were to work with. ‘It gives you a fright when the door closes and you hear the key, and you see the razor wire and you receive the impact of all of that. But once that’s behind you, it’s just people working with people.’ Working on such an intimate piece of theatre requires a strong bond between the participants, and Lindow says this was clear from the outset. ‘It’s like they are in such close communication with one another . . . I suppose we knew that we wanted to honour that
sense of togetherness, but also, we understood what a position of trust we were in.’ This level of trust was continued between the company and the women, even after the workshops were over and the piece was being developed. Before it was to be shown to an audience, it needed the stamp of approval from the most important critics of all: the women themselves. ‘They’ve obviously seen it when it was in the prison, and given it their thumbs up,’ she says, ‘but we had to earn that, we had to earn their approval. We had to take it back to them and say, you performed it, this is what we’ve done with it.’ Inevitably, there were some tweaks to be made, but now that the final piece is established, the company are excited to share it with the world. ‘For these women to be represented on such an international stage, when these voices are so seldom heard, feels important. The women we worked with, as they say, are survivors rather than victims. I think the story and the play reflects that.’ Key Change, Northern Stage at Summerhall, 560 1581, 10–30 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 12.30pm, £12 (£10). Previews 8 & 9 Aug, £10.
PHOTO © KEITH PATTISON
ou have to have courage to visit those places,’ says director Laura Lindow, as she discusses her latest project, Key Change: a piece that was developed in collaboration with a group of women in Low Newton prison. But when Lindow talks about ‘places’, she isn’t referring to the prison itself. She is alluding to the emotional places brought to life by the women she worked with, as they told their stories and shared their personal journeys with Lindow and the rest of the team at Open Clasp Theatre. ‘You have to have the courage to take it out there,’ she explains, and that is exactly what the company plan to do at the Fringe. Before the play was created, Open Clasp spent time with the female offenders in a series of workshops designed to help them explore their voices. ‘We didn’t go in with any answers,’ says Lindow. ‘We went in with an openness and drama strategies in our pockets to help the group to unlock and tell the stories that they wanted to tell.’ This meant asking the women to create fictional characters based on an element of truth, an exercise which proved interesting in terms of the issues being raised. ‘There were a lot of commonalities in what they brought, the experiences that these fictional characters had – experiences of poverty, of abuse. The
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 15
16 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
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Returning for a second year this outdoor arena has proven to be the bestandbrightestnewFestivalhubinthecity.StAndrewSquareGarden will also play host to The Spiegeltent, plus the best in free outdoor entertainment, fantastic bars and mouth-watering food concessions!
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6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 17
FESTIVAL FEATURES | Puddles Pity Party
18 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Puddles Pity Party | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
A CLOWN APART
Puddles, the clown with the golden voice, refuses to talk. So Gareth K Vile talked at him instead, as he prepares to bring his Pity Party to the Edinburgh Fringe
A
ll communication is fraught with the potential for misunderstanding, but an interview with Puddles the clown is a particularly challenging prospect. Despite the power of his rich singing voice – one that Fringe audiences will hear in his 2015 cabaret / theatre show, Puddles Pity Party – the towering clown refuses to speak during our scheduled Skype interview early this summer. He replies only with gesture, occasionally writing down a phrase or sentence when it becomes too difficult to mime an answer. Yet the emphasis on silence allows Puddles’ appearance and presence to become a language of its own. Always seen in full costume, a cardboard crown atop his head, Puddles became an internet sensation when his cover of Lorde’s ‘Royals’ struck a chord with YouTubers. And as he arrives in Edinburgh, he’s fresh from a stint at the Soho Theatre and a turn at Montreal’s Just for Laughs alongside Neil Patrick Harris. Both his height and taciturn interview technique make Puddles an intimidating character: when he sings, however, he is surprisingly unironic, giving his cover versions a respectful treatment, and evoking the sound of early Tom Waits or even Tom Jones, a fellow smooth baritone. When he first appears on the Skype screen, his face, stained with white paint but with only suggestive dots of red that transform a clown from butoh terror to cheerful entertainer, settles in a frown that suggests he expects only more disappointment. Like his version of Sia’s ‘Chandelier’, his appearance takes something mundane and facile, and lends it a depth, hinting at unspoken anguish. He is defensive at first: when I ask about his reasons for performance, he insists that it isn’t a simple choice. He feels compelled to perform, and any further explanation is unnecessary. When pressed, he sips his large mug of tea, discards a sheet of paper, then holds a page to the screen. ‘I think it is more theatre than cabaret,’ and then, on a second sheet: ‘it’s therapeutic for me.’ He is not interested, either, in explaining his act, or what an audience might think. Interpretation, he perhaps suggests – the signs were complicated – is best left to the observer. For his own part, he is content to sing. Then his face becomes ferocious for a moment. Another sheet of paper is held up to the camera. ‘It’s symbiotic! The importance of empathy,’ then he points to himself, then outwards. ‘And towards others!’ Puddles’ guarded replies belie his attentiveness and interest in each question. Staring directly at the camera, focused and serious, he weighs each word in his mind before either reaching for a pen or miming a response. The discomfort he occasionally displays in performance – fiddling with the large pom-pom buttons on his Pierrot suit, wandering across the stage, distracted and disconsolate – is in sharp contrast with the clown on the screen, who appears nervously accommodating and eager to please. Returning to an earlier theme, he writes that ‘I celebrate the audience for joining in the show.’
His previously intense stare is replaced by a warm smile. He screws up another sheet of paper, throws it over his shoulder and settles back in his chair, ready for the next question. The mythology of Puddles’ early years, when he would appear unannounced at a club, belt out a few popular favourites and leave, adds to the mystery of the clown behind the golden voice. His concerts have an uncanny, surreal atmosphere, the juxtaposition of his child-like presence and empathy for apparently shallow pop filing his charisma under inexplicable. The interview is equal parts awkward and loving, Puddles never being pinned down but occasionally making direct appeals for love. At one point he embraces the camera to express his gratitude for the conversation. His enthusiasms are sudden, charming and animating. When I ask why he is coming to Edinburgh, he scrawls ‘chip buddy’ on the paper (it becomes clear that he means ‘chip butty’ from the accompanying illustration) and points out that the butties will be on him when he arrives. He is even more excited about the prospect of seeing Australian comedian Sam Simmons (see feature, page 42). Pressing his hands against his heart, he then gestures that Simmons might be the king of comedy (or that he blew his mind when he saw him. The signs are not always clear). Unsurprisingly, he also expresses an enthusiasm for 2012 Comedy Award winner Doctor Brown, another silent performer. When asked about other acts, Puddles relaxes, apparently glad to shift the attention away from his life onto others. The more playful clown has arrived. When I ask whether he’ll be seeing other clowns’ shows in Edinburgh, he scrawls ‘Yes!’ with excited speed. The rise in circus-based theatre – not limited to aerial tricks or physical spectacle – might have created a space at the Fringe for Puddles, as has the steady growth of longer-form cabaret. Puddles could sit in either category, but his claim that his Pity Party is theatre reveals that his persona is aiming at more than entertainment. In common with Piff the Magic Dragon (see preview, page 49), who never clarifies whether he thinks he is a magician in a dragon suit or a dragon who does magic, Puddles blurs the line between the act and the personality. The confusion is endearing, and his silent interview trick forces the observer to recognise that, red nose or not, Puddles is a serious artist. Questions about whether he is a clown when he is offscreen and stage, or how he developed the idea of a sad clown with an operatically powerful voice become impossible – not just because the replies are indecipherable as gestures, but because Puddles refuses to acknowledge them. Yet his performance and his presence make Puddles’ Party, paradoxically, a display of pity that is uplifting and inspiring.
‘I think it is more theatre than cabaret. It’s therapeutic for me’
Puddles Pity Party, Assembly George Square Gardens, 623 3030, 7.25pm, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 25), £13–£14 (£12–£13). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £10. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 19
FESTIVAL FEATURES | Stef Smith
HEAVY METTLE
PHOTO © MIHAELA BODLOVIC
Gareth K Vile talks to Stef Smith, Scotland’s bold champion of scripted theatre, about her new Fringe show, Swallow
F
rom her 2012 Olivier Awardwinning script for Cora Bissett’s Roadkill, through the challenging and passionate meditation on teenage confusion Grey Matter, to her latest work for the Traverse’s Fringe programme, Swallow, Stef Smith has established a reputation as a ferocious and poetic playwright. Constantly pushing at the form of theatre – her scripts have been directed into site-specific immersive performances, or allusive solo shows that call on physical theatre’s dynamism – her writing allows directors space to interpret and explore the worlds she evokes and the issues she addresses. For Swallow, Smith says: ‘I wanted to write characters who feel furious at the modern world, because it’s a sensation I often feel myself – for all sorts of diverse and complex reasons.’ With a cast of three women, playing strangers who are forced to come to terms with personal demons, Smith has set up a confrontational drama that is played out with musical accompaniment from hip hop artist LAWholt. ‘I listened to LAW’s work a lot while redrafting the play,’ says Smith. ‘There is something about the texture of her work that felt like it fitted the play.’ Her music, which has been made in collaboration with the Mercury Prize-winning Young Fathers, does contain a rough, almost punk attack, revelling in the harsh metallic sounds of electronica and 20 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
reclaiming hip hop from the dominance of its smoother R&B fashion. For all of the intensity, both in the characters’ lives and the soundtrack, Smith is not aiming for a simple brutality. She continues: ‘I wanted to write characters who despite their fury (or maybe because of it) also dance, laugh, have sex and are entirely present.’ Acknowledging the influence of Sarah Kane, who became notorious for the violence of her scripts, and Caryl Churchill, who can twist expected theatre tropes to shocking ends, Smith’s vibrancy as a writer comes as much from her experiences as these playwrights. Perhaps due to her close collaboration with previous directors – she observes that the process of staging Swallow with Orla O’Loughlin has been exciting and very collaborative – Smith’s scripts escape the trap of much scripted theatre: full of good intentions but lacking the energetic spark that lifts it above a mere discussion of ‘the big issue’. Instead, as in the case of Roadkill or her recent entry in Glasgay!, Cured, they shift between multiple perspectives and reveal unexpected conclusions. However, her love for theatre is evident, and she recognises it as a forum for reflection and engagement with these big issues. ‘There is a raw quality to Swallow which I think lends itself to the “liveness” of theatre. When you get to watch characters change, evolve and struggle
right in front of your eyes: there is something as an audience member about experiencing and reading a body and voice in the same space that feels so entirely exciting and authentic.’ Swallow’s director, Orla O’Loughlin, is currently artistic director of the Traverse Theatre, and has shown her skill at conjuring theatrical spectacle from solo shows, such as David Harrower’s Ciara (a previous Fringe hit) and Spoiling. The Traverse has also demonstrated a rare support for female artists in the past few years, making this production fit in well with O’Loughlin’s apparent vision of passionate theatre and creating opportunities for women who are often excluded elsewhere. But Smith’s work is bracingly modern and is no example of any particular trend: Swallow promises to be another movement in her evolution as one of Scotland’s most consistent playwrights. Suitably, she sees theatre as not just about the stage. ‘The audience is utterly vital to my work, but I should say I’m not particularly interested in giving them an easy time. I like audiences to work a little, to be active in my plays – not just spectate and let it wash over them. I would hope that they feel challenged – in an exciting way.’ Swallow, Traverse, 228 1404, 9–30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), times vary, £20 (£8–£15). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £14 (£8).
FREE Exhibition The Scottish Parliament 22 July – 22 August 2015 Over 130 prize-winning images from around the world Be inspired to see the world differently scottish.parliament.uk/world-press-photo-2015
Bulent Kilic, Turkey, Agence France-Presse World Press Photo receives support from the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is sponsored worldwide by Canon.
2015 FREE ENTRY
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22 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
The Harmonium Project | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO © 59 PRODUCTIONS
SWEET HARMONY
This year’s Edinburgh International Festival opens with The Harmonium Project, a one-off outdoor spectacle of music and lights at the Usher Hall. Yasmin Sulaiman spoke to its co-creators to find out more
N
ot content to nab the starry likes of Juliette Binoche and Sufjan Stevens for his inaugural programme as EIF director, Fergus Linehan has set himself a big, unpredictable challenge for his first August in charge. As the International Festival marks its new, earlier start date – bringing it in line with the Fringe – it opens this Friday with The Harmonium Project, a free outdoor visual spectacle at the Usher Hall. ‘I often think that the Usher Hall is a building that architecturally should have a big square in front of it,’ Fergus Linehan tells me, a week before his first EIF programme kicks off. ‘It should be almost cathedral-like with a huge open public space. But it isn’t; it’s got this incredibly narrow space in front of it and then a very busy road, so no one really looks at that building and it’s actually very beautiful. That space in front of the Usher Hall is probably the least touched by the festival of anywhere in Edinburgh. And I love that.’ It won’t be that way on the first Friday of the festival, when The Harmonium Project will transform the outside of the Usher Hall into a canvas of moving images celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus. Since its foundation in 1965, the chorus has featured some of Scotland’s best amateur singers, performing alongside
the world’s most respected musicians (this year, they perform at the Opening Concert, alongside the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Donald Runnicles). The section of Lothian Road opposite the Hall will be closed to traffic, allowing spectators to occupy a makeshift version of the square that Linehan thinks the building so deserves. But what exactly will they see there? Essentially, The Harmonium Project is a complex musical science experiment, a collaboration between the International Festival and 59 Productions, working with the University of Edinburgh’s Informatics Department. Although 59 have just won a Tony Award for their video work on Broadway show An American in Paris, the company – whose aim is to push the boundaries of technology within the arts – are no strangers to Edinburgh. In 2006, they designed the video set for the phenomenally successful Black Watch and since then have worked on War Horse, the London 2012 Opening Ceremony and Lighting the Sails, an installation at Sydney Opera House, which is where Linehan first worked with them. ‘This is kind of a unique project for us,’ admits 59’s Richard Slaney, who co-created The Harmonium Project with Linehan, ‘and we do some really crazy projects. It happens once, and hopefully it will be fantastic and the audience will love it. We don’t get to revise it or change it, like a theatre
‘THIS IS A ONE-TIME-ONLY EXTRAVAGANZA’
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 23
FESTIVAL FEATURES | The Harmonium Project
Clockwise from top: Edinburgh Festival Chorus member Clare Hewitt, the Chorus in rehearsal, 3D model of the Usher Hall PHOTO © EOIN CAREY
PHOTO © 59 PRODUCTIONS
show running for a few weeks. This is a one-time-only extravaganza.’ The animations projected on to the hall on Friday have been inspired by data captured through EEG scans of brain activity on willing volunteers from the Edinburgh Festival Chorus. ‘They were listening and they weren’t negative, but they were definitely cautious about it. They are still pretty cautious about it,’ Linehan laughs. Slaney explains further: ‘We wanted to show off how amazing the music season within the festival is. Coming up with a way of showing what happens inside the hall was part of the brief, so we took that very literally, I guess. Fergus introduced us to the Informatics Department at the University of Edinburgh, who came up with loads of ideas, like “we could capture this particular bit of data about what their finger does, what their pulse does, what their brain does when they’re singing, what their eyes are doing, reading music”, and those kinds of things. We could then take that as raw data and translate that into the visual material.’ The data-capture process started in mid-April and 59 have been working on the visuals in their London studio, projecting the animation on to a miniature 3D-printed Usher Hall. The 35-minute show that they’re creating will be set to ‘Harmonium’ by contemporary American composer John Adams, and a recording of that choral work by the Edinburgh 24 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
PHOTO © EOIN CAREY
Festival Chorus will be played on the night. And whether it rains or not, The Harmonium Project looks set to be a show that the city won’t forget. ‘The thing I love about 59 is they’re very rigorous but they’ve got a great kind of popular sensibility as well,’ says Linehan. ‘Because once you step outside on to the street, you know, the colours have to really pop and you really need to understand the dynamic of speaking to a big crowd. It’s a different type of vernacular and they just really get that. The process they have is very rigorous but the final results generally speak to everyone.’ ‘I can’t wait to see it on the hall,’ adds Slaney, ‘because, you know, when you’re working on a model half-a-metre wide you have to sort of stop and remember that this hall is huge! And it’s going to be really bright [and] be a big impact thing, and I’m really looking forward to that. I’m most excited for the chorus to see it. For better or worse, I think their feedback is going to mean an awful lot to us, to see if they think we’ve interpreted their performance in the right way. That’s the most intriguing thing for me, to know what they make of it. We’ll find out Friday night.’ The Harmonium Project, Usher Hall, 7 Aug, 10.30pm, free (non-ticketed); Opening Concert, Usher Hall, 473 2000, 8 Aug, 7.30pm, £14–£46 (£7–£23).
Suitable for ages
16+
10-16 AUGUST
www.proteustheatre.com !
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2015
Devised by Mary Swan and Paul Huntley-Thomas Performed by Paul Huntley-Thomas
This year’s programme includes:
07 – 31 August 2015
10TH
14TH
PHILIP CONTINI LIGHTS OUT BY NINE
11 – 14 AUG 10:15-11:15 Greenside @ Royal Terrace £10 (£5) 0131 557 2124 greensidevenue.co.uk
OPERA EAST LOTHIAN ALI AFLECK & DICK LEE QUARTET
11TH
THE NEW ROPE STRING BAND LINDSAY LOU & THE FLATBELLYS
12TH
15TH
BOMBSKARE ELAINE C SMITH
16TH
EDDI READER DUO LENSKY
THE BLUES BAND FAYNE & THE CRUISERS
13TH
NEWTONGRANGE SILVER BAND MAINSTREET BLUES
www.fringebythesea.com
ASSEMBLY HALL
16:15 6 - 31 AUG
BOX assemblyfestival.com OFFICE 0131 623 3030 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 25
AUGUST 7-9
WITH
Edinburgh Art Festival Detours 7, 12, 21 & 26 August 2015 Acts include: – – – –
Phill Jupitus at Inverleith House Carol Ann Duffy at Talbot Rice Gallery Man of Moon at Collective Story Pocket Theatre at Jupiter Artland
Tickets ÂŁ4 edinburghartfestival.com
FOODIESFESTIVAL.COM O 0844 995 1111
800 authors from 55 countries in 750 events. Join the adventure in Charlotte Square Gardens! Book tickets: 0845 373 5888/ www.edbookfest.co.uk Tickets still available for: Chris Brookmyre, A L Kennedy, S J Watson, Ben Okri, Julian Clary, Kate Mosse, Edwyn Collins, Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart David, A C Grayling, Helen Lederer, Steve Bell, Kate Tempest, George the Poet, Pat Barker, Tracey Thorn, Michel Faber and many more.
26 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Secret Fringe | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
SECRET ESCAPES Fancy a bit of mystery? Rowena McIntosh rounds up the best shows in Edinburgh being performed in ‘secret’ locations this August
HULA HOUSE Set in a brothel, this intimate show by Permanently Visible Productions blends performance with verbatim multimedia gathered from sex workers. The company aims to challenge societal ideas of selling sex and reveal the real women behind the stereotype. Meet at Zoo Southside box office for a 10-minute walk to the venue. Zoo Southside, 662 6892, 12–23 Aug (not 17 & 18), 8pm and 10pm, £13.50 (£11). Preview 11 Aug, 8pm, £7 (£5).
SIRENIA
GURU DUDU’S SILENT DISCO
The latest work by Jethro Compton is set in an isolated lighthouse in the sea off Cornwall. Isaac is under threat from a fierce storm when the demons of his past begin to emerge from the darkness. Sirenia blends Celtic folklore with a modern tale of love, loss and solitude. Performed in a site-specific location against the Edinburgh skyline, capacity is extremely limited. C nova, 0845 260 1234, 5–31 Aug, 7.25pm & 8.25pm, £11.50–£13.50 (£10.50–£11.50).
Who knows where you’ll end up on this silent disco meets walking tour? Everyone wears the headphones provided so they can enjoy Guru Dudu’s commentary as well as a mix of dance tunes from the 70s to the noughties. Bust out some interpretive dance moves at local landmarks and help bring spontaneous flash mobs to the streets of the capital. Grassmarket East, 226 0000, 7–31 Aug (not 12, 18, 24, 27), 2pm & 7pm, £10–£15 (£8–£10).
THE HANDLEBARDS: SECRET SHAKESPEARE
MOONLIGHT CINEMA TOUR: SECRET CINEMAS
Actors and cycle enthusiasts the HandleBards invite their audience to get on their bikes before pedalling together to a secret location for a Shakespearean performance. The bards play all the parts and use their bikes to power various surprises and contraptions ‘on-stage’. Expect to travel approximately five miles. Bedlam Theatre, 629 0430, 18 & 19, 25 & 26 Aug, 5pm, £18 (£15).
Enjoy the silver screen by the light of the moon in an intimate garden in the heart of Edinburgh. Films shown include The Wolf of Wall Street, Pretty Woman and The Hangover. Moonlight Cinema are also bringing the snacks with street food, classic cinema refreshments and drinks available on site. Location revealed to ticket holders two weeks before event, 07734 779 788, 21–23 Aug, 7.15pm, £9 (£6). 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 27
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FRINGE FARE
Performers might be hungry for audiences at the Fringe but most audiences are just, well, hungry. Keith Smith discovers the medley of festival shows that allude to food
JOLLY BOTANIST EDINBURGH
An upmarket gin bar in the Haymarket area with quirky Victorian decor. Enjoy their impressive multipage gin menu or a cool Birra Moretti to accompany your dinner if you’re all ginned-out! @jollybotanist 28 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
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ABOREHENAT DOLUM Id qui berum fugita sa nonseriam fugiature vereritisi dolum ius molo Toriame que volo magnate molorum quoditatis moluptas et aut expeliquisit aut ex es ipicabo reictatur, tenis eturio dit escitae pel maximusant fuga. Tioreriatur si occus sendae. Oditatem quoditat fuga. Os aut ex elesequid ut delici aciassincit ea si aces etur, quod maximet aut erita cus.Rem faccum ex ea que plandem It’s hard to believe that only four years ago ex evendigendel eiur?Ommoloratia acesendis Katherine firstoccupta appeared on the Fringe ipidellendi Ryan quo mo tincto is molora scene withisan intriguing but patchy debut, nimagniet elignam, oditistor ab illecto Little Miss apelest Conception her finale,ossitati she essintenis arion. For essiti quoditi actually up on stage ut latqui welcomed corem nonher pormother anihil ilibeate nus. and Glamreperis Role Model inBusdande last year’sque show, voluptu inihit, crowds witnessed a ium mini-set her aborporrum quis warm-up es aut prafrom net, Violet, sam restia young daughter, best nis friend’. volore, sum, que ‘flatmate etur sitio and molores untio She’s ever more firmly the family con est keeping omnissi it modita veliquis autinoffi ciur ad this time around with Kathbum (a childhood nickname and her Twitter handle) which uses her impending trip back to Canada for her sister’s wedding as a trigger to tackle the themes of home. Ryan will seek to explore how she feels about the country she left behind
endae. Ut quia parchit, venis quae maion est aperit acesto excesciatque voluptatet, iusci con porectem ex et que volesse quiamus, sunt fuga. Im imil mod que pore, tet debis audis velecat dolescipiet fugit, simusandi doloratur, seque dende inum quamus exerum, velesequas voloreperum qui si archil mo te several years ago ininum ordersitis to find fame and doluptatur?Evenda mil eic tem. fortune the UK. Given number TV Pudignisindolo consed et the autas sequeof estissi panel shows that she’searuptasita been cropping ommolor ectio. Orest volesup on of late, she appears to be et, on omnim the rightdia track for necerum fugit offictem doluptat such rewards. faccum eat. Kathbum may well be Katherine Ryan’s Temos ex et harum quid et re, sequo et, most personal to date but can still sequae peliquashow eriamusapedi ateyou volumquis be assured of ut some from one eosRorrorent que cracking esequos jokes quassitate of the true rising stars of the British parumquam illiciant acesequam remcomedy reperume world. This former employee of Hooters who has campaigned for No More Page Three has opinions and comedy that are always worth listening to. (Brian Donaldson) Q The Stand 3, 558 7272, 7–22 Aug (not 17), 4.25pm, £12. Preview 6 Aug, £10.
KATHERINE RYAN
The Canadian comic gets set to deliver a personal show with views
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 31
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Hitlist
COMEDY HITLIST NISH KUMAR This stridently intelligent and (thankfully) very funny stand-up returns after his shameful omission from last year’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards shortlist. A more political show is on the agenda. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug, 7.15pm, £9–£12 (£8–£10.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. LIAM WILLIAMS An act here who did get a fully deserved slot on that list of nominees gives us Bonfire Night. Among other things, there will be some musings over our attitudes to still celebrating a dead Catholic in early November. See feature, page 13. Free Sisters, 622 6801, 6–19 Aug (not 17), 11.30pm, free, 20–30 Aug, 7.30pm, free. ALEX EDELMAN The 2014 Best Newcomer is back with Everything Handed to You, a show about being young. That’s a theme the New Yorker assures us he’ll be continuing to drive home in his stand-up until he no longer considers himself to be of youth. Fair play to
him. See feature, page 39. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug, 8.30pm, £9–£12 (£8–£10.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. ADRIENNE TRUSCOTT Proving she’s no one-trick pony, the Wau Wau Sister delivers with, um, Adrienne Truscott’s A One Trick Pony. Oh well. It’s sure to be a provocative and much-discussed hour, nonetheless. See preview, page 49. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–17 Aug, 8.15pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.50. STEWART FRANCIS Pun fans will be in ecstasy over the full Fringe debut of the Scotland-based Canadian. Pun Gent is his fragrant hour. See feature, page 38. Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 8.10pm, £15 (£13). Preview 5 Aug, £14 (£12). BEARD Two talented clowning and sketch comic actors unfurl The Grin of Love. Matilda Wnek and Rosa Robson will be at your service for a potentially baffling hour of fun. See feature, page 35. Sneaky Pete’s, 226 0000, 8–29 Aug (not 18), 1.15pm, free.
PHOTO Š STEVEN ULLATHORNE
Brian Donaldson highlights some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week
Nish Kumar
JOSEPH MORPURGO Odessa was another highlight of last year’s Fringe and Morpurgo is back with a further multimedia affair, this time entitled Soothing Sounds for Baby (wonder if it’ll be anything but?). See feature, page 48. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 8.15pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£7–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
Kathbum features a discussion on her relationship with her homeland inspired by returning for a family wedding. See preview, page 31. The Stand 3, 558 7272, 7–22 Aug (not 17), 4.25pm, £12. Preview 6 Aug, £10.
KATHERINE RYAN She’s been on most of the panel shows you can think of, but UK-based Canadian Ryan has risen through the comedy ranks here thanks to sheer determination and talent.
SAM SIMMONS The surrealist Australian comic scooped the prestigious Barry Award earlier this year for his new show, Spaghetti for Breakfast. Who knows, maybe he’ll make it a double celebration? See feature, page 42. Underbelly Potterrow, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 17, 24), 9pm, £12.50–£14 (£11.50– £12.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.50.
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SERIOUSLY Colin Leggo
FUNNY Felicity Ward
‘MY ANXIETY WAS AN OVERNIGHT SUCCESS’ PHOTO © STEVEN ULLATHORNE
Amid all the knockabout fun of the Fringe, some comedians are tackling bigger, often darker personal subjects. Kirstyn Smith finds that cancer, mental illness, adoption and amputation can still be a laughing matter
W
e’re agreed. Nobody needs to hear this question again: do you have to be mad to be a comedian? ‘It’s a very original question that sits alongside “are women funny?” and “who are your influences in comedy?”’ On the subject of mental illness and its related wreckages, Felicity Ward is candid, referring to herself as a ‘psychopath’, which may be less far from the truth than imagined. ‘It was a bit of a no-brainer,’ she continues. ‘I’d done all the research before I started writing the show. I’m better at writing on a topic if I know a lot about it. I’ve been diagnosed for five years, officially, but I’ve had it for a lot longer than that.’ In a study, The British Journal of Psychiatry found that comedians are likely to have psychotic tendencies, a report which led to Ward’s involvement in a documentary about mental health. All this brought up more material than she could conceivably use in the programme, so this year’s Fringe show, What If There Is No Toilet?, was born. Of course, you don’t have to be unstable to be funny, but according to the comedy lineup at this year’s Fringe, there’s nothing more amusing than personal tragedy. Alongside Ward’s show about mental health issues and irritable bowel syndrome (the latter delicate issue is also being
tackled by Laura Lexx), other topics to be addressed in comedy shows are amputation (Colin Leggo), euthanasia (Mel Moon), the death of a parent (John-Luke Roberts), a spouse with cancer (Alistair Barrie) and having cancer yourself (Beth Vyse). It’s shaping up to be a heavy month. ‘You have to be quite careful with the subject matter because a lot of people have been through absolute hell with it.’ It’s been five years since Beth Vyse had breast cancer and she finally got the all-clear at the end of last year (‘they said to me, “you’re the same as everyone else now”, but you never will be the same as everyone else’), and her show relives the experience. As Funny as Cancer also deals with her childhood and later life experiences – she met Nelson Mandela when she was young and was engaged to Michael Jackson (no, not that one) – with Vyse neither sugar-coating nor going for gross-out. ‘My stuff has always been a bit surreal, but there’s this underlying thing that I want to get out: people go on stage and talk about things that happen to them because that’s funny. That’s the reason I’m doing this show, because it’s always on my mind. I’m telling it in quite a surreal way, so I suppose my style of humour comes through in that.’ Mark Steel’s Who Do I Think I Am? is the comic’s incredible tale of 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 33
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Dark Comedy Alistair Barrie
John-Luke Roberts
trying to track down his birth mother, albeit with little success (‘she didn’t want to know me’), but along that rocky road, he discovered that his natural father had lived an extraordinary life, particularly in relation to the sorts of people he associates with. ‘He wrote a book about backgammon with an introduction written by a chap called Jim Slater, who was then found guilty of corruption on a massive scale. So those are the people he was close to; given that I’ve spent my whole life campaigning against exactly those sorts of people, that makes it a most extraordinary tale. It’s like a really badly-written Jeffrey Archer novel.’ Utterly pragmatic about what is a harrowing story in which his father tells him that he offered his mother money to have him ‘dealt with’ (code for ‘aborted’), Steel makes no bones about how important, and helpful, it is that humour can emerge from gravitas. ‘Anything that’s funny comes from something that matters, doesn’t it? It makes it a lot easier to have a story where things happen that are funny. You’ve then just got to find a way of telling it in a funny way. If one of them had been an accountant and the other was a tree surgeon and the most exciting thing they ever did was go to Eastbourne, then they wouldn’t have helped me. But this lot have definitely helped me out.’ On discovering her problems with anxiety and depression, Ward is similarly down-to-earth and deadpan. ‘In 2010, I went up to the Fringe and did my second show. That was when my anxiety exploded. That anxiety was the equivalent of a really successful comedian. It was an overnight 34 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Laura Lexx
success.’ Where the pillars of mental illness and IBS intertwine was the discovery that her fear of losing control of her bladder and bowels was, in fact, entirely normal for someone with her mental health issues. ‘That’s a crazy thing to tell someone: “I’m afraid of wetting myself on stage”. But it’s really common and has been a theme throughout my life. It’s my longest running relationship. It’s also one of those things where I thought “I wonder if I can make that funny”.’ This, then, is the primary objective for Ward, Vyse and Steel: chiselling out jokes wherever possible. ‘This isn’t a campaign, only because I feel like my primary objective as a comedian is to make people laugh,’ says Ward. All three seem to be agreed on this. Nobody is looking for sympathy, but it’s hard to say that it’s all as blasé as it comes across. ‘I didn’t ever see a counsellor,’ Vyse says. ‘I’ve kind of dealt with it by myself by making the most ridiculous humour, surreal stuff that’s quite grotesque. There’s quite graphic stuff that goes on [when you have breast cancer]; you have to have this drainage out of your boob and it’s like a blood sack that you carry around with you, but then it just becomes your friend. You just pop it in your cardigan pocket and you’re off down the shops.’ By baring all on stage, the comedian places an audience in the role of a passive therapist, listening sympathetically to their unfolding plight. While Ward maintains she doesn’t have an agenda, she does admit that when it comes to important issues, comedy works. ‘I think people
Mark Steel
need to know what happens. People need to bring it up through humour and tell their story. If people get on board with that, then brilliant. And if not, that’s OK too.’ Beth Vyse: As Funny as Cancer, The Hive, 226 0000, 6–30 Aug (not 18), 4.20pm, £5. Felicity Ward: What if There Is No Toilet?, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 9pm, £10–£12 (£9–£11). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. Mark Steel: Who Do I Think I Am?, Assembly George Square Studios, 623 3030, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 8.15pm, £13–£14 (£12–£13). Previews 5–7 Aug, £10. Alistair Barrie: No More Stage 3, Movement, 226 0000, 8–29 Aug (not 17), 3.45pm, free. Colin Leggo: Leggoland, The Blind Poet, 667 7533, 6–30 Aug (not 17), 1.30pm, free. John-Luke Roberts: Stdad-Up, Voodoo Rooms, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug, 6.55pm, free. Laura Lexx: Lovely, Underbelly Med Quad, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 4.05pm, £9–£10.50 (£8–£9.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. Mel Moon: Sick Girl, Counting House, 667 7533, 8–30 Aug, 12.05pm, free.
Beard | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival
HAIR APPARENT Clowning, sketchy duo Beard are not only one of the best-kept secrets in comedy-town, they’re slightly coy about letting Brian Donaldson know too much about their new show
A mix of ‘sketch, clown, theatre and nightmare’ is the ominous sounding description of Beard’s new Fringe hour. Matilda Wnek and Rosa Robson’s 2012 debut proved how talented and innovative this pair resolutely are (a clear highlight for this reviewer of that year’s August comedy was Wnek transforming herself into a grandfather clock) and they’re now giving us The Grin of Love. Via email, asking a question such as ‘what does “the grin of love” mean?’ is patently dangerous territory, given that this was the opening section of a lengthy response from Wnek. ‘As children, we are told: here are mother and father being nice to one another, exchanging gifts, adoring their furniture, their pets, their child. This is love: are we not? But on top of what we are told, like a cold hand, soon rests what we see and feel and finally know: the mother who picks us up and puts us down as she would a bit of knitting, the joyful union that parts, like a wet paper, without a sound; affection lit like a lamp, blown out by the smallest whim . . . ’ It continues for a bit in similar vein, ultimately disclosing very little (we think) about what to expect from them in August. Here’s a simpler one: where does the name Beard come from? ‘A dog barked at us in the street and Rosa thought it said “Beard”.’ Fair enough, but what’s the best thing about being in a double act? ‘There’s always someone there to tell you if you have lipstick on your teeth.’ I can see that would be important. As for what would constitute a successful Fringe 2015 for Beard, no doubt most other acts would nod sagely in agreement: ‘the first show goes so well we have the same exact audience twenty-eight times.’ Q Beard: The Grin of Love, Sneaky Pete’s, 226 0000, 8–29 Aug (not 18), 1.15pm, free. PHOTO © IDIL SUKAN / DRAW HQ
Beth Vyse
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 35
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Punning Comedians
PUN DIRECTION Quick quips and intricate wordplay is an often under-rated stand-up skill. Brian Donaldson hears from a number of acts who are continually looking to reach their punchlines in the shortest time possible
PHOTO © STEVE ULLATHORNE
W
hile the Fringe has long been renowned for comedians doing storytelling shows with a big theme or grand concept, there’s a bijou set of stand-ups who are walking a different laughter path. The raw and pure form of comedy that is pun-making may not be to everyone’s taste, but when done well, it can provide as memorable a night as listening to someone talk about a recently deceased relative or how they travelled the world to meet a bunch of namesakes. While an undisputed pioneer of the one-liner may be absent this year (Tim Vine, a two-time winner of Dave’s Joke of the Fringe Award), there’s a talented plethora of punners and a host of one-line quipsters in town. In 2011, Australian comic Bec Hill launched a night entitled Pun Run (which gets a one-off airing this Fringe) as a means of purging herself of the many jokes she was accumulating in her brain. ‘The response from comedians and the audience was so overwhelming, it ended up turning into a regularly sold-out night,’ she recalls. ‘I think it would be torture for anyone who hated puns. Norman Lovett was a guest at our first night and he admitted his loathing for wordplay. I think we all took great pleasure in watching him squirm through every act.’ Among those appearing at Pun Run is the 2014 UK Pun Championships victor, Darren Walsh. Telling puns appears to have chosen him rather than the other way round. ‘I’d love to be able to do stories and longer jokes but that’s just not me. I don’t think you can pick what type of comedian to be,
38 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
it just happens. I guess an hour of puns is quite hard going so I try and break it up with videos and drawings as much as possible.’ Current UK Pun Championships title-holder Leo Kearse is a passionate defender of this comedic style in the face of a festival rammed with longform storytelling. ‘People who hate puns are basically stupid idiots. I love all puns and the more stupid or contrived the better. Puns totally kick ass on some wet-lipped posh kid waffling on about “literally” the “craziest” thing that “genuinely” happened (it never happened). Puns are proper jokes, they have a twist and you have to engage your brain to enjoy them.’ Long-term joke-writer Jem Brookes (his credits have included topical shows such as Radio 2’s The News Huddlines and Radio 4’s Week Ending) insists that puns work best when they come right out of the blue. ‘It often happens when I’m out and about or when people say a phrase or saying, and then that may start a chain of thought. If I’m working on a particular show, sometimes you just have to sit down with a piece of paper or on Twitter and start forcing yourself to come out with stuff. Usually the best ones hit you when you’re not expecting it, though often you get into a subconscious higher state of mind where you don’t even realise you’re turning stuff over constantly in the back of your mind.’ Richard Pulsford recalls a particular landmark moment in his life when that stuff turned over in his mind when perhaps it shouldn’t have done. ‘My partner was giving birth and there was something both sublime and
Alex Edelman | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival Clockwise, from top left: Bec Hill, Darren Walsh, Milton Jones, Leo Kearse, Richard Pulsford, Stewart Francis
‘People who hat e puns are basical ly stupid idiots’
ridiculous about me sitting dressed-up in an operating theatre, like a spare part, which fired the creative juices.’ He also demurs at the suggestion that a pun-based show is, by its very nature, either a good or a bad thing. ‘If you said “come and see people performing puns for two hours”, my immediate reaction would probably be negative. But if you said “come and see Milton Jones or Stewart Francis”, I would jump at the chance. So I think it’s all about expectations.’ While all the above acts are on various steps of the contemporary comedy ladder, the trajectory of Fringe superstars Milton Jones and Stewart Francis shows that you can become hugely successful acts with a national profile on the basis of little wordplays. So, here’s a sample of the kind of thing that those two minds created for this feature. First, Milton Jones on his favourite punning shop-name: ‘someone mentioned to me the other day about a butcher’s shop called “Halal: Is it Meat You’re Looking For?”.’ And Stewart Francis lets rip on the best pun he’s ever witnessed on a sea-faring vehicle: ‘recently, whilst my wife was out on a day pass, we saw a great pun on the back of a yacht. The yacht was called “Anchor Management”. BOOM: that’s what I’m talking aboat.’ With craic like that kicking about the Fringe, you can keep your storytellers. See full event details plus pun-laden Q&As with each comic at list.co.uk/festival
SLIGHT RETURN PHOTO © WILL BREMRIDGE
Kirstyn Smith talks to 2014’s Best Newcomer Alex Edelman about winning, influences and being neurotic Alex Edelman is just happy he’s allowed to come back. ‘The thing that was great about the award is that it gave me the chance to maybe come and do a second show. I’m thrilled that people came last year and that people might come again this year.’ Last year’s show, Millennial, earned Edelman the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. This year, however, he might feel some pressure to bring it just as hard with his new hour, Everything Handed to You. He’s smart enough to stick to a winning formula. ‘Every show is going to be about young people until I’m not a young person,’ he says. ‘But it’s also about travel and family and what it’s like to be a person who does an unusual job for a living.’ Far from resting on his laurels, it’s clear Edelman is keen to hone his craft. Opening for Eddie Izzard was ‘very special’, and he’s no slouch when it comes to learning from the best: ‘You get to see the same show again and again and you get to see the way that they change it and work it.’ Also influenced by Simon Amstell (who he regularly tours with) and Louis CK, Edelman is working the neurotic young person corner, with self-deprecation and worldly bewilderment very much in his arsenal. It makes perfect sense to him: ‘a neurotic person is quite conducive to stand-up comedy and stand-up comedy is a good outlet for a neurotic person. Being selfaware is a really important key to comedy.’ Q Alex Edelman: Everything Handed to You, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug, 8.30pm, £9–£12 (£8–£10.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 39
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Muslim Comedians
‘MY PRESENCE IN THIS ARENA HELPS HUMANISE ME AND MY COMMUNITY’
Refusing to shy away from the subject of Islam, a group of Muslim comedians is tackling myths, misconceptions and media scaremongering. Marissa Burgess finds out where they draw the line
I
n the face of recent terrorist attacks by radical extremists, this year’s Fringe features a group of Muslim comedians talking about their faith (or lack of it) and tackling Islamophobia head-on. Thanks to the scaremongering tactics of certain sections within a popular media which has wielded an ignorance of facts, statistics and the religion itself, the last two decades seem to have rendered Muslims as ‘the other’, an unknown to be feared. Sajeela Kershi and Aatif Nawaz both perceived a change post-9/11. Kershi considers herself ‘Muslim agnostic’ and a couple of days after the US attacks, a taxi driver ranted to the bemused comic: ‘it’s your lot!’ Her response this year is Shallow Halal, which traces a journey through the religion she was brought up in and how, initially, growing up in the only Asian family within a white area, she didn’t see herself as different. ‘I’d walk into a pub and heads would turn. I’d be thinking: “Oh yeah, I’m looking fly!”’ she laughs. Kershi also runs Immigrant Diaries, which gives voice to performers who grew up in immigrant families. ‘It was born of anger and frustration,’ she insists. ‘In 2012 there was all this anti-immigration stuff and I was having a rant with someone saying “statistics don’t tell stories, people do!” I then thought that there must be something in this.’ Presenter of the Islam Channel’s Living the Life, stand-up Aatif Nawaz’s show is his Fringe debut. Its first incarnation was a light-hearted affair that he performed in the West End last year, but following a conversation with a fellow comic he decided to dig deeper and tackle some bigger questions. ‘I’m one of those people who was born into an Islam that I passively practised. It was only when Muslims started to get a bad press around the world for 9/11, 7/7 and ISIS that people got angry and tried to find a place for that anger. They look at me and they’ll ask “what does this chapter of the Koran say?” So I’ve had a chance to look into it more, engage with it. I’m closer to my faith now than I ever have been.’ Tez Ilyas is also making his Fringe debut. He‘converts’ all his audience to Islam then proceeds to teach them how to integrate into British society. He says it’s a humorous response to ‘the amount of scrutiny that seems to be on British Muslims at the moment’, and addresses the frustration at being called upon to condemn terrorist attacks just because you happen to share the same faith. ‘That double standard is extremely frustrating. It’s there and there’s only so much you can speak out against.’ Omar Hamdi grew up in Wales with Egyptian parents. His debut show explores that experience as well as his adventures in a spirituality brought to the fore by reading about acts conducted by extremists. ‘That whole clash of civilisations thing is something I can relate to. When I read a piece about ISIS, I think about my attempts at being somewhat spiritual and the different friends I’ve got, from the completely godless to others who are quite switched-on to religion. My parents were really different: my mum was very spiritual but my dad was quite the opposite, a scientist.’ Hamdi has had chastising reactions to some of his material. ‘There were 40 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
two Saudi guys in the front row at a gig and I was joking about censorship in Saudi Arabia. They were laughing a lot, but at the end they ran out after me and said, “look, you were really funny but you can’t joke about religion”.’ Imran Yusuf, whose award-winning 2010 show tackled perceptions of his faith and heritage, has had polar reactions to his material over the years, ‘from having a shower of chocolate coins being thrown at me to references to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq shouted out. Any minority group knows to expect this and at home, many of us were taught to turn the other cheek.’ But for all the negativity there are also some inspiring moments: ‘every now and then someone will understand that, in some way, my presence in this arena helps humanise me and my community.’ All of these comedians generally agree that there isn’t one topic within their religion or culture that they wouldn’t joke about; it’s the approach that makes all the difference. As Hamdi considers, ‘I think people can joke about anything they want as long as they are funny’. Ilyas agrees: ‘I know there are debates on comedy about what people should or shouldn’t talk about but if you can make something funny then I think you should.’ Though Kershi adds the caveat that you shouldn’t put yourself out there aiming to simply cause offence as ‘there’s freedom of speech but there’s also a responsibility. I can say to a friend, “you look fat in that dress” but I’m not going to because it’ll hurt her feelings.’ Indeed, Yusuf is very careful when choosing his targets. ‘In general, I don’t insult any faith itself. Organised religion as a business is fair game, but I see no value in insulting the core inspiration of anyone’s faith.’ With these comedians, it’s going to be as fascinating a Fringe as it is funny. Aatif Nawaz: Muslims Do it Five Times a Day, The Caves, 0330 220 1212, 7–29 Aug, 10.15pm, free; Imran Yusuf: Super Roar of the Underdog Turbo X: HD Remix, The Stand 3, 558 7272, 21–30 Aug, 7.40pm, £12 (£10); Omar Hamdi: In the Valleys of the Kings, Assembly George Square Gardens, 623 3030, 8–30 Aug, 10.20pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6; Sajeela Kershi: Shallow Halal, The Newsroom, 557 5830, 6–30 Aug (not 12, 17, 24), 2.30pm, free; Immigrant Diaries: Sajeela Kershi and Guests, Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 10pm, £10 (£9). Preview 6 Aug, £9 (£8); Tez Ilyas: TEZ Talks, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 7.15pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
Muslim Comedians | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival
Sajeela Kershi
Tez Ilyas
PHOTO © STEVEN ULLATHORNE
PHOTO © STEVEN ULLATHORNE
‘There’s only so much you can speak out against’
Omar Hamdi
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 41
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Sam Simmons
STOP MAKING SENSE L STEMPLER
PHOTO © YEA
Neil Cooper talks to Australian absurdist scamp and self-styled professional idiot Sam Simmons, who insists it’s time once again to unleash his inner dickhead
I
f things had worked out differently, Sam Simmons might have ended up becoming a zookeeper. As it is, the thirtysomething Australian has spent the last decade or so travelling the world as a self-styled professional idiot, brandishing an off-kilter brand of comedy that has confused and confounded many, even as it has reeled in critical acclaim and ever-larger audiences. With his 2014 show, Death of a Sails-Man, being nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award following a previous shortlisting in 2011, Simmons returns this year with Spaghetti for Breakfast. This latest one-man extravaganza – which has already scooped the Underbelly Adelaide Award and the highly prestigious Barry Award in Melbourne – may take a nod at the inner world of its creator’s psyche, but it still allows full vent for his inner dickhead to explode into primary-coloured life. ‘There’s some very dark stuff,’ Simmons admits. ‘And it gets to the reason why I’m an idiot, which is to escape childhood stuff, but there’s nothing saccharine there. There’s nothing worse than seeing a show that’s saccharine. It has to be funny. It also came about from some quite weird experiences playing all the club rooms in London, where I got a lot of negativity from owners. They’d say, “oh, the stuff you do, it’s weird, it makes no sense”. It makes total sense for me, and this is why I do absurd comedy. Don’t get me wrong, I love stand-up but I don’t want to do it. Live comedy doesn’t just have to be about one thing.’ Simmons first started to develop his stage persona when he appeared at a benefit show put on by himself and some friends after another friend lost a handbag. ‘I got up and started being an idiot,’ he says. ‘But it wasn’t stand-up. It sounds vain, but I didn’t have this great ambition to 42 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
get onstage and start telling all these jokes or anything like that.’ Simmons presented on Australian radio station Triple J and interviewed bands on its small-screen offshoot before featuring in an anthropological mockumentary series (The Urban Monkey with Murray Foote) and a sketch-based show (Problems). While a sense of Simmons’ world beyond the stage can be gleaned in Wallstud, a three-episode series of miniatures for Channel 4’s Comedy Blaps strand, the roots of his oeuvre date right back to a misspent youth watching endless re-runs of a cult 1970s British TV show. ‘The Goodies was on every night when I was a kid,’ Simmons reflects. ‘They showed them all the time. It would probably surprise a lot of people in the UK to learn that I think Monty Python was too weird for me, but I think I connected with The Goodies, and felt all three of them were in my body. If you could condense Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie into one body it would probably look a bit like me.’ The spirit of The Goodies is certainly evident in Simmons’ stage act, a manic potpourri of absurdist antics, fourth-wall breaking routines and sheer out-and-out puerility. Then there are the shared concerns with Bill Oddie, the ornithologist and nature documentary presenter. ‘I was training to be a zookeeper for years and then I left to do this,’ says Simmons. ‘But what I really want to do is make Attenborough documentaries. That’s the dream.’
‘I felt all three of The Goodies were in my body’
Sam Simmons: Spaghetti for Breakfast, Underbelly Potterrow, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 17, 24), 9pm, £12.50–£14 (£11.50– £12.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.50.
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6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 43
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Sarah Callaghan
THE MINIMUM RAGE While people all around her seem to be settling for less, Sarah Callaghan is an ambitious comic who is clearly going places. Murray Robertson hears how she plans to escape
A
t just 23 years of age, Londoner Sarah Callaghan has already had a wealth of accolades bestowed upon her. A Funny Woman finalist four years ago, an Up the Creek One to Watch winner in 2013 and a member of Time Out’s Class of 2014, she recently earned a nomination for Best Show at this year’s Brighton Fringe. Forthright and confident, it’s clear that Callaghan’s star is very much in the ascendant. When asked to describe her first full Fringe show, Elephant, Callaghan speaks at a hundred miles an hour. ‘It’s a show about how our worlds are quite small and we just get comfortable and scared to change so we unconsciously give up on our dreams but if we just escaped the comfort zone and broke out of that small world we could achieve a lot more.’ After finally pausing for breath she adds, ‘it sounds quite deep but there are loads of jokes in it as well!’ Callaghan still lives with her mum in a council estate in Uxbridge, west London, and her experiences there form the basis of her material. ‘I certainly feel trapped,’ she says. ‘Everyone in my area is quite small-minded, in a way: they just want the baby, the council house, to have the same job forever. And I know a lot of talented people but they never expand on that: they just settle for the bare minimum.’ Indeed, so desperate is Callaghan to escape from her home town that she’ll do anything to get out. When she was 18 she ran off to Madrid to teach English. ‘I was really lost,’ she remembers. ‘I’d come out of school and got all the right grades but there was nothing I really wanted to do. I went to college but dropped out. There’s a lot of drug culture around here and I didn’t want to go down that road. I just thought, “fuck it, I’m going”.’ The adventure itself didn’t work out the way Callaghan had envisioned, but it was an experience which had a profound effect on her future. ‘I blagged it on the sheet. I said that I could speak fluent Spanish and I got put with this family out there. I’d done a TEFL certificate but I couldn’t communicate, and it was so hard to not have any friends and family around.’ 44 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
And so Callaghan set about making the most of her situation. ‘It was really difficult ’cos I’m quite an outgoing person. I didn’t have anyone to talk to or have a laugh with. It was the first time I’d ever been away from home like that. So I started writing jokes, just stupid little bits and bobs. I thought, “oh, I might give this a go when I get back”.’ When Callaghan returned home she embarked on a six-week course at the Comedy School in Camden. It was while performing her final showcase that she thought she might have what it takes. ‘Everyone was proper laughing so I was like, “ah! This is quite good, innit. This is all right! I’ll give it a go.” And I just started doing it and started learning more. The comedy circuit is quite addictive, I think.’ Success at the Brighton Fringe boosted her confidence enormously. ‘I thought, “I’m on the right track”. People from young to old were enjoying it and relating to me on the basis of, you know, everyone has dreams that don’t quite come to anything, or they’re scared to make that leap. And it’s lovely to be able to connect to an eight-year-old and an 18-year-old,’ she says, somewhat truncating her demographic. Already a veteran of the Fringe (this is her sixth visit), Callaghan performed her first solo (but not quite full-length) show last year, Don’t Tell Anyone About Sarah Callaghan. ‘It went really well,’ she recalls. ‘I sold out almost every day, I got some good reviews. I learned a lot. When I got back I was like, “right, I’m ready for my hour now”. I’ve written a completely new show which I’m really proud of. I think this one is really something special so I’m excited to do it.’ Everything is a learning experience for Callaghan. And she’s well aware of the opportunity ahead of her at the Fringe. ‘I try not to drink too much ’cos I wanna be focused. I remember the first time I went up there in 2010 and . . . ’ she trails off in thought. ‘Yeah, I used to drink quite a lot and it wasn’t good. I’m taking it a lot more seriously now.’ Sarah Callaghan: Elephant, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 5.50pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
Sarah Callaghan | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival
Top 5
‘The comedy circuit is quite addictive’
FRESH STARTS Brian Donaldson picks six of the best debutants seeking to make audiences literally wet themselves in August PHIL JERROD John Lennon, Jesus, British murderers and Bake Off were all topics when Jerrod performed his Neanderthal show last October prior to it scooping a debutant award at the Leicester Comedy Festival. The guy is going places, for sure. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 7pm, £7.50–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
JENNY BEDE As one half of last year’s Bren & Jenny, Bede started the ball rolling on making a fine old name for herself. She’s here with a solo debut of pop culture-inspired songs and stand-up. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 7–30 Aug (not 8, 24), 3.30pm, £9–£11 (£7–£9). Preview 6 Aug, £6.
FUNMBI OMOTAYO
PHOTO © STEVE ULLATHORNE
With his roots in Nigeria and comedy voice carved in Hackney, Omotayo has plenty source material to call upon and his claiming of several awards already (Leicester Square New Act for one) shows that he’s using it productively. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–30 Aug, 9pm, £8.50–£9.50 (£7.50–£8.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £5.
NICK CODY Self-proclaimed ‘stand-up, actor and idiot’, Australia’s latest comedy export has supported Bill Burr and Jim Jefferies on tour, which gives you a fair indication of the kind of no-nonsense material this guy might have to offer. Assembly George Square Studios, 623 3030, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 9.40pm, £10–£12.50 (£9–£11.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
LOLLY Having admitted that creating characters was a way of conquering her stage fright, Lolly Adefope comes to town with a whole host of them. Will she put the ‘LOL’ into ‘Lolly’? (Yes, we’re not the first and won’t be the last to attempt that one). Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 4.30pm, £7–£9.50 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
JONNY PELHAM PHOTO © STEVE ULLATHORNE
Shades of Kitson, we’re told, in this chap who has been in a bunch of finals for new comedians. The fact that he won none of them will help if he’s going for the outsider status vibe of St Daniel. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug, 6.45pm, £7–£9.50 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 45
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Joanna Neary
PHOTO © STE
VEN ULLATH
ORNE
FACE VALUE
Joanna Neary is the accidental comedian who once earned a Perrier nomination. Henry Northmore wonders why this Cornwall actress is dressing like a repressed 1940s housewife to hang out with a heavy metaller
G
rowing up in a cultural vacuum can have its advantages. Removed from standard influences and regurgitated clichés, you can develop a unique style all your own. Joanna Neary was born and raised in Cornwall, hundreds of miles from the comedy hubs of London and Edinburgh. ‘There was no stand-up really, just Jethro,’ laughs Neary, namechecking the West Country’s hirsute joker. ‘The only comedy I knew about was Joyce Grenfell and I loved all the Ealing comedies, Hancock, Margaret Rutherford, Irene Handl, Patricia Hayes and Alastair Sim.’ So Neary drifted into comedy almost by accident. ‘I did performing arts at college and you had to do a show at the end of each term. I wanted people to cry and laugh but I made people laugh more than anything,’ explains Neary. ‘I was 16 when I first put on a show to all my tutors, and I was so nervous that I spoke in a northern accent through the whole thing. My pyjamas caught fire because I was smoking a cigarette while I was giving a monologue in a haze of fear. And that northern accent thing was just because I had watched so much Victoria Wood.’ Having developed a character-led theatre show, she decided on a whim to put it in the comedy 46 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
section of the Fringe brochure. ‘Suddenly I was selling out, with almost the exact same stuff I was doing in theatre.’ This small shift of focus instantly connected with audiences, earning her a Perrier Best Newcomer nomination in 2004. Since then she’s made regular appearances on TV and radio, popping up in Miranda, Armando Iannucci’s Time Trumpet, Ideal with Johnny Vegas, Skins and That Mitchell and Webb Look. Other Fringe shows have featured a cavalcade of offbeat characters but this year’s affair is a first for Neary as she has built an entire hour around a single character. ‘Celia Jesson is based on Laura Jesson in Brief Encounter: it’s not based on [actress] Celia Johnson but on her character.’ She’s a woman out of time who somehow finds herself on stage in Edinburgh. ‘She’s not a natural entertainer, more of an ordinary woman, a repressed housewife from the 1940s. It’s been fun writing a show about a very limited person while making it as funny as possible.’ After filming an unaired pilot for the BBC as Celia, Neary has worked out a full backstory for her comedic creation. ‘She’s my favourite character and I’ve got an incredible amount of material for her that has never seen the light of
day. Not much of it ended up in the show but it was nice to have a starting point. Because I’ve done a pilot, her whole world has been fleshed out – her friends, her husband – and I got a chance to interview celebrities in character. This is the first time that I’ll be interacting with the audience, so it’s quite a departure.’ As the show’s title – Faceful of Issues – suggests, Celia will be tackling some of the modern world’s biggest dilemmas including technology, Britpop, burlesque, coach trips, BuzzFeed, Facebook, post offices, bankers and the demise of jumble sales. Don’t worry if you think it all sounds a bit cosy as Neary has a trick up her sleeve. ‘There’s someone else in the show. Martin is a heavy metaller who plays all the jingles. He’s the only other person in the village who’s agreed to do the show,’ adds Neary. ‘Everything I’ve mentioned is very twee but I really love very dark, very rude humour, and having this other character means I can get a bit of bite into the show. I didn’t want an hour of sweetness.’ Joanna Neary: Faceful of Issues, Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 7.45pm, £10 (£9). Preview 5 Aug, £9 (£8).
OFF THE KERB PRODUCTIONS
IN ASSOCIATION WITH UNIVERSAL PICTURES (UK) LTD PRESENTS
www.offthekerb.co.uk
THE BIGGEST AND FUNNIEST SHOW AT THE FRINGE!
COMEDY GALA 2015 A CHARITY GALA IN SUPPORT OF WAVERLEY CARE
HOSTED BY
ADAM & MARCUS HILLS BRIGSTOCKE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS:
ROB BECKETT, PHILL JUPITUS ANDREW RYAN, ANGELA BARNES IVO GRAHAM, JOEL DOMMETT JUSTIN MOORHOUSE MARGARET THATCHER QUEEN OF SOHO NATHAN CATON, PHIL JERROD, GLENN WOOL, JAMALI MADDIX BOO FELICITY WARD ALW K EARLY AND MORE TO BE CONFIRMED!
SUNDAY 16 AUGUST, 7.30PM
AY ! OUT FS SELLS AST!
EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE 0844 871 3014 www.atgtickets.com/edinburgh 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 47
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Joseph Morpurgo
Austenta
tious
VINYL COUNTDOWN
Completing a loose trilogy, found-footage comedian Joseph Morpurgo delivers another captivatingly Lynchian Fringe hour. Yasmin Sulaiman hears how he built up a curious record collection for our listening pleasure
T
wo years ago, part of his act involved launching bits of chewedup apple on nervously giggling audience members. And last year, he pretended to be a large blob of static (before his costume was accidentally and mysteriously ditched on the penultimate day of the festival). So if you’ve not seen Joseph Morpurgo’s solo work before, this might give you a tiny flavour of what to expect from Soothing Sounds for Baby, the Oxford Imps grad and Austentatious member’s third independent outing. This year’s Fringe affair emulates the format of Desert Island Discs, Radio 4’s long-running music-based interview show currently hosted by Kirsty Young. And preparing for his show has given Morpurgo a newfound respect for the veteran broadcaster. ‘I mean, you’re doing a superb job,’ he tells me, laughing, midway through our interview. ‘But she has to really probe a wide range of people.’ As in 2013’s Truthmouth and 2014’s Odessa, Morpurgo will transform himself into a similarly wide cast of characters in Soothing Sounds, each a different Desert Island Discs castaway. And as with those two previous Fringe sets, he’s turned to ‘found’ material as a vehicle to drive his comedy: this time it’s vinyl, with Morpurgo spending the last year looking for the oddest records he could find. ‘I looked all over the place,’ he says. ‘Car boot sales, bargain bins, charity shops, pub vendors, attics. There’s a recording of a Spitfire engine from a collection of engine sounds. I’ve got some whispered religious poetry self-released by this dude in America. Instructional magic circle LPs. ‘The most horrendous one is this old Disney recording of “It’s a Small World (After All)”. It’s a 30-minute audio safari featuring the same song over and over again. The music changes from being a western American instrumentation to balalaikas and people singing in Russian, and very dubious Chinese voices. It’s quite nightmarish. A lot of the records I’ve found straddle that line between innocent and nightmarish: a nice line to straddle.’ Thanks to the ‘found’ component they have in common (Truthmouth’s characters were prompted by stock images found online; Odessa’s by a short segment of grainy VHS
footage), Morpurgo sees Soothing Sounds as completing a sort-of loose trilogy. But the show also comes from his long-held passion for music. ‘I was a music journalist for a couple of years and I’m a big music nut,’ he explains. ‘I guess in a sense [using vinyl] came from wanting to be a crate digger, one of those people who devotes their life to scanning out old stuff, but not having the means nor the courage to get properly involved in that lifestyle. This seemed like a fun compromise. What if I spend a year being a crate digger? Not to DJ or to do radio shows, but to build this audio show.’ Odessa’s darkly chaotic tone invited very welcome comparisons with David Lynch. ‘More of that, please,’ Morpurgo chuckles. ‘I am a really big David Lynch fan, Twin Peaks is phenomenal, and I can see how it bled into that show completely.’ And although he promises that Soothing Sounds is brighter and more colourful than Odessa, the tone is a marked contrast to his work with Jane Austen-inspired improv group Austentatious, who graduate to the big time this year, playing the 400-capacity Underbelly in George Square. But it’s also thanks to improv that Morpurgo’s solo hours have taken on the form they have. ‘In improv you are given something that’s essentially arbitrary, and the nature of the performance is what you then do with that. I’m not the sort of comic that has a finessed world-view. Joseph Morpurgo doesn’t have a huge amount of pointed and important things to say about the world,’ he laughs. ‘Whereas if you outsource that responsibility and say “I’ve chosen this thing and the show is about this thing”, the fun of the performance is watching what I’ve done with that constraint. That’s the way I like to work at the moment.’
‘A lot of the records straddle between innocent and nightmarish’
48 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Joseph Morpurgo: Soothing Sounds for Baby, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 8.15pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£7–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel, Underbelly George Square, 0844 545 8252, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 1.15pm, £11.50– £12.50 (£10.50–£11.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £7.
Previews | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival ALLISON ORENSTEIN
Magic
AT THE FRINGE Here are five festival illusionists seeking to make jaws drop in August
PIFF THE MAGIC DRAGON Fresh from appearing on America’s Got Talent (where he won over an initially sceptical Howard Stern), Vegas-based Londoner John van der Put brings us some eye-wateringly delightful tricks alongside his unbearably cute doggy sidekick, Mr Piffles. Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 0844 545 8252, 14–29 Aug, 10.40pm, £12.50–£13.50 (£11.50–£12.50).
ADRIENNE TRUSCOTT Performance artist-turned-comic on gimmicks, Andy Kaufman and fooling around Adrienne Truscott has cracked the code that marks the transition from feminist performance artist to stand-up comedian. After last year’s uncompromising Asking For It, her new show is a reflection on how she clawed her way out from being typecast as ‘Gimmicky Pantless Rape Lady’. ‘It’s really different in that it’s not about rape,’ she says of Adrienne Truscott’s a One-Trick Pony, a riff on discovering her comedic voice after spending two years finding the funny in a serious subject. ‘My first show was a real gamble in terms of subject matter. I had to keep goofing and distracting the audience from the weight of the material or the hour could have gotten a bit heavy. But that requirement isn’t in this show.’ That’s not to say One-Trick Pony isn’t just as offbeat: in fact, Truscott makes no bones about referencing her influences. ‘Someone I always adored was Andy Kaufman. He was always a comedian but he never ever told jokes.’ This aesthetic blends nicely into Truscott’s own comedy. A background in theatre, circus and dance gives her an elusive quality, making it difficult to slot her act neatly into any one genre. ‘There’s certainly political humour in my new show, but I don’t think I have to do anything other than write and deliver it well to make it work; so the other stuff is just having fun, being a bit of an idiot and a fool on stage.’ Sure, there are clowning elements in her work, but it would be remiss to forget that Truscott is an artist who is on the way to mastering her craft and who understands the danger that lies in getting too comfortable. ‘I still have a lot of surprises up my skirt. Literally.’ (Kirstyn Smith) Q Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–17 Aug, 8.15pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.50.
NEIL HENRY It’s hard to see the image of a brain in a frying pan (à la Henry’s poster) without thinking of poor Ray Liotta eating his own matter in Hannibal. Fear not, though – only mindblowing trickery will be at play here. ‘A mix of Rowan Atkinson and my ironmonger’ once stated Stephen Fry. Pretty sure this is meant as a compliment. Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 4pm, £7.50– £10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. PETER ANTONIOU A seasoned Fringe campaigner with his mind-reading antics, Antoniou has performed his ‘comedium’ stuff for clients including Disney and Kerrang!. A mixed audience for sure. Apex International Hotel, 243 3596, 8–30 Aug, 7.35pm, £7 (£6). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £5.
JOE LYCETT Still fond of a punning show title, Lycett delivers a love letter to Birmingham
THE COLOUR HAM Cheers will be heard and tears will be shed as the Edinburgh trio make their last ever appearance together after several years of colourfully hamming it up. Gavin, Colin and Kevin do their impressive comedically magic thing one more time. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 14 Aug, 10.30pm, £15.
OLIVER MEECH Meech is the
PHOTO © MATT CROCKETT
Even if you go no further than reading a Joe Lycett show title, it’ll still give you a groaning chuckle. His 2012 Best Newcomer-nominated Some Lycett Hot was followed in 2013 by If Joe Lycett Then You Should’ve Put a Ring on It. This year, it’s the turn of That’s the Way, A-Ha, A-Ha, Joe Lycett. Does he think he’ll run out of bad puns? ‘I’m hoping to keep it going for the next 30 years, minimum.’ Since he emerged on the Manchester comedy scene in 2008, while still at university, he’s always had a lyrical way with words. A recent routine about a woman in an overly heated parking enforcement office in Birmingham, describes her as ‘like a bit of wet scrambled egg in a chair’. ‘I’ve always loved a good turn of phrase. This show is a bit of a love letter to Birmingham, a bit of an analysis of a stag do I went on, and a bit of a piss-about. It should be a right laugh.’ If the previous shows are anything to go by, we’ll Lycett a lot. Sorry. (Marissa Burgess) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 8pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
place where ‘science and magic collide’ and so you may well be treated to tricks about time travel, parallel universes and advanced technologies. It’s not Paul Daniels is what we’re saying. Mash House, 226 0000, 8–17 Aug, 2.40pm, £10 (£9; family ticket £34). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £5. (Brian Donaldson)
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 49
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Previews
YVE BLAKE Dishonesty on social media gets a musical makeover
JOE WOODRUFF
PHOTO © STEVEN ULLATHORNE
‘There’s this delicious irony nowadays,’ muses Yve Blake. ‘My generation has never had more of a chance to broadcast itself. We have all the tools to be totally honest and share our innermost thoughts at any hour, yet people choose to whitewash themselves. What they share is often totally dishonest.’ With her bullshit radar twitching almost uncontrollably, watching social media outlets froth and overspill with staged selfies, humblebrags and blatantly retouched versions of people’s lives, Blake had an idea. Could she get people to be honest about their dishonesty? Using her website WhoWereWe. com as an anonymous drop-off point for shameful confessions, Blake (a Sydney-born, London-based musical comedian) asked people to own up to a lie they’d told. ‘What came back was a big mix of styles. The farcical, the funny, the “hashtag deep” . . . There’s something really powerful about getting people to speak about a fuck-up they’ve made: I don’t laugh at them, I laugh with them.’ Blake’s careful not to let out any spoilers, but she does hint at some lies concerning ‘faked pregnancies, flying sharks, a gown made of pizza and someone who tried to convince tourists that leprechauns were the indigenous people of Ireland.’ Casual fibs and irreversibly damaging bombshells were then turned into songs by Blake, who worked with music producer Scott Quinn to create Lie Collector, her Fringe solo debut. She describes the end result as, ‘a mixed salad, made up of many different ingredients of genres and styles’. As for the delivery, ‘it’s me and a laptop, basically getting up in everyone’s business, and hopefully taking us all on a headspinning comedy adventure.’ And why on earth would she make that up? (Claire Sawers) Q Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 5.20pm, £8–£10.50 (£7–£9.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.50.
KITTEN KILLERS
HAL CRUTTENDEN
STEVE HALL
A sweet and innocent demeanour hides three dark hearts pumping in the Kitten Killers
Suburban life, middle-age and gangsta rap get the Cruttenden treatment in his fifth solo show
The We Are Klang man tells of the weird time he met the Muppets
Comedy trio Kitten Killers were formed in 2013 at a Soho Young Company sketch workshop. Originally a foursome, the Kittens are Kat Cade, Perdita Stott and Fran Bushe, with Late Night Gimp Fight’s Lee Griffiths directing. Cade explains their alliterative title. ‘Often when we performed, people assumed from our silly, childish demeanour that we’d be quite sweet. And then we’d do really dark material. Anything Perdita writes usually ends in a gunshot. It’s the juxtaposition of naughty and nice.’ For Woof, their second Fringe foray, the Kittens have worked hard on refining their format. Cade explains: ‘We’re taking the audience into our world a bit more. Last year, we were sketch, sketch, sketch without much structure. So we’re trying to add a bit more structure in.’ Cade says the trio had a great experience last year, although some audience members were hoodwinked by their beguiling charm. ‘We did 2.45 in the afternoon and I think some of our material was a shock for some people! But we got really great reactions.’ (Murray Robertson) Q Underbelly George Square, 0844 545 8252, 8–31 Aug (not 19), 4.10pm, £8–£9 (£7–£8). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
Star of BBC Radio 4’s Hal and regular panelist on Mock the Week, Hal Cruttenden returns to Edinburgh with new show Straight Outta Cruttenden. Despite an audience member fainting at one of his recent London gigs, he reassures us that he hasn’t switched to shock-factor stand-up. ‘That night, the show became about a bloke who couldn’t hold his alcohol on a hot day. Usually it’s my hilarious thoughts on suburban life, class, middle-age and gangsta rap.’ Including his appearances in group and sketch shows, this year will be his seventh run at the Edinburgh Fringe. ‘This is my fifth new solo show. I’ve been around a while but I’m like a fine wine. I get better with age. I’m only better at comedy, I should add: everything else is shit.’ His fondest Fringe memory remains 2002. ‘I was nominated for the Perrier Newcomer and had many five and four-star reviews.’ Unfortunately he doesn’t have such rosy memories of The List. ‘For the record, The List gave me the only one-star review of my career.’ Awkward. (Rowena McIntosh) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 8pm, £13–£16 (£11–£15). Previews 5–7 Aug, £9.
‘My mother had this catchphrase when we were growing up,’ Steve Hall is explaining. ‘She’d always say, “if you hear hooves, expect horses not zebras”. It was fairly baffling, but I think it’s about not worrying or expecting the worst.’ Hall’s Fringe show, Zebra, is a tribute to his mum’s philosophy. ‘With the country in a real quandary after a horrible UK election result and when artists and comedians might be finding things very difficult, bizarrely, I’ve written my most upbeat show yet.’ Part of sketch trio We Are Klang and also a writer on Russell Howard’s Good News, this is Hall’s third Edinburgh solo show. ‘I’ve become a dad since my last Fringe, but I’ve not written a “new dad” show. It’s about life not turning out as you’d hoped, but in a joyful way.’ Listen out for Hall’s story about visiting the Muppets on set; a magical childhood memory that led to an accidentally horrific souvenir painting. ‘When I do the reveal on that disastrous portrait, the audience laughter sometimes lasts about 70 seconds before I can start speaking again.’ (Claire Sawers) Q The Stand 6, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 6.35pm, £8 (£7). Preview 6 Aug, £5.
50 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
list.co.uk/festival
Previews | FESTIVAL COMEDY
Double Acts
AT THE FRINGE Five of the top comedy duos appearing in August
JAMES PENLIDIS
PHOTO © STEVEN ULLATHORNE
BLOFELD AND BAXTER The AUNTY DONNA Whip-smart absurdity from the returning Aussie sketch trio Don’t let the name fool you: Aunty Donna is a fast-paced, quick-witted, three-man sketch troupe from Australia. Broden Kelly, Zachary Ruane and Mark Samual Bonanno specialise in surreal, achingly funny, deceptively clever humour, whizzing around stage seamlessly switching characters and situations for maximum laughs. It’s hard to tell if the Aunty Donna boys are ever serious. When asked how they started working together they reply collectively with this: ‘the three of us met in dance school where we were all studying classical ballet. Broden was a real rebel though, creating improvised hip hop moves that had the whole faculty outraged. The moment the rest of us saw him move, we knew classical ballet wasn’t for us, so we formed an alternative sketch comedy troupe.’ It can be tricky picking the kernels of truth from their relentless energetic brand of whip-smart absurdity. Here they explain their unusual moniker: ‘Aunty Donna is an old drag act that Zach used to perform in during his cabaret days. She was a vivacious old woman who sang old doowop classics. We always liked the name, so decided to adopt it when he joined the group.’ The gang look like they might be stepping up to the next level having just completed filming a TV pilot for ABC Australia: ‘we play ourselves and it is very silly’. On their last Fringe visit, they developed an affinity for our Athens of the North and a taste for one of the city’s finer culinary condiments. ‘Edinburgh is the most beautiful city in the world. Gilded Balloon is filled with wonderful people that we love to hang out with. And we quite like brown sauce. There’s a lot of brown sauce in Edinburgh. On chips. On brekkie. On pizza. Brown sauce everywhere.’ (Henry Northmore) Q Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 7–31 Aug (not 17), 10pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £5.
LEE NELSON Chav comic admits plans to enter No 10 Having gatecrashed Stereo Kicks’ appearance on The X-Factor and attempted to board the England football squad’s flight to Brazil, Simon Brodkin hit the headlines more recently by joining a befuddled Kanye on stage at Glastonbury. His pranks might have a consistent thread, but Brodkin’s chav spawn Lee Nelson is showing off a brand-new wardrobe for this year’s Fringe’s show, Suited & Booted. ‘I ditched the shorts and the cap and the trainers,’ he says. ‘I thought the new look just sums up my game: I’ve had my 15th child and thought maybe I should grow up a bit, so I got myself down to Top Man, saw what I liked, tried it on, ran out the shop and that’s it, sorted.’ As Nelson swaggers our way for a month-long residency at the Pleasance, he’ll be discussing his plans for an unlikely career shift. ‘I think I want to get into politics, to be honest. Ever since David Cameron left his kids in the pub, I thought I’ve got what it takes to be prime minister.’ (Brian Donaldson) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug, 10.45pm, £15 (£13). Previews 5–7 Aug, £10.
two charming cricket gentlemen return for more knockabout chat as those Rogues on the Road stop off here. Curiously, they depart town two days before Ashes legend Freddie Flintoff drops by for his three dates. That timing has got us stumped. Assembly George Square Gardens, 623 3030, 12–25 Aug, 4.10pm, £11–£13 (£10–£12).
LAZY SUSAN Expectations will be high for the talented duo of Celeste Dring and Freya Parker who earned themselves a Best Newcomer nomination last Fringe. Their very big and extremely clever sketches are underpinned by a cunning simplicity. This year’s show is called Double Act. See? Simple yet utterly effective. Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 19), 8.10pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. MID-BROW According to mythic folklore, Tom Blackwood and Alex Cooper formed Mid-Brow 703 days ago (it’s probably a lot more by now) and their show promises to be about the duo’s ‘self-discovery’. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17, 24), 4.45pm, £7–£9 (£6–£8). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
SPARROW-FOLK Last year, this Aussie pairing (Juliet Moody and Catherine Crowley) went positively viral with their music-video take on the public breastfeeding debate. SuBIRDia will no doubt show why they’ve been dubbed ‘Kath and Kim on citric acid’. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 8pm, £10 (£8.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5. THÜNDERBARDS It’s the third instalment of the Glenn Moore and Matt Stevens Fringe saga with the promise this time of a tale involving a soon-to-be closed library. It’ll be much better than that sounds, honest. Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug, 5pm, £8.50–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6. (Brian Donaldson) 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 51
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Day Planner
9PM
Needing laughs all day long and into the wee small hours? Brian Donaldson helps sketch out your itinerary between the unsociably early and the fashionably late
Stephen K Amos This perennial Fringe favourite has another work-inprogress to share with us. The Stand 3, 558 7272, 6–29 Aug (not 17 & 18, 24 & 25), 9.10pm, £10. Gary Little He’s the big man with a Little name. Scotland’s very own Gary gives us a full Fringe run while Just Trying to Be Friendly. The Stand, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 9.30pm, £10 (£9). Preview 6 Aug, £9 (£8). Chris Turner One of the Racing Minds chaps delivers more jokes and, maybe if you ask politely, some quickfire freestyle rapping. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug, 9.45pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
11AM Bridget Christie Bright and early does it for the Edinburgh Comedy Award winner as she allows us to dip into her literary career in A Book for Her. She’ll only go and make you think and laugh all at the same time again. The Stand, 558 7272, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 11am, £9 (£8). David Callaghan The sharply dressed Callaghan (watch as he lets us down with CK-esque t-shirt and jeans) delivers some goods despite claiming to have No Momentum. Free Sisters, 622 6801, 6–30 Aug (not 24), 11.15am, free.
10PM The Barry Delusion The award-
NOON
winning Ferns guy returns for more innovative mayhem. Counting House, 667 7533, 7–30 Aug (not 11 & 12, 18 & 19, 25 & 26), 10pm, free. The Story Beast One of the Beta Males (John Henry Falle by name) pops by with ‘unrelenting Anglo-Saxon lolz’. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 19), 10.30pm, £7.50–£9.50 (£7–£8.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. The Jest We described this sketch fivesome as ‘clever’ last year. We’re expecting more of the same plus a late-night dark twist. Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 19), 10.45pm, £7.50–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
Fern Brady A round-noon slot for one of the country’s rising stars whose Radges recently aired as part of the Beeb’s Comedy Feeds. The Stand 4, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 12.10pm, £8 (£7). Preview 6 Aug, £7 (£6).
1PM Tony Law Canada’s absurdist jester develops into Frillemorphesis, his new ‘super good’ show. The Stand 3, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17, 23), 1pm, £12 (£10). Ali Brice With a character-comedy show entitled Eric Meat Has No Proof, Only Memories of Pasta, it’s not easy to know what to expect. Other than daftness, hopefully of the grand kind. The Hive, 226 0000, 6–30 Aug, 1.30pm, £5.
MATTHEW CROSBY Pappys will be coming at us later in the month, but for now one-third of said troupe will be doing his fun-clubby thing. Q Mash House, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 7.40pm, £5. Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £4.
2PM Jack Campbell We hear a lot up here about the Scottish Comedian of the Year, well, this guy is the English equivalent. Banshee Labyrinth, 226 0000, 7–31 Aug, 2pm, free. Seymour Mace Is he a Fringe veteran by now? The former Ideal star does the stand-up thing in the only way he knows how. Differently. The Stand 2, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 2.30pm, £8 (£7). Preview 6 Aug, £7 (£6).
3PM
(£14.50–£16.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £8. The Clean (As Possible) Comedy Show See a regular collection of Fringe
stand-ups managing to keep it curse and filth-free for an hour. City Cafe, 220 0125, 7–30 Aug, 4.15pm, free. Sophie Pelham Rural life is captured to a tee in a series of characters concocted by this talented act. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 4.45pm, £7–£9 (£6–£8). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
5PM
Jellybean Martinez This comedic
Lothario and unlikely agony uncle claims to be Mr Saturday Night TV. A nostalgic trip back to the days when staying in of a Saturday evening was very much the done thing. The Caves, 220 1212, 8–29 (not 18), 3.15pm, £6–£7 (£5–£6; family ticket £20–£24). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £5 (£4; family ticket £16). Simon Munnery A true Fringe legend, the former Cluub Zarathustra impresario simply keeps providing annual Edinburgh fun to his fanbase while maybe serving a dish of confusion for those who can’t (or won’t) quite get it. The Stand, 558 7272, 7–31 Aug (not 17), 3.30pm, £10 (£9). Preview 6 Aug, £9 (£8). Robin Morgan Guten Morgan really had to be done as a title by someone, hadn’t it? Another feather in this guy’s cap is that his show runs for just 30 short but sweet minutes, a blessed relief from some of those hour-long affairs. Counting House, 667 7533, 8–30 Aug (not 19), 3.45pm, free. Previews 6 & 7 Aug.
4PM Gyles Brandreth A delightful Conservative (yes, such things do exist) who is indulging in more Word Power this year. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 4pm, £16–£18 52 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
the Glasgow-born Yorkshireman delivers more solidly excellent comedy in A Show with a Man in It. The Stand, 558 7272, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 6.30pm, £10 (£9). Preview 6 Aug, £9 (£8). Diane Spencer With a Power Tool to hand, Spencer recalls the writing job she undertook with little pleasure simply to raise cash in order to afford a house in London. It’s not all glamour, this comedy lark. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 7–31 Aug (not 12), 6.45pm, £9–£9.50 (£8–£8.50). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £6.
7PM
Mark Thomas It’s always a treat to
see what Thomas is up to and this time around he’s looking at the laws (ass-like, obviously) of trespassing. Summerhall, 560 1581, 7–30 Aug (not 10, 20), 5pm, £12 (£8). Preview 6 Aug, £10. Lou Sanders Daft as a brush just about covers it. Excuse Me, You’re Sitting on My Penis Again is Sanders’ latest escapade. City Cafe, 220 0125, 9–30 Aug (not 19), 5.30pm, free. Clare Plested Having directed Tamar Broadbent’s Fringe shows, one-half of Plested and Brown is back with her Essential Collection, dubbed as ‘the comedy equivalent of an emotional breakthrough album’. Ciao Roma, 557 3777, 8–29 Aug (not 19), 5.50pm, free.
6PM Trygve Wakenshaw He’s going to
be a busy boy this year, what with a new 90-minute show Nautilus at the Pleasance, and this reprise of KRAKEN, last year’s monster hit. Underbelly, Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 12, 17, 24), 6pm, £11.50–£12.50 (£10.50–£11.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £7.50. Alun Cochrane The master of observational comedy that’s OK to like,
The Wee Man Just to prove that the
Fringe really is open to all, here comes Glasgow’s favourite ned with his not-so passive-aggressive patter. Mash House, 226 0000, 7–29 Aug (not 9, 16, 18, 23), 7pm, £7 (£5). Stephen Carlin The laconically dry Scot proves an excellent addition to the free roster. Canons’ Gait, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 7.15pm, free.
8PM Angela Barnes The BBC New Comedy
Award winner returns with a fresh hour entitled Come As You Are. One to watch, as they say. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 8.15pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7. Lloyd Griffith Who can resist a show with a title such as Great Grimsby’s Big Turn On? The comedic choirboy is back. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug, 8.30pm, £7.50–£10.50 (£6.50– £9.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. Bobby Mair Few holds barred here from the UK-based Canadian. He’s a Filthy Immigrant, you see? The Hive, 226 0000, 6–31 Aug (not 17), 8.50pm, £5 (£4).
11PM Simon Slack With a show called
The Fantasist, it’s not too much of a surprise to discover this is the place where ‘imagination and reality collide’. Banshee Labyrinth, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug (not 19), 11pm, free. A-Z of Improv Comedy A frenetic Whose Line caper with much ad libbing and stuff made-up on the spot. Pretty much a dictionary definition for improv just in case you hadn’t a clue. Kilderkin, 226 0000, 8–29 Aug (not 11, 18, 25), 11.15pm, free. Frost and Ireland This time of the night certainly benefits from fast-paced business and here’s more from this duo as two submariners contemplate their existence. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 24), 11.30pm, £8.50–£9.50 (£7.50–£8.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5.
MIDNIGHT Spank Cabaret and comedy a-go-go across three manic hours every night of the Fringe. Underbelly, Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 7–30 Aug, midnight, £13.50–£15.50 (£12.50–£14.50). The Improverts Edinburgh’s improv troupe await your suggestions in their 26th year of doing this kind of thing at the Fringe. Bedlam Theatre, 629 0430, 7–30 Aug, 12.30am, £8 (£7). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £7 (£6).
1AM Late’n’Live It’s broken many a
tough stand-up cookie and cracked plenty comedy hard nuts. And now the legendary late-night bearpit helps the Gilded Balloon celebrate 30 years of festivalling. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug, 1am, £12–£16 (£11–£15). Preview 7 Aug, £10. Trevor Feelgood Last year he was a Sex Machine, this time around The Dork Knight Rises in 3D. But will Feelgood be worth staying up this late to catch or, depending on how you roll, setting your alarm for? Counting House, 667 7533, 8–22 Aug, 1.15am, free.
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HOTEL PARADISO
PHOTO © FREDERIK ROHN
Masks, mime and murder on the menu with Berlin-based Familie Flöz It’s not a description that would tempt many holidaymakers – ‘a cross between Fawlty Towers and the Bates Motel’. But come August, Hotel Paradiso, this year’s offering from Berlin-based Familie Flöz, is open for business at the Pleasance Courtyard. Devised by artistic director Hajo Schüler along with the company, the piece combines mime, movement and masks to tell the story of a family enterprise falling apart at the seams, due to the untimely appearance of some dead bodies. According to Schüler, the company’s creative process begins by looking at physical responses to a given situation. ‘Before we start to speak, a lot of things happen in our
mind and body: we have a thought, the tension changes, we inhale – the spoken word is a consequence. What we do is try to make those things visible.’ As well as being inspired by classic physical comedians Buster Keaton and John Cleese, Schüler takes his comic cue from the grizzlier side of life he believes is in us all. ‘Dark themes are human, they are in every one of us, that’s why we can laugh about them,’ he says. ‘In the end Hotel Paradiso is just a family story, brother and sister, love and hate.’ (Lucy Ribchester) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 3.15pm, £12 (£11). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
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FESTIVAL DANCE | Hitlist
DANCE HITLIST Kelly Apter highlights some of the best dance, circus and physical theatre in the festival’s first week
CLOSE UP Australian circus troupe, Circa has made a habit of bringing five-star shows to the Fringe, so hopes are high this year will be no exception. Expect jaw-dropping moves, with a tender intimacy. Underbelly George Square, 0844 545 8252, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 18, 25), 8pm, £17–£18 (£16–£17). Previews 5–7 Aug, £11. CORRECTION Clever and engaging, this unusual show from Czech company VerTeDance finds a row of dancers glued to the floor by their shoes. Yet their movement is dynamic and surprisingly free. ZOO Southside, 662
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6892, 11–19 Aug, 8.15pm, £10 (£8). DISCOTHEQUE MACHINE If participation brings you out in a rash, give this show a body-swerve. If, however, you love to laugh, listen to great music and let yourself go, this Italian company is just the thing. See preview, page 58. ZOO Southside, 662 6892, 9–31 Aug, 9.45pm, £12 (£10). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £9. 4X4 EPHEMERAL ARCHITECTURES Ballet dancing and circus skills may seem like strange bedfellows, but Gandini Juggling isn’t a company known for shying away from the unusual – or the fiendishly difficult. Assembly George Square Theatre, 623 3030, 8–30 Aug (not 12, 18, 25), 5.30pm, £14–£16 (£12–£14). Previews 5–7 Aug, £10. NIJINSKY’S LAST JUMP Company Chordelia explores the life, internal and external, of one of the world’s most acclaimed dancers and choreographers, Vaslav Nijinsky, inspired by letters sent by the man himself. Dance Base, 225 5525, 11–23 Aug (not 17), 2pm, £10 (£8). Previews 7–9 Aug, £8.
PHOTO © ARNAUD STEPHENSON
BALLETRONIC Direct from Cuba, and following in the successful footsteps of their previous show, Ballet Revolution, this mix of ballet, contemporary and Cuban moves is backed by an 11-piece band. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 9.30pm, £12.50–£16.50 (£10–£14). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.
4x4 Ephemeral Architectures
SPECIAL EDITION 2015 A chance to see the blossoming choreographic talent emerging out of Scottish Ballet, as the dancers turn dancemakers. See preview, page 56. Dance Base, 225 5525, 11–16 Aug, 5pm, £10 (£8). Previews 7–9, £8 (£6). SYLVIE GUILLEM – LIFE IN PROGRESS The woman who changed the face of ballet forever bids a fond farewell to her audience in this, her final show. Featuring choreography by Mats Ek,
Russell Maliphant, William Forsythe and Akram Khan. See feature, page 55. Festival Theatre, 473 2000, 8–10 Aug, 7.30pm, £14–£50. VERTICAL INFLUENCES Last year, they brought us a ‘greatest hits’ package of short routines. Now, the world’s only contemporary dance ice-skating company is back with a full show – which is good news indeed. Assembly at Murrayfield Ice Rink, 623 3030, 8–9, 15–16, 23, 28–29 Aug, 6.30pm & 8.30pm, £15 (£12); family ticket £42.
Sylvie Guillem | FESTIVAL DANCE
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THE LAST DANCE Choreographer Akram Khan tells Kelly Apter about working with French dance star Sylvie Guillem on her final project
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‘People say they love to dance, but with Sylvie you see the reality and proof of it’
PHOTO © BILL COOPER
ylvie Guillem is no stranger to the creative process. A professional dancer at Paris Opera Ballet since the age of 16, followed by an illustrious career with companies around the world, she’s met her fair share of choreographers. But, having turned 50 in February this year, Guillem’s dancing career is finally coming to an end. Which means somebody had to be the last person to create work for her – and that somebody just happened to be acclaimed UK choreographer Akram Khan. ‘I was a little bit burdened by the weight of this being the last creation she would ever do in her career,’ he says. Then he pauses, reflects, and re-phrases. ‘No, not a burden, it was an honour. It was an interesting burden, but I was very aware that this was the last time.’ At 40, Khan feels he too is facing the end of his dancing career, but claims he ‘definitely won’t continue’ as long as Guillem. A childhood gymnast before switching to ballet, Guillem has always been known for her remarkable flexibility – but staying at that level comes at a price, physically. ‘People say they love to dance, but with Sylvie you see the reality and proof of it,’ says Khan. ‘Who else would be willing to dance with such constant pain? After 35, everything takes longer to recover, and she’s still dancing at 50. That’s an incredible amount of commitment and stubbornness – because you have to be stubborn to say “no” to your body when it wants to stop. What that reveals is her absolute love for dance, for the stage and for performing.’ Alongside works by Russell Maliphant, Mats Ek and William Forsythe, Guillem’s Edinburgh International Festival show will feature Khan’s Techné. It’s not the first piece he has choreographed for her – the duo worked on Sacred Monsters together in 2006 – but this time, things felt a little different. ‘When I first worked with her, there was a sense of “oh wow, I’m working with Sylvie Guillem, what a wonderful opportunity”,’ recalls Khan. ‘And when you work with somebody in the beginning, there’s so much formality, which sometimes gets in the way. But this time it was very different, because we know each other so well, so it was much more direct.’ Another major difference for Khan, was the move from duet to solo. Both Khan and Guillem performed Sacred Monsters together – Guillem dances Techné alone. ‘My body comes with its own ego, so when you take that out, I can then just focus on Sylvie,’ explains Khan. ‘So Techné was all about Sylvie and her interests, in particular her connection with nature and her being an ecology activist.’ All those who watch Guillem on stage agree – she’s one of a kind, the foremost ballerina of her generation, a trailblazer for female dance. But what about those, like Khan, who have worked with her, who have seen that amazing body up-close, heard Guillem talk about her craft. What do they attribute to her success? ‘The first thing is her incredible physical facility – that’s a gift,’ says Khan. ‘And I think gymnastics when she was younger helped her a lot, on a mental level, because she applies the same rigour as athletes do. ‘But facility alone isn’t enough. Sylvie is an athlete – but she’s not just an athlete, she’s a storyteller. And the combination of the two makes her very unique.’ Sylvie Guillem – Life in Progress, Festival Theatre, 473 2000, 8–10 Aug, 7.30pm, £14–£50. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 55
FESTIVAL DANCE | Previews
OCKHAM’S RAZOR: ARC AND EVERY ACTION Storytelling and aerial skills combine in a double bill of contemporary British circus ‘In many ways our work is akin to silent film – a gesture can communicate multitudes,’ says Charlotte Mooney, artistic director of circus company Ockham’s Razor. ‘There is a great deal of theatre that exists naturally within the movement of circus: holding and testing, bonds and struggles. It’s very rich territory and lends itself naturally to narrative.’ Narrative connects both the works which the London-based company is presenting at Underbelly’s Circus Hub this Fringe. Arc, their first piece, takes place aboard a giant suspended raft, and explores what happens to relationships when three people are trapped in the same spot. Mooney describes Every Action as a lighter piece in which four people discover a set of scales, leading to status games and one-upmanship. Ockham’s Razor is among a new wave of British companies re-imagining the big-top tradition, using theme and narrative to complement circus skills. But though Mooney compares the two particular pieces in the company’s Fringe show to short stories, she is adamant there is still a strong argument for circus for the sake of entertainment. ‘We often feel uncomfortable with the conversations that spring up around “new” or “contemporary” circus. There is an implication that it has outgrown or moved beyond “traditional” circus,’ says Mooney. ‘Some people are drawn to the purely choreographic and how it relates to dance, others are drawn to burlesque and how circus relates to control and desire, others still want to make children laugh. We’re proud to be part of such a rich artform that can be so many different things and can contain so much.’ (Lucy Ribchester) Q Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 0844 545 8252, 8–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 1.25pm, £14.50–£15.50 (£13.50–£14.50). Preview 7 Aug, £10.
SPECIAL EDITION 2015
BUTOH BEETHOVEN
360 ALLSTARS
Scottish Ballet dancers flex their choreographic muscles
Japanese drama meets German music with New Yorker Vangeline
Circus gets a world champion reinvention
Eve Mutso, Jamiel Laurence and Constant Vigier are no strangers to choreography. Each day in the Scottish Ballet studios, they learn works by dance makers from all over the world. But now, thanks to a choreographic initiative set up by the company’s artistic director, Christopher Hampson, the dancers have found themselves on the other side of the fence, creating their own work. 1 to 10, a fusion of dance and spoken word, is Laurence’s contribution to Special Edition 2015. ‘Chris was very important in encouraging me,’ says Laurence. ‘I also received support from the wardrobe and music departments, and the ballet staff were keen to assist with scheduling rehearsal time – they also made a great test audience!’ Known among his peers for rarely feeling nervous before a performance, Laurence discovered another side to pre-show jitters when 1 to 10 was performed in Glasgow recently. ‘It surprised me how nerve-wracking watching a piece you have created can be,’ he says. ‘But with the dancers I’ve chosen to work with, the piece could not be in safer hands.’ (Kelly Apter) Q Dance Base. 225 5525, 11–16 Aug, 5pm, £10 (£8). Previews 7–9 Aug, £8 (£6).
Butoh, the mystical, physically demanding and magnetic ‘dark soul dance’ of post-Hiroshima Japan, is a major ingredient of all performances by Vangeline. It’s 15 years since the French-born, New York-based translator-turned-dancer discovered this form of artistic expression, which she compares to falling in love or ‘when you find where you belong’. For her, butoh is in large part a public act of symbolic transformation. ‘It confronts areas we sometimes push under the rug and need to confront collectively as human beings,’ says Vangeline. She conceived Butoh Beethoven as a tribute to both Tatsumi Hijikata, one of butoh’s co-founders, and the titular German composer, drawing upon the power of Beethoven’s music and the dramatically charged art of conducting (which she studied for four months). There are, she claims, forces at work here that go beyond a typical dance piece: ‘I’m exploring human history in all its beauty and violence. I’ve also learned to always invite spirits into my dance.’ You have been warned and, ideally, intrigued. (Donald Hutera) Q New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 8–17 Aug, 7pm, £12 (£9–£10). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £7.
56 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
An attempt to reinvent circus with an urban twist – that's how producer, director and musician Gene Peterson describes 360 ALLSTARS, an international gathering of diverse performers. Rather than acrobats, jugglers or unicyclists, the show features world champions from fields including breakdancing, basketball freestyling and BMX Flatland. Since premiering two years ago, the group has performed over 750 shows and workshops around the world. Instead of auditions, each contributor is chosen based on their prowess and reputation. ‘At first I had imagined it would be a challenge to recruit all these world champion athletes and artists, but actually everyone was very interested from the get-go,’ explains Peterson. ‘It’s not every day these artists would get the chance to collaborate with other world champions of other art forms.’ But according to Peterson, there's never any danger of clashing egos. ‘The other reason they're chosen is down to their personality,’ he says. ‘There’s just no room for egos and attitudes. The energy on stage is always about unity, not superiority.’ (Murray Robertson) Q Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 4.15pm, £15–£16 (£13–£14). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £10.
7–30 August Dance Base I Venue 22 14 – 16 Grassmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2JU Box office 0131 225 5525 dancebase.co.uk/Festival15
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FESTIVAL DANCE | Previews
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM Circus meets film noir with Cirque Le Roux It’s 1937, and a rich young woman is enjoying her wedding reception. Slipping away from her guests, she joins three men in a smoking lounge in a secluded part of her estate. Who are they and why is this new bride here, in this smoky, monochrome world? As a set-up for a film noir, it’s perfect. As a circus show, it’s less obvious – which is what makes Cirque Le Roux stand out from the crowd. A group of four artists, who have performed with several circus companies around the world, as well as an awardwinning stint on Broadway, they felt that film noir ideally suited their purposes. ‘It was the perfect outlet for us to delve into complex human relationships and the ways people go about hiding from the truth,’ says performer Philip Rosenberg. ‘We also tried to tap into circus and theatrical disciplines that were popular in the early 20th century that have since been nearly forgotten. Our aim was to create a seamless blend of high-level circus, film and theatre, infused with comedy and style.’ Rosenberg and the team wanted to create ‘the aesthetic of a dusty black and white postcard’, and took inspiration from the charismatic actors of Hollywood’s golden age. Underpinning that is their own hard-won skill, gathered from years of circus school training, and touring with some of the world’s finest companies. ‘This show is essentially a melting pot of working with all of those companies in our past,’ says Rosenberg. ‘In circus you find a different artistic viewpoint in each company, and we have been fortunate enough to have experienced many of them. The goal was to unite these styles into one show that could touch people, wherever they come from.’ (Kelly Apter) Q Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 0844 545 8252, 8–29 Aug (not 12, 17, 24), 8.35pm, £14.50–£15.50 (£13.50–£14.50). Preview 7 Aug, £12.
DANZA DEL CARIBE: ITARA
DISCOTEQUE MACHINE
TRISTISSIMO
Sensuality and Afro-Caribbean rhythms from Cuban modern dance troupe
Italian company gets everyone up on their feet
Part two of compelling Trilogy of Pain
If watching dance shows at the Fringe brings out an urge to get up and move, then add Discoteque Machine to your ticket list. The show has a soundtrack of 50 tunes, including hip hop, electronic, classical and funk – and just one rule: never stop dancing. Part performance, part immersive experience, Discoteque Machine hails from Milan, where cocreators Alice Mangione and Gianmarco Pozzoli invented characters called ‘Morphs’, who invite us to dance. ‘We can’t bear to see people who don’t have the courage to enjoy themselves,’ says Mangione, ‘and that’s the reason we created Discoteque Machine. The Morphs’ mission is to bring joy and freedom to people cursed by shyness, to let them dance and laugh for an entire hour.’ The Morphs are talented dancers who can immediately reproduce any gestures or movements audience members carry out, leading to much hilarity. And for anyone questioning whether joining in is for them, resistance is futile. ‘The audience can’t fight the music and just can’t help joining in,’ says Mangione. ‘We look forward to getting everybody up dancing.’ (Kelly Apter) Q Zoo Southside, 662 6892, 9–31 Aug, 9.45pm, £12 (£10). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £9.
They tweaked the funny bone of Fringe audiences last year with their sardonic and sensual take on physical pain, Maria Addolorata. Now Italian dance duo Chiara Taviani and Carlo Massari have sorrow in their sights as they return with Tristissimo. This new piece – meaning ‘very sad’ – forms the second part of the company’s ‘Trilogy of Pain’, and explores the nature of melancholy. ‘Our intention was to delve deeper through the ideas and history of a universal demon – pain – this time taking as a starting point the pains of a doomed love,’ says Massari. ‘Tristissimo was conceived listening to the prelude of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. We processed personal feelings of sadness and loss, but also the lessened impact of deaths experienced through the media; almost mundane, repetitive, sometimes ridiculous.’ One of these repeated motifs is that of the blonde in western tragedy, made manifest in the show by the wearing of exaggerated long wigs. ‘Through this unifying element, we deconstruct the nature of tragedy,’ says Taviani, ‘in order to create two characters who feel contemporary, but are still detached from reality.’ (Lucy Ribchester) Q Zoo Southside, 662 6892, 9–15 Aug, 12.20pm, £12 (£10). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £10.
Dancer-choreographer Mina Waks hails from an arts-oriented Australian family. Eight years ago, while touring Cuba, she met her future husband, Eduardo Salas, who just happened to be a key member of Danza del Caribe. Waks is now the company’s sole non-Cuban. ‘Cuba is modernising and, in dance, moving towards a more European contemporary style,’ she says. ‘We keep abreast of changing times, but what makes this company unique – and what we hope audiences will love – is the Afro-Caribbean mix. This isn’t salsa, it’s raw and street, with an ingrained sexuality oozing from the dancers’ pores.’ The company is based in Santiago de Cuba – the country’s second-largest city and, according to Waks, distinct from Havana. ‘It’s simpler, less developed,’ she says. ‘It’s also much more in tune with its African roots and Caribbean neighbours, Haiti and Jamaica.’ That potent blend, says Waks, forms a show capable of transporting viewers to ‘a place where the borders between the elements, gods and humans become blurred.’ (Donald Hutera) Q Assembly Roxy, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 17, 24), 5pm, £12–£14 (£11–£13). Previews 5–7 Aug, £10. 58 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
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ABOREHENAT ALFIE WHITE: SPACE DOLUMEXPLORER Id qui berum Young boy tells fugita tall tales sa nonseriam in Tall Stories’ fugiature new vereritisi show dolum ius molo In 1967, when Toriame que volo nobody’s magnate feetmolorum had yet graced quoditatis the moluptas surface ofet the aut moon, expeliquisit a space-obsessed aut ex es boy ipicabo could easily reictatur, pretend tenis hiseturio dad was dit escitae going to pel be maximusant first. Which isfuga. exactly Tioreriatur what Alfie si occus White sendae. does, in Oditatem this new show quoditat fromfuga. Tall Stories. Os aut ex Unlike elesequid manyut delici of the aciassincit company’s ea previous si acesproductions etur, quod maximet (The Emily Brown andexthe ), Alfie Gruffalo aut erita ,cus.Rem faccum eaThing que plandem is a brand-new story, White: Space Explorer ex evendigendel eiur?Ommoloratia acesendis about a young whose father ipidellendi quo boy mo occupta tinctodisappears. is molora To save face, he tellsoditistor his classmates that dad nimagniet is elignam, ab illecto is in training to fly to the essiti moon.quoditi In reality, he essintenis apelest arion ossitati has no idea where not the first ut latqui corem nonhe’s porgone. anihil It’s ilibeate nus. time Tall Stories taken an entertaining but Busdande que has voluptu reperis inihit thought-provoking look aborporrum ium quis es at authow prachildren net, samrelate restia to the grown-ups in their volore, sum, que etur sitiolives. molores nis untio con est omnissi modita veliquis aut officiur ad
‘Our primary aim is always to tellmaion a good story endae. Ut quia parchit, venis quae est well, with elements of lightness, silliness and aperit acesto excesciatque voluptatet, iusci laughter alongside seriousquiamus, moments,’ con porectem ex et more que volesse saysfuga. co-director Mitchell. don’t shy sunt Im imil Toby mod que pore,‘We tet debis away velecat from any topic worth exploring, and audis dolescipiet fugit, simusandi nowadaysseque families come in all shapesexerum, and doloratur, dende inum quamus sizes – not everyone livesqui with both their velesequas voloreperum si archil mo te birth parents. Alfie inum Whitesitis happens totem. live doluptatur?Evenda mil eic with his grandma, andetinautas an age where many Pudignis dolo consed seque estissi grandparents anearuptasita increasing voles impact on ommolor ectio.have Orest their grandchildren’s it felt like good necerum fugit offictemlives, et, omnim dia adoluptat time to eat. tell Alfie’s story.’ (Kelly Apter) faccum QTemos Pleasance 556et6550, 7–30 et, Aug (not ex etCourtyard, harum quid re, sequo 19), 2.05pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 5&6 sequae peliqua eriamusapedi ate volumquis Aug, £6. eosRorrorent ut que esequos quassitate parumquam illiciant acesequam rem reperume 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 59
FESTIVAL KIDS | Hitlist
KIDS HITLIST Kelly Apter highlights some of the best kids shows in the Fringe’s first week ALBEE VECTOR THE SOUND COLLECTOR Last year, this imaginative show from Greenlight Theatre was in the Free Fringe, hoping somebody would spot how good it is. Happily, they did – and Albee’s adventure with a sound-collecting vacuum cleaner is back, better than ever. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 11.10am, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. ALFIE WHITE: SPACE EXPLORER You’ve seen them deliver The Gruffalo: Room on the Broom and other top shows, now take a punt on Tall Stories’ new, entirely original work about a young boy fascinated by space travel, but missing his dad. See preview, page 59. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 7–30 Aug (not 19), 2.05pm, £8–£9 (£7–£8). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £6. CHICKEN LICKEN AND THE LITTLE RED HEN See three popular stories brought to life on stage, in the capable hands of Adam Bennett and long-
Alfie White: Space Explorer
running company DNA Puppetry, recent headliners in the Kidz field at Glastonbury. See preview, page 63. Summerhall, 560 1581, 10–29 Aug (not 17, 24), 3.35pm, ÂŁ7 (family ticket ÂŁ26). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, ÂŁ5 (family ticket ÂŁ18). FUNZ AND GAMEZ TOOZ The 2014 surprise Fringe hit, and winner of a prestigious Fosters’ Edinburgh Comedy Award. Kids love this game-show style silliness, and so do the grown-ups laughing at them. Assembly George Square Gardens, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 25), 3.20pm, ÂŁ9 (ÂŁ7.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, ÂŁ7.50 (ÂŁ6.50). THE HISTORY OF MUSIC From cavemen banging bones on the floor to modern-day compositions, this lively and fun look at musical history is delivered by award-winning Canadian group, Buzz Brass. See preview, page 64. New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 8–30 Aug (not 17 & 18), 1pm, ÂŁ12– ÂŁ14 (ÂŁ10–£12; family ticket ÂŁ36–£40). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, ÂŁ7. THE MAGIC PORRIDGE POT AND OTHER TASTY TALES Let’s all say a collective ‘thank you’,
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60 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
as Theatre of Widdershins (creators of quite possibly the best kids’ sets on the Fringe) return after a short absence. Storytelling at its finest. Scottish Storytelling Centre, 556 9579, 7–30 Aug, 1pm, £9 (£7); family ticket £28. Previews 5–6 Aug, £6 (£4).
THE SECRET LIFE OF SUITCASES This charming show from Ailie Cohen Puppet Maker, filled with imaginative sets and adventure, sends a valuable lesson to young and old about enjoying life while you can. Scottish Storytelling Centre, 556 9579, 8–23 Aug (not 12, 17), 3pm, £9 (£7).
A POCKETFUL OF GRIMMS Bringing not one, but three shows to this year’s Fringe, Story Pocket Theatre is a hugely engaging new company well worth checking out, with this show exploring some of the lesser known Grimm tales. See preview, page 63. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 24), 12.30pm, £8–£9 (£6–£7). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5.
SHAKESPEARE UNTOLD Making its Fringe debut, London’s Globe Theatre looks at Shakespeare from a new, and clever, angle with two shows, inspired by Romeo and Juliet, and Titus Andronicus. See feature, page 61. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 12.30pm & 1.40pm, £10 (£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5.
Shakespeare Untold | FESTIVAL KIDS
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Romeo and Juliet (The Party Planner’s Tale)
Titus Andronicus (The Piemaker’s Tale)
NO HOLDS BARD
London’s Globe Theatre shows us how to view Shakespeare from a whole new angle, as Kelly Apter discovers
H
e may not have included them in his plays, but a whole cast of characters must have been busying away behind the scenes in all of Shakespeare’s works. Somebody had to plan that fabulous party at the start of Romeo & Juliet – and the families in Titus Andronicus didn’t carry out all that scheming on an empty stomach. So when the Education Department at London’s Globe Theatre was exploring new and engaging ways to introduce families to Shakespeare’s work, it was those bystanders it turned to. They created a party planner and a piemaker through whose eyes the plays could unfold. But this isn’t Shakespeare light: the ‘Untold’ plays are works of art in their own right. ‘What I really didn’t want to do was talk down to the audience,’ says director Harper Ray, ‘or try to translate Shakespeare or make an easy version. The plays are true to the original, so we didn’t give the party planner any lines that belong to somebody else, and she doesn’t intervene at any point – both her, and the piemaker, just observe.’ Harper also wanted to find a way to reach out to the audience, which meant finding a reason to speak to them. In the case of the piemaker, we’re all there in the kitchen with him while he tries out a new recipe, while the party planner thinks we’ve all been bused in to lend a hand. ‘She’s just done the Capulet ball – the biggest event of her career – and now she’s doing a double funeral,’ says Harper. ‘The house is still dressed with bunting and balloons from the ball, and she’s trying to clear it all up – and assumes that everybody in the audience is there to help, too. So she gives them a bit of background on what they’re doing. ‘The piemaker tells you about his life and how he ended up cooking for an emperor. As he bakes, he reveals the story of Titus Andronicus and we
build closer to the climactic reveal of what’s actually in the pie.’ For those worried that the gory details of Shakespeare’s most violent play might cause upset, fear not – you can read as much, or as little, into the show as is appropriate. ‘Because we’re in a kitchen, we’re able to use food as gore,’ says Ray. ‘So if every time the piemaker talks about Bassianus, he’s eating a doughnut – and then you see that doughnut being screwed up in his hand, well it’s either just a doughnut or it represents Bassianus. We don’t have to explain if it’s blood or jam – it’s about what you’re comfortable with – and that means it works for children and adults across the board.’ Likewise with Romeo and Juliet, where the light and airy touch of the party planner generates a positive atmosphere for much of the play. ‘Romeo and Juliet isn’t actually a tragedy until very late on – it’s actually quite a romp with huge amounts of comedy,’ says Ray. ‘The party planner is aware of the couple’s plan to elope, so she’s very upbeat. It’s only at the end that the mood changes and becomes sad, and then we focus on the reconciliation, and how there is going to be peace in Verona.’ Shakespeare Untold: Romeo and Juliet (The Party Planner’s Tale), Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 12.30pm, £10 (£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5. Shakespeare Untold: Titus Andronicus (The Piemaker’s Tale), Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 1.40pm, £10 (£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5. Double bill £15 (£13) Preview £10. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 61
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www.gildedballoon.co.uk 0131 622 6552 62 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Previews | FESTIVAL KIDS
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THE BOOKBINDER
FLIGHT
Magical tale for children aged 8+
Athletic sequel to The Little Prince
CHICKEN LICKEN AND THE LITTLE RED HEN
New Zealand theatre company Trick of the Light were last at the Fringe in 2012 with The Road That Wasn’t There. This year, they’re returning with The Bookbinder, a dark, magical tale best suited to slightly older children (8+). Director Hannah Smith tells us more: ‘The Bookbinder is an original fable about a bookbinder’s apprentice who ignores good advice and then must pay the consequences. He makes a mistake and finds himself bound into one of his books, in which he battles internal and external demons in order to put right the things he has done wrong.’ Told through shadow puppetry and narrated by Ralph McCubbin Howell, its centrepiece is an intricately designed pop-up book which audiences have loved in performances to date. ‘At the end of the show,’ Smith says, ‘we always have people coming up wanting to get a closer look at the pop-up book, or the eagle shadows, and they are astounded by how lo-fi the mechanism is. Theatre can’t compete with film when it comes to making something realistic – but what theatre can do that film can’t, is transform something ordinary into the extraordinary right in front of your eyes.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman) Q Assembly Roxy, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 17, 24), 1.40pm, £7–£9. Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
There are many profound lines in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s 1943 novella The Little Prince, but perhaps the most important is spoken by a fox: ‘One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.’ Over 70 years later, Californian theatre company Curbside has taken that line as the central theme for its new show for ages four and over, Flight. A sequel which picks up six years after The Little Prince left off, Flight finds the same pilot back again – actively seeking the Prince, to recall the secret he has forgotten. ‘For us, The Little Prince is a timeless love story about learning to see with the heart, and finding the courage to fly,’ says Curbside’s artistic director, Ezra LeBank. ‘These themes inspired us to create Flight, a sequel with a twist.’ The show also features Curbside's renowned highly physical approach to storytelling. ‘By creating surreal imagery with our bodies, we take audiences of all ages on a journey that ignites the imagination,’ says LeBank. ‘We continually transform onstage, morphing into characters and landscapes, using acrobatics, our voices, lights, original music and one simple piece of set.’ (Kelly Apter) Q Assembly Roxy, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 12.30pm, £9–£10. Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £8.
Classic Ladybird stories come alive on stage Created by DNA Puppetry in 1999, Chicken Licken is the company’s most popular show to date. ‘Everybody who sees Chicken Licken totally adores it,’ says co-creator and puppeteer Adam Bennett. ‘There is only one main character who carries the story, which is important for young children. She is born in front of you and you see the major incidents of her life as she grows into adulthood.’ The show is based on three Ladybird books: Chicken Licken, The Little Red Hen and The Fox and the Hen. Solo performer Bennett is joined by a cast of characters including rod puppets, shadow puppets and puppets made of dough. ‘There’s a bit of clowning, juggling, some singing and wonderful original music by composer-musician Jon Owen,’ says Bennett. Suitable for ages 3–8, Bennett wants audiences to react and interact with the show in whatever way they feel. ‘The moment I start, I make it clear that we’re here together to have a good time and enjoy the show,’ he says, ‘and the more they react, call out, laugh, scream or help with suggestions the more delighted I’ll be.’ (Rowena McIntosh) Q Summerhall, 560 1581, 10–29 Aug (not 17, 24), 3.35pm, £7 (family £26). Previews 5 & 6 Aug, £5 (family £18).
A POCKETFUL OF GRIMMS Award-winning company returns to Fringe with classic tales Two centuries after Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm first found that people were interested in their stories, that interest shows no sign of waning. Their prolific outpourings have been adapted the world over, with Story Pocket Theatre the latest company to discover the tales’ theatrical potential. ‘The Grimm Tales have lasted because they are great stories, it’s as simple as that,’ says producer Alison Beattie. ‘They’re full of magic, adventure, right versus wrong (and right doesn’t always win) with characters that appeal to everyone: princesses, witches, kings, mythical creatures, beggars, heroes, villains.’ Back at the Fringe, after its award-winning 2014 debut, Arabian Nights, the Hampshire-based company had its work cut out deciding which stories to select. ‘The richness and vast variety of the Grimm Brothers’ collection meant it took ages to reduce more than 200 stories to the five or six we chose,’ says Beattie. ‘We needed a balance of dark, silly, romantic, adventurous and downright odd. We also thought it was important to mix the well-loved stories with those that people may not know at all.’ Back in 1812, when the Grimms made their publishing debut, the stories were less sanitised and more adventurous than today’s versions. So when Story Pocket began rehearsing, it was to those original collections they turned. And, when it came to designing the show, they also knew where to turn – back to the team who helped make the hugely imaginative Arabian Nights (which also returns this year) such a roaring success. ‘We’re very excited about the set,’ says Beattie, ‘which will help us transform from castle to forest and from humble cottage or the ocean in the blink of a storyteller’s eye.’ (Kelly Apter) Q Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 24), 12.30pm, £8–£9 (£6–£7). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 63
FESTIVAL KIDS | Previews
THE HISTORY OF MUSIC From cavemen to conductors, Buzz Brass take us through key moments in musical history
PHOTO © EDDIE MIDDLETON
An awful lot of sound was generated between pre-historic times and the 21st century. So when Montreal-based Buzz Brass was writing its show, The History of Music, they had to be very picky about what to include. ‘For every era there are works which are more relevant than others – that changed the way people thought about music,’ says Buzz Brass horn-player Pascal Lafrenière. ‘So we explored each era in that way, and chose works and composers because of their significant contribution to the history of music.’ Based in Montreal, the brass quintet is known for its musicianship, energy and sense of fun – especially when it comes to putting together a show for families. ‘We are serious people who have found funny ways to demonstrate our knowledge and talent,’ says Lafrenière. ‘We wanted to share true facts regarding the history of western music (as opposed to music from far eastern countries) and make it a kind of battle between a conductor and his musicians. ‘That’s where the silliness comes in, as we pitch the role of the conductor (who is so convinced of his unquestionable mightiness) against the desire of the musicians to make good music and have fun being together.’ Buzz Brass use a range of styles to take us through the years. And, on the odd occasion when finding something appropriate proved too challenging, they just made it up. ‘Take the cavemen, for example – we can be pretty sure they didn’t tap dance around a fire, but it was a funny way to demonstrate they could put rhythmic structures together.’ (Kelly Apter) Q New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 8–30 Aug (not 17 & 18), 1pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12); family £40 (£36). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £7.
CINDER-ELLA Krazy Kat Theatre explore the popular fairytale using puppets, music and sign language Created by Krazy Kat Theatre Company, CinderElla is told by a put-upon grandad who recreates his favourite fairytale using his grandchildren’s toys. Solo performer and artistic director Kinny Gardner chose the story of Cinderella for its universal appeal. ‘It’s in every culture all over the globe,’ he says. ‘It’s been used for operas, pantomimes, and now it’s bursting out of a pram.’ Aimed at children aged 3–7 and their families, the show uses music by Rossini as well as elements of clowning, variety and music hall to create what Gardner describes as ‘a fun, fast, family show with sign language and storytelling, bristling with puppets, music and silliness.’ The inclusion of sign language is central to the company’s ethos. Krazy Kat is the only British children’s theatre company to use sign language in every show, with Gardner signing as he performs. ‘The company’s work promotes access to the arts for members of the deaf and disabled community and champions the value of sign language to the hearing,’ says Gardner. (Rowena McIntosh) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–23 Aug (not 12, 17), 10am, £7–£7.50 (£6–£6.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5. 64 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
PANTO SCIENCE: THE PERIODIC FABLE
YOU LOOK TASTY! (A PLAY BY A. TIGER)
Inspiring young scientists through songs, experiments and fun
Tigers get set to take over the Fringe
She’s got a YouTube hit under her belt and runs the Glasgow branch of academic comedy night Bright Club. But in her new kids show, Panto Science: The Periodic Fable, Dr Zara Gladman combines her comic writing talent with her day job as a scientist. A collaboration with Glasgow Science Festival, Gladman and comedian Bruce Morton are using the theatrics of panto to get children into science. ‘As a kid, I loved panto,’ she says, ‘it’s fun, engaging and one of the most accessible forms of theatre there is. It’s the perfect formula for inspiring children about science, without a textbook in sight.’ The story centres around two scientists whose ‘evil supervisor’ (played by Morton) wants to present their results as his own. But the main message is to promote the accessibility of science to children. ‘One of the key aims is to reinforce the message that science is for everyone,’ explains Gladman. ‘We’ll be carrying that message through experiments, comedy and songs (‘You Don’t Need a Beard to Be a Scientist’ is particularly catchy). It’s going to be a lot of fun.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman) Q Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, 7–30 Aug (not 17), 12.15pm, £11 (£9). Preview 6 Aug, £10 (£8).
The Pleasance Courtyard used to be a nice, safe place for families to visit each August. Not any more. With three children’s shows about tigers at the venue, is it still safe to bring our offspring? ‘That depends, really,’ says Stewart Pringle, co-author of You Look Tasty (A Play By A. Tiger). ‘Do you like your children? How much do you like them? It’s impossible to answer – you’ll have to find out for yourself.’ Pringle co-wrote his play with Aloysius the tiger, a writer whose work ethic, he says, is ‘absolutely appalling – no attention span, and he sleeps a lot, I mean a lot’. Fortunately they managed to get something down on paper – a show about a missing tiger at London Zoo. Surprisingly, rather than seeing them as rivals, Aloysius was keen to hear about the other tiger shows – Mr Tiger Goes Wild and The Tiger Who Came To Tea. ‘One of Aloysius’ big inspirations for writing was actually The Tiger Who Came To Tea,’ explains Pringle. ‘He was like “Excellent! Finally we’re taking the fight to them!”’ (Kelly Apter) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 25), 11.45am, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Preview 7 Aug, £5.
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LOST MAP’S HOWLIN’ FRINGE The DIY collective descend on Penicuik with an eclectic mini-fest ‘We’re a DIY record label and grassroots collective of like-minded musicians predominantly scattered around Scotland,’ explains Johnny Lynch, founder of Lost Map records. The micro-label was set up by Lynch when he parted ways with Fence Records to start a new life on the remote island of Eigg (current population guestimated at roughly 100). The roster includes the lo-fi indie of Tuff Love (pictured), Lynch’s swoonsome electro/ acoustic alter ego the Pictish Trail and the soulful folk of Seamus Fogarty. ‘I used to think there was a Lost Map sound but it’s more of an aesthetic, a shared approach to making music.’ Pretty much the entire Lost Map lineup will be descending on Penicuik to recreate the label’s
Eigg-based mini-fest The Howlin’ Fling on a smaller scale. ‘Howlin’ Fringe is a new series of events we’re putting on outside the main cities which are basically showcases for what Lost Map is about but with a few extra special guests thrown in. I’m a big fan of pulling people into areas that they’re not familiar with, so this time it’s a journey to the forbidden world of Penicuik,’ laughs Lynch. Joining Lynch will be the aforementioned Tuff Love and Fogarty plus Rozi Plain, Kid Canaveral, Randolph’s Leap, Supermoon and guests Slowclub (Moshi Moshi) alongside comedians and ‘some secret guests we’re not going to announce until the day’. (Henry Northmore) Q Penicuik Town Hall, 8 Aug, 3pm–midnight, £18.
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 65
FESTIVAL MUSIC | Hitlist
MUSIC HITLIST Kirstyn Smith highlights some of the best music events in the Fringe’s first week
THE HARMONIUM PROJECT Created by 59 Productions, this free outdoor event combines John Adams’ choral work Harmonium with a series of animations projected onto the Usher Hall. See feature, page 23. Festival Square, eif.co.uk, 7 Aug, 10.30pm, free. ALCHEMY OF THE PIANO Maverick pianist Will Pickvance presents a stream of musical consciousness, blending Victorian parlour songs, jazz standards and pop classics as he investigates how the magic of music happens. Summerhall, 560 1581, 8–30 Aug (not 17, 24), 8.20pm, £12 (£8). Preview 7 Aug, £8.
WORBEY AND FARRELL’S HOUSE PARTY The acclaimed piano duo bring their unique touch to original compositions and unusual arrangements of everything from reggae to Rachmaninov via Lily Allen. Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, 7–30 Aug, 5.10pm, £15 (£13). PROSUMER – SUMMERHALL’S OPENING NIGHT PARTY Prosumer, aka Achim Brandenburg, spins house with support from Lindsay Todd (House of Traps). Presented by Braw Gigs and Nothing Ever Happens Here . . . Summerhall, 560 1581, 7 Aug, 8.30pm, £10.
PHOTO © ALEXANDRE ISARD
CRAP MUSIC RAVE PARTY Request any song you like at this DJ party but it has to be crap. Expect novelty hits, bad 80s tunes and one-hit wonders, complemented by DIY disco lighting. Just the Tonic at The Community Project, 0330 220 1212, 6–30 Aug (not Mondays & Tuesdays), midnight, £6 (£5).
Chilly Gonzales and the Kaiser Quartett
The Queen’s Hall, 668 2019, 11–16 Aug, 10.30pm (except 11, 9.30pm), £17.50.
CHILLY GONZALES The Grammy-winning Canadian pianist teams up with the Kaiser Quartett for new project Chambers, performing material inspired by everything from Bach to Daft Punk See column, page 68. The Hub, 473 2000, 8 & 9 Aug, 9.30pm, £25.
ROARING ACCORDION Strangely Doesburg performs a oneman cabaret of raucous singalongs and punk ballads on his accordion. Sweet Grassmarket, 243 3596, 12–30 Aug, 11.05pm (except 24–27, 11.30pm, £5.
CAMILLE O’SULLIVAN The Irish songstress performs the poetic songs of Jacques Brel, the Belgian singer-songwriter famed for emotional storytelling in his music.
DIVE: C U NEXT TUESDAY CABARET Weirdo partymakers Dive team up with Summerhall for a cabaret residence with the best LGBT
Fringe merrymakers. Music, cabaret and live performance. Summerhall, 560 1581, 11, 14, 18, 25 Aug, times vary, £8–£10 (£6–£8). MASSAOKE Friday I’m In Love presents karaoke like you’ve never done it before: a live band, lyrics on a big screen, the entire audience singing as one. Even the celebs love it – Phill Jupitus, Tim Vine and Al Murray have appeared in the past. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 12–30 Aug (not Mon & Tue), 12.30am, £6–£12 (£5–£11). Previews 7–9 Aug, £6.
Edinburgh Art Festival Art Late 13 & 20 August 2015 6 – 10.30pm Join us for two specially programmed late openings, taking in taking in live music, performances, artist talks and tours. WHITE The Biscuit Factory Thu 13 Aug 2015
Sponsored by Blue Moon
Miaoux Miaoux Scottish National Portrait Gallery Thu 20 Aug 2015 Tickets £5 edinburghartfestival.com
66 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
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Robert Glasper | FESTIVAL MUSIC
ALL
THAT
JAZZ Jazz pianist Robert Glasper talks to Stewart Smith about hip hop, R&B and bringing the genre to a new generation
T
PHOTO © JANETTE BECKHAM
exas-born pianist Robert Glasper revels in straddling the line between jazz, hip hop and R&B. His Grammywinning Black Radio albums saw him working with the likes of Erykah Badu, Mos Def and Jill Scott, and he is among the crack squad of jazzers to play on rapper Kendrick Lamar’s album-of-theyear contender To Pimp a Butterfly. Following three albums with his electric Experiment outfit, Glasper’s new Blue Note album Covered reunites him with his acoustic trio bandmates, bassist Vicente Archer and drummer Damion Reid. ‘It was a way to come back to playing piano trio, but not in the same way I’d done it before,’ he explains. ‘After Black Radio came out I acquired a more mainstream R&B and hip hop audience. I wanted to do an album that catered to them as well as to my jazz fans.’ Glasper has been quoted as saying that Black Radio was his way of giving jazz ‘a big ass slap’. Covered is similarly motivated, bringing songs by Kendrick Lamar, Bilal, Radiohead and Joni Mitchell into an acoustic jazz idiom. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 67
FESTIVAL MUSIC | Robert Glasper
Top 5
HUB SESSIONS
PHOTO © ALEXANDRE ISARD
CHILLY GONZALES FEAT. KAISER QUARTETT He’s done alt.rock as a member of Son, produced albums for Peaches and Feist and is part of Berlin hip hoppers Puppetmastaz. Here, Gonzales turns his considerable multi-talent to reimagining classical music in accessible and exciting ways, bringing in elements of rap and pop, in a new project with Kaiser Quartett, Chambers. 8 & 9 Aug, 9.30pm, £25.
FROM SCOTLAND WITH LOVE: KING CREOSOTE
PHOTO © JATI LINDSAY
they are and the they’re comfortable with what something ‘[I want to] loosen up, resuscitate rds towa ing mov ic’s e a see the mus or don’t to, music, say “hey, it’s 2015, let’s mak hip ly ”. So that they’re not personal You’re ne. fi jazz album that sounds like 2015 s that’ it, like not can You st’ like. like. I I g that’s why I’m doing ‘I’m Dying of Thir ythin ever like to I did not supposed to like Lil by Kendrick Lamar. That’s why ther dmo gran my ct expe t don’ this : songs by Bilal and Musiq Soulchild mean? It’s the I said Wayne, you know what I re trying to is music from my era. That’s why you’ If . jazz wake same thing with it’s a big slap, because you have to jazz to a 15-year-old, it’s not from feed that. But it up, hello!’ ly their era, so they’re not gonna get Glasper does far more than simp Why? Because me. get They t? wha s gues ning ‘swing’ a pop tune. While retai he I’m doing something they can actually s, recent, that the melody and feel of the song and relate to. I play songs that are improvises on them with invention can understand, d, hear ally actu have they for flair. It’s an exciting new direction ns and can probably sing along to.’ new jazz, but one that has brought accusatio So in a sense, you’re creating of selling out. He’s having none of it. s? dard stan not re ‘It’s all about connection to me. It’s ‘That’s what it’s supposed to be. You’ that more The . about selling out. Some people get ards stand these supposed to create new mixed up and say, “aw, you do all they become but you play songs by your peers, er s-ov cros to g tryin is played songs, you’re Dav s Mile ? know out is standards, you and Jimmy you’re selling out.” No. Selling he ’cos ’ Boy read gerb ‘Gin t don’ when you do something that you That’s how the what Heath were cool, you know? g the same naturally want to do. I naturally love doin ally basic re I culture goes. I’m boy’s tune. I’m doing. I loved R&B years befo my in’ play I’m hey, like , thing it’s the most of even heard my first jazz song. For me e som know to en into I just happ for me!’ out not selling out, it’s just me tapping s work y I love. talented cats, so it reall different genres I grew up with, that and , 473 ‘A lot of old cats can’t move forward not Robert Glasper Trio, The Hub do anything that’s now because it’s 0pm, £25. 10.3 , Aug 10 0, 200 use their generation. So they hate on it beca 68 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Footage from the Scottish Screen Archive showing the country in its retro, twee, raw glory— Virginia Heath’s documentary takes in love, loss, resistance, migration, work and play, with a soundtrack from Kenny Anderson, aka eclectic indie folk troubadour King Creosote. 14 & 15 Aug, 10.30pm & 9.30pm respectively, £25.
ANNA CALVI AND HERITAGE ORCHESTRA Dark and romantic alt.rock is Anna Calvi’s forte, but teamed with Heritage Orchestra, known for being just as innovative and eclectic as Calvi herself, there’s a different aural aesthetic. The classical leanings of Heritage Orchestra mixed with Calvi’s theatricalities creates an orchestral version of her recent hits. 18–20 Aug, 10.30pm, £25.
ALEXI MURDOCH The Scottish singer-songwriter is a bit enigmatic, having taken up residence among the hip folks of Berlin to trail his musical blaze. Luckily, he’s coming back to show off his multi-talented multiinstrumentalism (as seen on the soundtrack to Sam Mendes’ Away We Go, doncha know?). 27 Aug, 9.30pm, £25.
WAVE MOVEMENTS Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry and the National’s Bryce Dessner get together with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for Wave Movements, work composed directly to the rhythms of real waves complementing Hiroshi Sugimoto’s film comprising a series of 1980s seascape photos. 28 Aug, 9.15pm, £25. (Kirstyn Smith) Q Russian Standard Vodka Hub Sessions, The Hub, 473 2000, throughout Aug.
Previews | FESTIVAL MUSIC
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO © CLIVE TAGG
ALIEN LULLABIES – SONGS FROM A DECAYING FUTURE
PLAY
TITANIA: A SOLO CABARET How Titania escapes the Bard’s blues
Fiona Soe Paing’s latest eerie work
Identical twin DJs with opposing music tastes leave it all up to the audience
Part of Creative Scotland’s ‘Made in Scotland’ showcase, Alien Lullabies presents the dreamlike, unsettling sounds of Aberdeenshire-based electronica artist Fiona Soe Paing. Stitching together heavy beats, disorientating sounds and disembodied vocals, her songs create a uniquely eerie atmosphere, partly due to their disregard for lyrical immediacy. ‘Only a few of my songs have actual words,’ she explains. ‘Sometimes I sing random words from a Burmese phrasebook. Sometimes I write real lyrics but that’s the part I find most difficult.’ Her live shows are taken to another level by Zennor Alexander’s fantastical, dystopian, at times disturbing films. ‘The music and visuals are perfectly matched,’ she says. ‘My music sparks off visual imagery for Zennor, which he turns into animation. Although each can exist as a separate entity, the overall show is definitely more than the sum of its parts. It’s a surreal and immersive experience that really takes you off somewhere else. People say that it’s quite mesmerising – and also a little creepy.’ (Matt Evans) Q Summerhall, 560 1581, 14–23 Aug, (not 17 & 18), 10.35pm, £10 (£6). Previews 12 & 13 Aug, £6.
Like most good dance parties, PLAY came about after a disagreement over a techno remix of the Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’. Identical in looks if not musical taste, the Mac Twins were at odds over playing the track – Lisa felt it didn’t have that zigazig ah, but Alana was sure it did. In the end, they came up with an ingenious arrangement: let the audience decide what they want, what they really really want. ‘And thus, the idea for our immersive, interactive DJ show was born, and what a messy, but necessary birth it was,’ they explain together. ‘For years we’ve bickered in the booth about what to play and it took us a good few years to realise the magic is in the clash.’ As well as choosing the music, the audience join in a live game, featuring ‘power up levels’, which as far as we can tell, is a little drinking ‘pitstop’. ‘It merges our theatre backgrounds, our love for our old Sega Mega Drive and our love for clubbing all in one show,’ they say, but ultimately, it’s about enjoyment. ‘We want everyone to not take it too seriously and just have fun and a shimmy.’ (Rebecca Monks) Q Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 13–15, 20–22 & 28–30 Aug, 12.30am, £10. Previews 6–8 Aug, £5.
Having been a member of the Polish company Gardzienice, who are known for their ensemble theatre, Anna-Helena McLean admits surprise at her choice of a solo show: ‘I had been involved in tragic Greek classics for a good while and wanted to do a play about the foolishness and joy in life.’ Attracted to the fairy queen from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she set about challenging the Bard’s unsatisfying characterisation. ‘I couldn’t believe such a woman, queen, lover, priestess would be mute by the end of the play and wanted to give more depth to her journey with music and by telling the story from her perspective,’ she says. Her training as a classical cellist has been put at the service of a ‘dark cabaret’ which has the audience acting as the chorus to Titania’s tale. Rather than simply retelling Shakespeare’s story of a lover’s bet, McLean is intrigued as much at the prospect of rescuing Titania from her marginalisation as she is in celebrating performance as a communion between audience and actor. Through her musicality, energy and vision, McLean promises an emotive, provocative take on a familiar comedy. (Gareth K Vile) Q Summerhall, 560 1581, 7–30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), 6.25pm, £12.50 (£10). Preview 5 Aug, £10.
LE GATEAU CHOCOLAT: BLACK Singer and drag artist’s most intimate piece to date, inspired by his battle with depression In recent years, Le Gateau Chocolat has rapidly become somewhat of a household name among more seasoned Fringe-goers. This year, however, even his biggest fans are in for a whole new kind of show as the cabaret legend bares all in Black. Inspired by his struggle with depression, Black is Gateau’s most intimate piece to date; an epitaph to close friends whom he has lost to the condition. ‘With this show I intended to explore Black as a state of mind,’ he explains, ‘the memes of Black: black sheep, black and blue, black dog, black music . . . ’ As with most of his work, the show is autobiographical, but aims to engage with the idea that, in his words, ‘regardless of sexuality, colour, background, we’ve all been black at some point.’ Set to the soundtrack of Wagner, Gershwin, Nina Simone and Purcell, with some Whitney Houston thrown in for good measure, the singer and drag artist describes the new work as bittersweet, like dark chocolate. Expect the same larger-than-life, booming vocals, electric personality and killer costumes but, with Black, Gateau ultimately hopes to leave his audiences with, ‘a deeper understanding of depression and the lessening of our obvious differences.’ (Nina Glencross) Q Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 4.50pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £8. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 69
FESTIVAL MUSIC | Previews
Marcus Mackay and Kathryn Joseph
Top 5 99 HANOVER STREET
PHOTO © JANNICA HONEY
KATHRYN JOSEPH This year’s SAY Award victor brings her winning talent to the Fringe
NIGHTMARES ON WAX Unleashed from its 11-months-a-year double life as one of Edinburgh’s most stylish and centrally located bars, 99 Hanover Street takes on a more clubby atmosphere during the Festival, aided by its legendary Thursday night guest parties. The first sees Leeds’ long-serving Warp Records signee and hip hop aficionado George Evelyn, aka Nightmares On Wax, take over, presented by Ultragroove, Motherfunk and Astrojazz. 6 Aug.
GOLDIE Such is the celebrity life led by the goldtoothed maverick (Eastenders, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch, any number of sleb reality shows) that it’s easy to forget he was one of drum’n’bass’ most important early figures. The sometime Metalheadz man appears here courtesy of Xplicit, with Gmac, Eno and Rob Ralston in support. 13 Aug.
MARSHALL JEFFERSON Syndicate, Hector’s House and Moovn team up to bring us one of the founding figures of modern club music, Chicago house legend Marshall Jefferson composer of the classic ‘Move Your Body’. 20 Aug.
TERRY FARLEY Co-founder of the Boy’s Own label and London acid house pioneer Terry Farley is welcomed here by SSW’s Yogi Haughton, who will be supporting on the night. 27 Aug
.
OPTIMO The Sunday night closing party for 99 Hanover Street’s festival celebrations sees a return for Glasgow’s own Optimo (Espacio) duo of JD Twitch and JG Wilkes, and we reckon it could well be the biggest night of the month here. Note that all of the above are free entry, so early attendance is advised. 30 Aug. (David Pollock) Q 99 Hanover Street, 225 8200, throughout Aug, 9pm, free.
70 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Anyone who keeps an eye on the Scottish music scene knows that the SAY (Scottish Album of the Year) Award is a respected arbiter of the state of the nation’s fertile music scene, but it really came into its own last year when the winner also happened to claim that year’s Mercury Prize – Edinburgh’s Young Fathers, one of the most exciting and uncategorisable propositions to have landed in UK music in recent years. The momentum in the Scottish scene at the moment is further demonstrated by this year’s winner, Aberdonian singer-songwriter Kathryn Joseph, whose music exists at the opposite end of the scale from Young Fathers, but whose talent is considerable. A singer who creates sparse, breathy piano ballads which reveal a unique voice (but listen closely and you can hear the controlled vocal drama of Tori Amos or Kate Bush, and a folksy edge reminiscent of Joni Mitchell), Joseph sings with truth and experience in her voice. A 40-year-old mother who left an unsatisfactory deal with Sanctuary two decades ago and worked in bars while playing music for herself, she overcame her natural shyness at last when a chance encounter with local producer Marcus Mackay led to the creation of her album Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled and feverish interest when it became public. ‘I hadn’t really felt in control of it before,’ she says, referring to her first go at making music. ‘So I turned my back and came back. This is the first time I’ve worked on something that’s made sense to me, that I’ve wanted other people to hear.’ (David Pollock) Q Kathryn Joseph supports Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat as part of Nothing Ever Happens Here, Summerhall, 560 1581, 12 Aug, 8pm, £16 (£14).
THE TUBES Glam punks who embraced punk’s true aesthetic If you’re going to see Fee Waybill and his longserving band of outrageous glam punks the Tubes in Edinburgh, you've got one night only to do it during the Fringe. ‘Outrageous’ is a word that has often been applied to what he used to do, and it probably was when the Tubes started in 1972, before punk broke. Search on YouTube and you’ll find footage of Waybill from 1977 on the none-more-staid Old Grey Whistle Test, platforms so towering he had to be carried down the stairs by the crew, ball-hugging silver thong one slip from scarring the minds of a generation. That performance was of the winningly snide glamrocker ‘White Punks on Dope’, a rail against safe, middle-class rebellion, which was a theme which carried on into the cod-epic ‘What Do You Want From Life?’ (‘ . . . to kidnap an heiress or threaten her with a knife?’). The 1983 US hit ‘She’s a Beauty’ aside, they never made an overground impression, but they worked with Todd Rundgren; influenced Motley Crüe; opened for David Bowie; performed with Dolly Parton on Cher’s television show; appeared in the cult Olivia Newton-John disco movie Xanadu; and went bust when the hugely expensive, S&M-themed circus show they took on tour (designed by Kenny Ortega, later choreographer of Dirty Dancing) grew too big for its own good. That’s a legacy if ever we heard one. (David Pollock) Q Liquid Room, 226 0000, 12 Aug, 7pm, £23.
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6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 71
MEET THE MAN WHO PROVED THAT NOT ALL POLITICIANS ARE THE SAME
+++++ +++++ PLATFORM MAGAZINE
LONDON THEATRE
“WONDERFUL”
“SUPERB”
NOTTINGHAM POST
THE PUBLIC REVIEWS
‘Visually dazzling’ BY ANDY BARRETT
Financial Times
7 - 30 AUG 12:15PM
72 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Festival
VISUAL ART THEATRE
For m info gootroe
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ABOREHENAT DOLUM Id qui berum fugita sa nonseriam fugiature vereritisi dolum ius molo
TRANS SCRIPTS
Toriame que volo magnate molorum quoditatis moluptas et aut expeliquisit aut ex es ipicabo reictatur, tenis eturio dit escitae pel maximusant fuga. Tioreriatur si occus sendae. ‘Transgender rightsfuga. is the issueut Oditatem quoditat Oshuman aut exrights elesequid of ouraciassincit generationea in si western culture,’ Paul delici aces etur, quodsays maximet Scripts , a que verbatim play Lucas, writer of Trans aut erita cus.Rem faccum ex ea plandem that uses the words of transgender acesendis women. ex evendigendel eiur?Ommoloratia Certainly,quo trans has become ipidellendi moidentity occupta tincto is molora increasingly Chelsea Manning, Laverne nimagniet is visible: elignam, oditistor ab illecto Cox and Caitlyn Jenner familiar figures essintenis apelest arion are essiti quoditi ossitati in news, andnon their determination ut the latqui corem por anihil ilibeatefor nus. equal rights que has added intriguing Busdande voluptuan reperis inihitpolitical argument to ium normally moribund celebrity aborporrum quis es aut pra net, sam restia gossip volore, columns. sum, que etur sitio molores nis untio Inspired by interviews with trans con est omnissi modita veliquis autpeople, officiurthe ad show stars actress / activist Calpernia Addams (pictured), Rebecca Root (star of upcoming BBC Two comedy, Boy Meets Girl), and New York’s Bianca Leigh. His ambitions are lofty: the audience ‘can expect to be entertained,
endae. Ut quia parchit, venis quae maion est aperit acesto excesciatque voluptatet, iusci con porectem ex et que volesse quiamus, sunt fuga. Im imil mod que pore, tet debis informed, surprised, amused, and audis velecat dolescipiet fugit,touched simusandi ultimately feel connected to the transgender doloratur, seque dende inum quamus exerum, experience,’ he says. velesequas voloreperum qui si archil mo te The scale of Lucas’ project heeic spoke doluptatur?Evenda inum sitis –mil tem.to more thandolo 75 people countries means Pudignis consedinetsix autas seque–estissi this is merely part one:earuptasita a companion piece ommolor ectio. Orest voles focusing transgender will dia follow. necerum on fugit offictem et,men omnim doluptat ‘I began my research four years ago,’ he faccum eat. says, ‘because I sensed that thissequo was an Temos ex et harum quid et re, et,issue that deserved exploration.’ collecting sequae peliquadeep eriamusapedi ateBy volumquis conversations from community itself, eosRorrorent ut quethe esequos quassitate Lucas has weaved narrative that is,reperume at least, parumquam illicianta acesequam rem a strong starting point for a more informed discussion. (Gareth K Vile) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 3pm, £7.50–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
PHOTO © JOSE GUSMAN
A verbatim play that speaks of the silenced
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 73
FESTIVAL THEATRE | Hitlist
Gareth K Vile highlights some of the best theatre in the festival’s first week
622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 7pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.
POLYPHONY Perrier winner Daniel Kitson heads to Roundabout (see feature, page 82) with his latest theatrical work. It’s sold out – but you never know what the returns queue might bring. See From The Archive, page 104. Roundabout @ Summerhall, 560 1581, 7–29 Aug (not 11, 18, 25), 12.15pm, £12.
TONIGHT WITH DONNY STIXX After his hit with Dark Vanilla Jungle, Philip Ridley returns to the Fringe, turning his attention to the male of the species, describing a society obsessed with celebrity and violence. See preview, page 86. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 25), 2.45pm, £10–£12 (£9–£11). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.
£12.50–£15 (£10–£13.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.50.
10, 17, 24), times vary, £20 (£8–£15). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £14 (£8).
THE ENCOUNTER Artistic director of Complicite Simon McBurney makes a solo journey into the Amazon to follow one photographer’s almost spiritual revelations. See feature, page 75. EICC, 473 2000, 8–23 Aug (not 11, 12, 13, 18), 2.30pm & 7.30pm, £32. Preview 7 Aug, £15.
TRANS SCRIPTS Already taking America by storm, Paul Lucas’ verbatim play brings the silenced voices of trans women to the stage, in an honest and dynamic production. See preview, page 73. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 3pm, £7.50–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
THE CHRISTIANS Exploration of the dangers of organisations that are based on ideas of absolute truth: the first production of the show that astonished audiences in the US. See feature, page 85. Traverse, 228 1404, 9–30 Aug (not 10, 17, 24), times vary, £20 (£8–£15). Previews 3, 8 Aug, £14 (£8).
IMPOSSIBLE Houdini and Conan Doyle: two men find their friendship challenged by one’s belief in matters spiritual and the other’s scepticism about the supernatural. Starring Phill Jupitus and Alan Cox. Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 1.20pm.
SWALLOW From the writer of the Olivier Awardwinning Roadkill, Stef Smith’s new play promises ‘self destruction, self creation and how those two things are interlinked’. Music by Scottish hip hop star LAWHolt. See feature, page 20. Traverse, 228 1404, 9–30 Aug (not
KEY CHANGE Open Clasp Theatre created this performance about women in prison with the prisoners themselves. See feature, page 15. Northern Stage at Summerhall, 560 1581, 10–30 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 12.30pm, £12 (£10). Previews 8 & 9 Aug, £10.
ANTIGONE The jewel in EIF’s programme: Juliette Binoche stars in this stripped-back take on Sophocles’ classic, adapted by poet Anne Carson and directed by acclaimed Dutch theatremaker Ivo van Hove. See interview at list.co.uk King’s Theatre, 473 2000, 8–22 Aug (not 10, 17), 2.30pm (15 & 22 only) & 7.30pm, £17–£48 (£8.50–£24). Preview 7 Aug, £15–£44 (£7.50–£22). RAP GUIDE TO CLIMATE CHAOS Baba Brinkman turns his patented scientific hip hop towards environmental disaster, discovering that the threat to the planet is something worth a little more worry. See preview, page 91. Gilded Balloon,
5 - 30 Aug 2015 4pm (80 mins) No performances 12, 17 or 24 Aug. 0131 556 6550 | pleasance.co.uk 74 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
MIHAELA BODLOVIC
THEATRE HITLIST
Key Change
Simon McBurney | FESTIVAL THEATRE
list.co.uk/festival
SOUND AND VISION As he prepares to bring his solo show with Complicite to the Edinburgh International Festival, Simon McBurney waxes lyrical with our theatre editor Gareth K Vile about time and interconnection
PHOTO © EVA VERMANDEL
Y
ou might recognise Simon McBurney from Rev, Utopia and The Theory of Everything. But despite his extensive filmography, 2015 will mark the award-winning actor, writer and director’s first appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival. In a landmark year for the EIF – in which new director Fergus Linehan offers up a thrilling theatre programme – McBurney’s The Encounter is a highlight of its new, earlier opening weekend. McBurney is the co-founder and director of Complicite (formerly known as Théâtre de Complicité). Over the last three decades, their use of movement and technology, as well as a philosophical understanding of complex themes, has made them a force to be reckoned with on the British arts scene, with major productions including The Master and Margarita, A Disappearing Number and The Elephant Vanishes. The Encounter, McBurney’s highly anticipated Festival debut, is a one-man play based on the novel Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu, which tells the story of Loren McIntyre, a photographer who finds himself lost among the remote people of the Amazonian Javari Valley in 1969. The show will feature binaural technology, which produces 3D sound, or sound as our ears are naturally meant to hear it, helping to create a vivid and intimate atmosphere. When we chatted with McBurney to discuss his latest production, we caught him in a philosophical mood. Here, he muses about creating an adaptation and the nature of time itself. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 75
FESTIVAL THEATRE | Simon McBurney
PHOTO © CHLOE COURTNEY
How would you describe the process of adapting the book for the stage? It’s not dissimilar to a birth in the sense that you have the body of
the book to use, then you grow a kind of extraordinary placenta around it of all sorts of bits and pieces, and you grow a thing within that, which is different to the book. Very gradually, you detach yourself completely from the book and form a new work of art. Was it important to detach your piece from the book it was based on? [All works of art] detach themselves little by little from life, or an
inspiration from life, or they form part of a continuity, a line of different things, and they’re not separate. Nothing is a separate thing, although we tend to view them as such. We tend to view them as separate paintings on walls and separate books between covers, but they are all interlinked with what has come and what is happening afterwards. It seems like there’s very much a sense of you and your engagement with the material in this solo show. Were you important in its creation? Yes, I think that the engagement with the book forms part of
the drama as well as the book itself. When you say it’s a solo show, I will be with the audience and for me, in any case, it is the audience who, in my mind, or rather in their minds, create the show they’re watching. It is ultimately formed in [their] imaginations. It’s the audience who choose to see or not see truth within it; who are amused, moved, engaged, drawn in or bored, but it is their minds and engagement that ultimately complete the process of creation.
never played the International Festival before. Normally when I make a piece, I work quite a lot with the audience. I take it around and discover what happens, and it shapes and changes, and when I feel it has sufficient strength then [I] can show it to other people. The participation of the audience links back to the idea of interconnection. Is that a key theme of this work? Yes and I think
the word ‘interconnection’ is important, within the context of this piece, because that is actually a scene of the [play]. A man, who comes from a culture, which separates constantly, [and] sees the world in very binary terms, encounters a culture which doesn’t see the world in that way whatsoever, and yet the is culture under threat. You encounter him not only in the third person, but through his own voice, and that’s very important because we are all him. That is our point of view, and everything outside of that is the other, but nobody is the other in this world, because we are all interconnected. One person’s culture can’t be separated from another person’s culture. Time is a key concept within this piece, why does it play such a big part? They [the people of the Javari Valley] conceive of time in a
Would you, therefore, describe the play as ‘incomplete’ until it’s been viewed by an audience? It’s a bit like asking the famous question
fundamentally different structure, to the way that we see it, and perhaps, after speaking to [Oxford University Professor] Marcus du Sautoy, they’re actually closer to a truer vision of what time actually is, because we know so very little about it. The way that these people see time is that past time runs parallel to present time. Whether these people are right in their view of time or not, their belief signals an entirely different view of the world and our interconnection with it. Or a sense of very profound interconnection, which perhaps we have lost.
of when is a painting finished, to which the reply has frequently been ‘only when it’s looked at’. That could equally well be seen as a rather thinly veiled excuse for the fact that maybe the piece I will present in Edinburgh won’t be finished… and it’s quite a daunting thought because I have
The Encounter, EICC, 473 2000, 8–23 Aug (not 11–13, 18), 7.30pm (8–10, 16–17, 19, 21–22) & 2.30pm (14, 15, 20, 23), £32 (£16). Preview 7 Aug, 7.30pm, £15 (£7.50).
76 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
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78 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Food | FESTIVAL THEATRE
list.co.uk/festival
in ameron Sarah C hair C d e R e Th
PHOTO ©
MANUEL
VASON
PLAYING WITH OUR FOOD Lorna Irvine explores the Fringe acts addressing our obsession with nutrition
I
n the rush to catch as many shows as possible, food is often the last thing on anyone’s mind during the Fringe. However, this year, several companies are offering up calorific feasts on stage. For breakfast, Clod Ensemble’s production The Red Chair should hit the spot. There is music by Paul Clark, and a chance to sample some free food and whisky. Based on Scottish folk tales, and inspired by generations of storytellers from the Brothers Grimm to Gogol, The Red Chair is a dark tale of gluttony, focusing on a man who won’t stop eating, his longsuffering wife and their ‘inveesible child’. Writer and performer Sarah Cameron says: ‘The language of the story grew over time, forged its own path and was central in creating the world of The Red Chair. We get lots of feedback and audiences use words like
Rebecca Perry
““rich”, i h” ““epic”, i ” ““exuberant” b t” and d “d ” so th di t th t d “devour”, thatt iindicates they ffeell sated by the piece.’ She adds: ‘We use the consumption of food as a metaphor and audiences are invited to interpret the metaphor for themselves.’ As for the actual food, she says mysteriously, ‘there are lots of evocations of food within the performance, making the audience very deserving of the fragrant, toothsome morsels that will be served up at key points. Come and find out.’ Fresh from huge comedy tours, performer Helen Duff’s Vanity Bites Back deals with taboos surrounding anorexia, consumerism and stigmatisation. ‘There are so many new forms of consumption available online,’ she says, ‘all of which encourage a disconnect between body and mind – [it’s] too easy to get sucked into a world of filters and FOMO [fear of missing out]. It’s no surprise live performance is seizing upon it, forcing reality into the frame and playing havoc with the results.’ Her character Jill hosts a clown cookery show, and is, Duff says, ‘very much a heightened extension of who I am. She’s glorious to play – bold and brash and completely ridiculous – especially when it comes to cooking a cheesecake live on stage. It is inspired by my experiences of suffering with anorexia, so that tension that exists with her public face and her deep isolation is a reflection on the ways in which an eating disorder can cut you off from those you most want to connect with.’ She goes on: ‘Jill aspires to be the next Nigella Lawson TV cookery sensation, but has absolutely no idea how to go about it. There are songs and dancing – but a lot of them are made up on the spot, and certainly couldn’t be described as cabaret standard. It’s bonkers.’ Meanwhile, acclaimed Canadian actor, writer and singer Rebecca 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 79
FESTIVAL THEATRE | Food PHOTO © RICHARD DAVEN
FEAST
PORT
ROOT AND BRANCH Tim Crouch’s award-winning meditation on grief, An Oak Tree, returns to the Fringe. Gareth K Vile caught up with him
Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl, Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 6.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £5. FEAST, Zoo, 662 6892, 9–31 Aug, 3.55pm, £10 (£8). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £8. Vanity Bites Back, Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 16–30 Aug, 12.15pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). The Red Chair, Summerhall, 560 1581, 24–30 Aug, 10am, £12 (£8). 80 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
SHEK PHOTO © WIL L ADA
Perry’s Confessions of A Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl focuses on the character Joanie Little, a graduate stuck as a barista in a café, who takes an anthropological approach to her ‘creatures’ (customers). Perry, an ex café worker herself, claims she can tell who you are by the coffee you order. ‘Are you a busy teacher? Have an iced Americano to go. A chic art student? Sit in our café and read a book as you savour your caffé affogato. Fulfilling people’s tastes is also reflecting their style, therefore showing the world your individuality,’ says Perry. She describes the show as ‘a bit of everything, so I have come up with a fun new word as my definition: it is a “showsical” – a one-woman show that is both a play and musical. ‘There’s musical underscoring, cabaret patter and songs that reflect the mood, yet it has a beginning, middle and end like a three-act piece of theatre. I play 20 characters in one hour, so there are also elements of stand-up comedy.’ International company Clout Theatre have long titillated and provoked with their critically acclaimed oeuvre, which straddles horror and playful physical theatre. Their latest show FEAST is performed as a mime, exploring our sensual responses. As performer Jennifer Swingler explains, ‘I think the key to how our relationship with food has changed is excess. If you have an excessive amount of anything, it becomes emotional rather than primal. When we harvest and slaughter, there is a reverence for the animal or the crop and its contribution to man’s survival. We no longer want the lumpy bits – we want it sunny side up, ubergrande, fat-free and vitamin pumped, not unlike the media or pornography when showing the human body. I’m not going on a feminist tirade here – women are just as guilty. Look at Daniel Craig, emerging from the sea as Bond. He is basically just a damp Chicken Nugget.’ Taking their structure from Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer’s film Food, Clout’s dinner table becomes orgiastic. Performer George Ramsay elaborates: ‘Svankmajer is obsessed with sensation, his films are full of touch; sound, tongues, meat and food . . . the carnivalesque breaking of taboos about wastage and manners can be enormously joyous. We attempt to gain more pleasure through more and more grotesque acts, but are ultimately left numbed by this deluge of pornographic imagery. Perversion is pushed to the extreme – a Baroque excess.’ ‘When one talks through a meal we forget to taste,’ he adds, ‘the same can go for theatre.’
Ten years ago, Tim Crouch first presented An Oak Tree at the Traverse during the Edinburgh Fringe. A play for two actors – one of whom has not seen the script before the performance – An Oak Tree combines a subtle, moving tale of grief and redemption with a dynamic experiment in form. The story, a meeting between a hypnotist who killed a young girl in a road accident and the father of his victim, is told by Crouch and a new actor in every performance. Crouch’s role – as writer, the hypnotist and a sort of on-stage director – guides both the audience and the second actor through difficult emotional experiences. The titular oak tree, which the father insists has become his daughter, provided the foundation for Crouch’s script. ‘The inspiration is a work of art called An Oak Tree by Michael Craig-Martin, made in 1973,’ he says. ‘A glass of water transformed into an oak tree through a provocatively simple process of nomination. I say this thing is something else and, by saying it, it becomes that something else.’ From this simple idea, Crouch considered how the subconscious mind – and hypnotism – could shift perspectives, creating transformations of mundane objects into meaningful symbols. The use of the second actor, who is experiencing the play for the first time, adds an uneasy tension to the performance. ‘I’d like to think that the device of the second actor has something of the spirit of the Fringe about it – a freedom and an experimentation,’ says Crouch. ‘The second actor is like the audience’s avatar – they discover the play at the same time as the audience. This is, I hope, an empowering experience for the audience.’ Yet An Oak Tree is no empty experiment. The subject – the death of a child – is emotive but Crouch’s distinctive relaxed on-stage presence brings a warmth and compassion to the unfolding drama. ‘With the heart engaged, it’s much easier to take the head on a ride,’ he says. ‘In An Oak Tree, there is an emotional core to the play that can take an audience by surprise.’ With the play having won an Obie, and become a perennial favourite around the world in the past decade, its revival at the Traverse shows that Crouch’s fusion of emotion and intellect can still pack a punch. Q An Oak Tree, Traverse, 228 1404, 9–16 Aug (not 10), times vary, £20 (£8–£15). Previews 4, 8 Aug, £14 (£8).
The world famous circus trailblazers return to
‘rob you of your breath’! The Times
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A show that mixes spectacle and storytelling.
ASSEMBLY HALL
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FESTIVAL THEATRE | Roundabout
A PERFECT CIRCLE
After its 2014 launch at Summerhall, Paines Plough’s beautiful travelling theatre is back with a killer programme. Yasmin Sulaiman finds out more about this special space
‘T
here is nothing like sitting in a circle to hear a story,’ says Jonny Donahoe. ‘And that’s what Roundabout recreates: kind of a caveman thing.’ Don’t take that literally: there’s nothing primitive about Roundabout. After five years in development, this travelling theatre from Paines Plough – Britain’s premier touring theatre company – launched at Summerhall in 2014 and quickly became the most lovable venue on the Fringe. Since then, it’s had stints at London’s Southbank Centre and the Brighton Fringe, and now returns to Summerhall with a stable of exciting works: among them Daniel Kitson’s latest, the already sold-out Polyphony; a new kids show from Matilda the Musical writer Dennis Kelly, Our Teacher’s a Troll; and the lovely Every Brilliant Thing, a reprise from last year starring the aforementioned Donahoe. Its stellar lineup aside, much of Roundabout’s appeal is in its appearance. Dreamt up by Paines Plough’s joint artistic directors, James Grieve and George Perrin, and designed by Lucy Osborne and Emma Chapman in collaboration with Charcoal Blue and Howard Eaton Lighting, this circular space is a triumph of creativity. Its brightly coloured upholstery makes for an immediately welcoming environment, which was a priority for Grieve and Perrin. ‘The intention has always been to take Roundabout to parts of the country that don’t have theatres,’ says Perrin. ‘We wanted to break down some of the traditional barriers. We have noticed that some people find theatres very dark and quite formal, and so we wanted something that was informal, that was light, that didn’t feel like a theatre, I suppose – that felt more like an exciting room to sit in where a story will get told. We just wanted a really warm, welcoming, comfortable, exciting space that nevertheless still did everything you needed a theatre to do.’ ‘I think one of the things we’re really excited about is that it feels permanent when you’re in there,’ adds Chapman, who has a background in lighting design. ‘It doesn’t feel like a temporary space. I think that’s because it’s very solid in its structure.’ Part of this structure is its innovative lighting, which has been integral to Roundabout’s success. ‘It’s got 627 LED fixtures and nine triangular panels and a central panel,’ Chapman explains, ‘and everything rigs at floor level and with no focus. So what you can guarantee as a lighting designer, which is really exciting, is that the show that you light in venue number one will look identical wherever it appears, and all the lights are exactly in the same position. Literally, you plug it in and the show is all ready to go once the pit is up.’ The lighting setup makes it much brighter than a traditional theatre. Being able to see the audience’s faces might make some performers nervous, but for Donahoe it’s been a big advantage when performing Every Brilliant Thing, a partially improvised comedy about living with depression. ‘If there is one thing we wanted to say about depression it’s that the only thing that can help you is not being alone. And that’s so inherently true when you’re in that space,’ he laughs. ‘I mean, you can see 165 other people and you can clearly see their faces. That’s a very unusual situation. Normally you’re in the dark, and there is something very intimate in that theatre, something so personal about it. It’s not usual to feel so completely 82 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
part of a group, which is why I love Roundabout: because it makes you part of a breathing and living organism.’ Other plays in this year’s Roundabout lineup include The Human Ear (a new offering by Alexandra Wood who won a Fringe First last year for The Initiate); Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, a drama about a couple who want a child; and Molly Davies’ dark comedy, Chicken. But the theatre’s also crossing genre boundaries; as well as Perrier winner Daniel Kitson’s theatrical work, Roundabout will host Earlier / Later, a series of earlymorning and late-night shows featuring comedy, poetry, music and dance, including appearances from Josie Long and Luke Wright. Also on is much-loved satirical musical comedy act Jonny and the Baptists (‘Jonny’ is Every Brilliant Thing’s Donahoe). ‘It’s about bringing the audience into the space who maybe wouldn’t come to see a straight play as it were, who might see Daniel and Jonny and then think about seeing something else,’ says Perrin. ‘That’s the gesture, everywhere we go around the country. We want there to be something in Roundabout for everyone and we want to find ways of introducing our core work, which is new plays, to people who might not come to them immediately. But we also just wanted a really eclectic Edinburgh programme.’ ‘From a comedy perspective,’ adds Donahoe, ‘it’s the perfect room to generate laughter and joy. The Jonny and the Baptists show previewed in there and the difference in previewing there and previewing somewhere else is it does the warm-up act for you. The audience are already in that mood that you want them to be in when we start and I think there is something very special about that.’ Chicken, 8–30 Aug (not 11, 18, 25), 5.05pm, £14–£16 (£12–£14). Preview 7 Aug, £9. Earlier / Later, 10–23 Aug, times and prices vary. Every Brilliant Thing, 8–30 Aug (not 11, 18 , 25), 2.05pm, £15–£17 (£10–£12). Jonny and the Baptists: The End is Nigh, 8–30 Aug (not 18, 25), 7.50pm, £11–£12 (£9–£10). Preview 7 Aug, £9. Lungs, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23–30 Aug, 3.35pm & 10.30pm (24, 26, 28, 30 Aug), £15–£17 (£10–£12). Preview 7 Aug, £9. Our Teacher’s a Troll, 8–23 Aug (not 11, 18), 11am, £8–£10 (£6–£8). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £5. Polyphony, 7–29 Aug (not 11, 18, 25) 12.15pm, £12. The Human Ear, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 Aug, 3.35pm, £15 (£10). Preview 6 Aug, £9. All shows at Roundabout @ Summerhall, 560 1581. See list. co.uk/edinburghfestival for full programme.
PHOTO © PAUL ZANRE
‘It makes you part of a breathing and living organism’
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 83
JOIN US THIS AUGUST AT SUMMERHALL FOR A FEAST OF INTERNATIONAL THEATRE, PERFORMANCE, VISUAL ART, DANCE, SPOKEN WORD AND MUSIC FOR AUDIENCES OF ALL AGES.
THEATRE
FAMILY
EARLY MORNING OPERA
CATHERINE WHEELS
GRID IRON
FITTINGS MULTIMEDIA ARTS
BIG IN BELGIUM
BRUSH THEATRE
ABACUS Early Morning Opera, Abacus
LIGHT BOXES THE GREAT DOWNHILL JOURNEY OF LITTLE TOMMY
THE VOICE THIEF EDMUND THE LEARNED PIG THE OVERCOAT AND MANY MORE
AND MANY MORE
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DANCE
NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE...
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AND MANY MORE
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DUDENDANCE THEATRE
THE VASELINES SUN RA ARKESTRA OWEN PALLETT The Vaselines
IDIOT-SYNCRASY T-DANCE PARADISE LOST (LIES UNOPENED BESIDE ME) WE ARE THE MONSTERS BORDERLANDS
AND MANY MORE
TEN EXHIBITIONS INCLUDING
HERMANN NITSCH:
DAS ORGIEN MYSTERIEN THEATER
TADEUSZ KANTOR: INBETWEEN STRUCTURES
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ONE MILLION YEARS OF LAUGHTER 10AM – 7PM, 5TH – 31ST AUGUST, EXHIBITIONS ARE FREE David Sherry
‘You could spend the whole three weeks at Summerhall and not be bored for a second’ Lyn Gardner Guardian 2015. 84 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
0131 560 1581
www.summerhall.co.uk
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Religion | FESTIVAL THEATRE
PHOTO © ROD PENN
The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven
GOD ONLY KNOWS Religion has long been fruitful inspiration for poets, philosophers and playwrights. Gareth K Vile delves into the more spiritual side of this year’s Fringe
R
eligion’s status socially is under pressure – the questioning of new Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron over his beliefs suggested an anxiety about Christian evangelism driving a political agenda, while atheism has been taken up as a badge of intellectual superiority by fans of Richard Dawkins. But theatre has a soft spot for the ideas and language of spiritual endeavour. While there are plenty of science-orientated productions at the Fringe (Tangram, for example, are completing their ‘Scientrilogy’ with a musical look at the life of Marie Curie), these tend towards explaining concepts, whereas religious iconography offers a way of exploring deeper issues. ‘It may be ironic for an atheist to say, but the theatre is a place of true spirituality,’ says actor and playwright Bart McCarthy. ‘A few times I have experienced those rare, stunning moments in which I felt myself, not as an actor, but as a conduit for some ethereal energy that transported everyone present into a higher state of being. Wondrous.’ McCarthy is performing as Satan at the Fringe: his show – Satan Speaks: ‘Why I Don’t Exist’ – A TED-ish Talk – features live possession of the poor actor by the Prince of Darkness who tries to convince the audience that he is not real. Despite his scepticism, McCarthy uses the devil as a symbol for human culpability. ‘I suppose the horror is that if Satan does not exist, we have only ourselves to blame for all the evil and depravity in the world.’ On the side of the believers, Testament is a Christian rapper, a star of UK hip hop and an enthusiast for the theology of romantic mystical poet William Blake. Working with DJ Woody and videographer Dave Lynch, Testament’s Blake Remixed is an introduction to the poet that claims him as a contemporary. ‘I really feel that Blake was from the street and in this culture in 2015, I feel like UK street culture is heavily hip hop influenced,’ he says. ‘I don’t think he would be just a rapper, he’d be taking it on because he was like a self-taught Jedi polymath, I think he would be really engaged in multimedia.’ Testament’s music reveals his strong spiritual beliefs, but in Blake’s poetry he has found a language that allows him to apply his skills to a highly imaginative theatrical format: ‘We’ve got twice World champ DJ Woody as our live scratch DJ . . . he’s actually controlling interactive visuals. We got four acclaimed hip hop artists (Soweto Kinch, Ty, Jehst and Shlomo) to play characters via special films, all manipulated live by DJ Woody in conversation with my performance. So it’s six hip hop artists for the price of two! Plus live beat boxing, rapping, spoken word, all new music, all with the heartbeat of William Blake.’
Another artist who finds inspiration in Christian thought is Jo Clifford. Although The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven could be mistaken as controversial – imagining Jesus as a woman – Clifford insists she is ‘completely in sympathy with most of the values of early Christianity and profoundly moved and inspired by the Jesus we read about in the Gospels.’ Addressing the antipathy directed at LGBTQI people, and its roots in religious belief, Clifford’s piece is making a statement for a more inclusive faith, as well as drawing a smart parallel between the New Testament’s ‘Man of Sorrows’ portrayal of Christ and modern persecuted minorities. And it is upon the foundation of Christ’s words that Clifford built her script. ‘“We all have a light”, the play says, and sometimes it’s the very thing we’ve been taught to be most ashamed of. And if you have a light, do you hide it in a closet? No. You bring it out into the open where everyone can see it. And be glad it exists to shine in the world.’ But it is not just Christianity that provides a pattern for theatrical meditations. Storyteller Xanthe Gresham Knight has delved into pagan mythology for her two shows, Paradise Bride and Morgana Le Fay. Like the other artists, she discovered fertile material that has, perhaps ironically, led her away from theology. ‘Goddesses embody archetypal emotions that feel as limitless as water,’ she says. ‘They’ve helped me shake off religion, which is all about limits. After being a storyteller for 20 years, all mythologies seem to me to be streams from one ocean that belongs to us all.’ If Gresham Knight has used ancient mythology to challenge her own religion, other artists invoke ideas of God not in a spiritual but a metaphorical or philosophical manner. Despite naming his show Building God, poet David Lee Morgan insists ‘it is actually about science, the science of revolution. Science is in one sense the opposite of religion: the title, Building God, is a reference to what my dad used to call the infinite perfectibility of man.’ Meanwhile, in Charlie and the Philosorappers, Charlie Dupré sets up the creator of the universe in a square-go with a certain anti-theist biologist. ‘During his rap battle with [Richard] Dawkins, he covers three of the main arguments for his existence, and the audience are given the vote at the end,’ Dupré explains. With the show’s emphasis on Scottish thinker David Hume – and featuring an appearance from the mighty German intellectual Nietszche – Dupré’s God is more of an intellectual assumption than physical entity or principle worthy of worship. In The Temptation of St Anthony, Tom Bailey was inspired by stories of a 4th-century saint, and set out to examine the relevance of his battles 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 85
FESTIVAL THEATRE | Religion
STIXX AND STONES A celebrity-obsessed anti-hero takes centre stage in Philip Ridley’s latest play. Elliot Roberts finds out more
Charlie and the Philosorappers
with demons in a contemporary society. In a production supported by the Wellcome Trust, Bailey exposes the thin line between what is now understood as a challenging mental health condition but what was once understood in more mystical terms. Yet even among the more rational approaches to religious belief – Gresham Knight, McCarthy and Morgan all challenge the subject – the usefulness of its language and characters is evident. As Jo Clifford concludes, theatre is ideal for the discussion of matters spiritual, ‘because to create good theatre around these themes they have to stop being theological abstractions and become clothed in flesh and blood.’ And Christopher Haydon, who is directing The Christians (including a full choir on stage) at the Traverse, recognises how its themes remain pertinent. ‘Although the play is set within an American evangelical church – which is quite different from the kind of Christianity we have in the UK – the underlying issues about faith, community and leadership will ring true for everyone, even hardcore atheists!’ The diversity of religious imagery and traditions on display at the Fringe are a reminder of how these ancient systems are symbolic ways of examining common human experience, and the theatricality of theology can lend an intensity to what might otherwise be a dull discussion of Big Ideas. Religion may be controversial, but it suggests a smooth strategy for summoning powerful performances. Satan Speaks: ‘Why I Don’t Exist’ – A TED-ish Talk, Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–23 Aug, 10.30pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £5. Blake Remixed, Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–29 Aug (not 19), 10.15pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6. The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, Summerhall, 560 1581, 8–30 Aug (not 10 & 11, 17 & 18, 24 & 25), 10.45pm (except 23, 9pm in Summerhall @ Artspace at St Mark’s), £10–£12 (£12–£15). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7. Paradise Bride, Just the Tonic at The Community Project, 0330 220 1212, 19–30 Aug, 12.05pm, £5. Morgana Le Fay, Scottish Storytelling Centre, 556 9579, 20–31 Aug, 5pm, £10 (£7.50). Building God, Banshee Labyrinth, 226 0000, 7–31 Aug, 5.10pm, free. Charlie and the Philosorappers, Just the Tonic at The Mash House, 226 0000, 8–29 Aug, 8.20pm, £8–£10. Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6. The Temptation of St Anthony, Summerhall, 560 1581, 16–30 Aug (not 24), 9.15pm, £12 (£9). Previews 13–15 Aug, £7. The Christians, Traverse, 228 1404, 9–30 Aug, times vary, £20 (£8–£15). Previews 3, 8 Aug, £8. 86 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Philip Ridley—children’s author, visual artist, filmmaker and the playwright behind some of the most shocking scripts of the past decade—returns to the Fringe after his success with Dark Vanilla Jungle. Yet while that play told a tale of female exploitation, his new work highlights a chaotic, celebrity-obsessed and violent masculine crisis. Tonight with Donny Stixx features an anti-hero who believes that his monstrous behaviour is no barrier to a career as a host on his own TV show. ‘It’s a companion piece,’ Ridley says. ‘It shares certain scenes and for those people that know Dark Vanilla Jungle, I think it will be an interesting story to sit through because there are certain connections and parallels.’ But he is quick to warn that it’s not a ‘male version of a female play . . . it’s a very different thing.’ The production, mounted by director David Mercatali with Sean Michael Verey (star of BBC3’s Pramface) as Donny Stixx, is enacted in Ridley’s intense stripped-back style: ‘one person on stage, but on a bare stage; no props, no lighting changes, no sound cues. Everything is created by the use of language, everything is created by words.’ It is no surprise that Ridley’s intensely theatrical stagecraft would find a home at the Fringe, for practical (it is the right length and easily staged) and aesthetic reasons (his plays reflecting the mania of the festival experience). As he says: ‘I’m more interested in smaller spaces with audiences that feel part of the action, involved, that can see the sweat on an actor’s brow. To see an actor go through an overwhelming emotion in front of you is still the most thrilling and lifechanging experience that you can have.’ Ridley says that Tonight with Donny Stixx ‘deals with a terrible act of violence and it deals with this new phenomenon we have of public shaming. So the protagonist is a boy who has ambitions in show business but the way that pans out is actually . . .’ Ridley pauses coquettishly. ‘Well . . . I think you’ll have to come and see the play.’ Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 25), 2.45pm, £10–£12 (£9–£11). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.
SERVED WITH A SLICE OF INSPIRATION Belgian-Style Wheat Ale Brewed With Valencia Orange Peel
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 87
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Previews | FESTIVAL THEATRE
PHOTO © CECILIA COOPER-COLBY
list.co.uk/festival
WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO?
WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT
TETHER
Tale of a forgotten victim of the Kray twins
Airwoman turned actress presents a one woman play of her time in the military
Lost Sock Company explore the relationship between a blind runner and their guide
Written and performed by Rebecca Crookshank, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is based on her experiences in the Royal Air Force. Describing the play as ‘90% fact, 10% joyous embellishment’, it follows her from basic training through to deployment in the Falkland Islands. ‘Becoming an actor felt like a distant dream but the process of becoming an airwoman, serving in the RAF, and all my experiences of service awakened my creativity.’ Crookshank, who plays nine characters and voices snippets of three more, says: ‘I was always dressing up as a kid, and I loved the idea of the uniforms in the RAF, so the day we went to stores and were issued with our kit I was in heaven!’ She hopes the play will encourage dialogue about women in the military: ‘One of my characters is based on the first female station commander in the Royal Air Force, the late Joan Hopkins, a pioneering role model. I really want the show to share her legacy, and other female servicewomen can be celebrated, acknowledged and inspire future voices.’ (Rowena McIntosh) Q Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 4.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
Tether examines a relationship that, outside fleeting exposure at major athletics events, is unknown to most – that of a blind runner and their tethered guide. Director Bethany Pitts relishes the unique subject matter, confident it will take audiences ‘to places they haven’t been before. It’s an ambitious new play that tells a story I haven’t seen on stage.’ It tells the story of Mark, an athlete who becomes a guide for blind marathon runner Becky after he fails to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games. Author Isley Lynn says the play required months of research with athletes. ‘When I decided to write a play about blind running, I couldn’t have been further out of my depth,’ admits Lynn. 'I’m fully sighted and not sporty at all, but I was absolutely compelled to tell a story about this fascinating world.’ Tether is a production about trust, friendship, ambition and glory. It questions whether we are selfish at heart and asks can you be fully happy helping others succeed? With the Rio 2016 Paralympics just a year away, it is a timely piece. (Rowena McIntosh) Q Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 2pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
Based on the true story of Lisa Prescott, this uplifting one-woman play tells the story of Lucy, an 18-year-old abducted by notorious London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray in the 1960s. Playwright Camilla Whitehill discovered the story while researching true crime: ‘I was reading books about the Kray twins when I came across this story. I was immediately fascinated by it.’ Where Do Little Birds Go? charts the time Lucy (played by Jessica Butcher) spends imprisoned in a flat with the Krays and escaped murderer Frank ‘The Mad Axeman’ Mitchell. Director Sarah Meadows describes it as an ‘inherently feminist narrative that unearths the story of a woman whose dreams are manipulated by those with power’. While there are plenty of accounts about the Kray brothers' lives, Whitehill found Lisa’s life to be a mystery. ‘Like most of history, the story had been told from the male perspective and there was very little available information about Lisa Prescott. I realised that if I made it a one-woman piece I could build a fictional world for this woman whose story had been so neglected.’ (Rowena McIntosh) Q Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252 8–30 Aug (not 17), 8.55pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
PIP UTTON: PLAYING MAGGIE Fringe veteran takes on the Iron Lady Pip Utton’s solo shows have become something of a Fringe institution: from Casanova to Churchill, Utton goes beyond mimicry to find the essence of historical characters. Having taken on Hitler and Francis Bacon, Utton is taking on another controversial 20th-century figure: Margaret Thatcher. This is not a hagiography or a condemnation of the Conservative former Prime Minister: her recent death saw celebrations – in Glasgow, calls were made for a street party – and respectful memorials, with a museum of her life currently being mooted. ‘I allow the audience not merely to listen to Mrs T but also to question her directly during the performance,’ says Utton. ‘This is both a challenge for me as an actor, because I have no idea what I will be asked and I will have to answer as her, but also for the audience to ‘buy into’ this whole notion that the dead person is alive and standing in front of them talking not at them but with them.’ Utton denies, however, that his work is merely about the worthy dead. ‘It just happens that to date they have all been historic characters,’ he insists. ‘I have to believe that they have to have made an impact in their lives. That fascinates me.’ Utton refuses to either praise or condemn her: ‘I enjoy the chance to try to portray that dead person without the need for me to make judgements about them, that isn’t my job, I’m not a historian.’ With Thatcher’s legacy still up for grabs, and her influence on contemporary politics reflected in both Conservative and New Labour policies, Utton is using drama in the way that it began in ancient Athens: as a public forum for debate. (Gareth K Vile) Q Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, 7–30 Aug (not 17), noon, £10 (£9). Preview 6 Aug, £9 (£8). 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 89
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list.co.uk/festival
RAP GUIDE TO CLIMATE CHAOS
AM I DEAD YET?
SING FOR YOUR LIFE
Canadian rapper turns focus on the environment
Unlimited Theatre get to grips with the grave
No creature comforts in unsettling new cabaret
Following the success of his first science-based show, the Fringe First-winning Rap Guide to Evolution in 2009, Baba Brinkman started searching for the next topic for his new hybrid form of theatre. In climate change, he found the perfect topic: less than 50% of people in the UK and USA believe global warming is caused by human activity, compared to a massive 97% of scientists. Brinkman’s Rap Guide to Climate Chaos aims to redress this staggering gulf of opinion through a unique mix of theatre and hip hop. Brinkman cites the curious relationship between the severity of the environmental danger and the popular response to it as an interesting challenge for the show. ‘A lot of people understand that climate change is an existential threat but don’t feel moved by it, which is very interesting considering how moved we are by trivial things on a daily basis.’ With his new one-man show, Brinkman is setting out to fill in this environmental blind spot. ‘I hope to give people a sense of what’s in jeopardy, a new appreciation for what we have going for us and a game plan for how not to screw it up, plus a healthy dose of laughs and surprises.’ (Jordan Shaw) Q Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 7pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7.
Over the course of nearly 20 years of collaborative practice, Unlimited Theatre have built a reputation on exciting science-based work to great acclaim. This August, Jon Spooner and Chris Thorpe are returning to the Fringe to challenge perceptions of death in their latest show, Am I Dead Yet?. The show sees Spooner and Thorpe use their patented combination of theatre and science to trouble existing notions of death, in co-operation with emergency care doctor Andy Lockey, whose role as secretary of the Resuscitation Council UK places him at the vanguard of these medical innovations. Through this cutting-edge scientific perspective, the company are setting out to change death’s macabre image. ‘Rather than thinking of it as grim or gruesome,’ Spooner says, ‘we’ve approached it as something inevitable, that will happen to us all, that is part of life. And maybe if we can be better at talking about death and dying, we might live better.’ With a cheerful combination of stories, songs and CPR, Am I Dead Yet? promises to shine some much-needed light on a very dark subject. (Jordan Shaw) Q Traverse, 228 1404, 19–30 Aug (not 24), times vary, £18 (£13). Preview 18 Aug, £12.
We all bear scars from childhood television puppets, which in retrospect were wildly inappopriate, and somewhat perverse: the mangy Hartley Hare springs to mind. Following on from this grotesque model is Charlie Tuesday Gates’ show Sing For Your Life. Avenue Q this ain’t. Deploying puppets which are ‘scraped up roadkill’, Tuesday combines her love of taxidermy and performance to tackle perceptions of how we treat small animals. As Gates, a vegan artist, explains: ‘We’re challenging people to look at and reconsider the value of all living things, including our pets. The show is essentially about animal rights, but in a non-confrontational and hugely entertaining way. It’s hilarious, unsettling and hardhitting but accessible enough for the mainstream to enjoy, without feeling like they’ve joined some cult.’ Creating such art has not been without its controversy. Gates has experienced some walkouts. However, she says: ‘I haven’t had as many as expected. It usually happens when the chickens come out and start singing Britney Spears’ ‘I’m A Slave 4 U’ – it gets people every time.’ (Lorna Irvine) Q Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug, 8.40pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
WHEN BLAIR HAD BUSH AND BUNGA Ex-figureheads toppled in political parody Satire is becoming ubiquitous – from YouTube to panel shows – yet it’s a form that's difficult to perfect. Patrick Ryecart is aware of this, as he swaps his usual role of actor for that of writerdirector of When Blair Had Bush and Bunga. Centring on an imagined visit by Tony and Cherie Blair in 2001 to Cliff Richard’s Barbados home, with house guests Silvio Berlusconi, George W Bush and Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, it is classic high farce, with an undercurrent of dark comedy, as a dead body has been found floating in the swimming pool. Ryecart explains: ‘A good mix of people in a good setting should completely camouflage the situation, which is the secret of satire. And certain people are ripe for ridicule. Personally, I don’t like going to the theatre to be hit on the head with a message. That should be something that you are left with later. If you want. I go to be entertained.’ There is always the worry for many in dealing with parodies of the rich and powerful that there will be a backlash but Ryecart is actually hopeful that might happen. ‘A backlash is a word conjuring wonderful dark deeds and scurrilous things. Wouldn’t that be marvellous?’ he quips. ‘I’d love Blair and his household to sue us for “defamation of character.” ‘However, Mr Anthony Blair, in his all-absorbing role of peace envoy in the Middle East, requiring personal security to the tune of public funding of £15,000 a week is, in the view of our lawyers, unlikely to bring an action (pity) and even less likely to succeed if he did. Perhaps Cherie will attack me in the Pleasance Courtyard bar with a bar stool, but I’m sure she’s got a sense of humour somewhere.’ (Lorna Irvine) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17, 24), 7pm, £13.50–£16.50 (£12–£15). Previews 5–7 Aug, £8. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 91
FESTIVAL THEATRE | Previews
THE SOAKING OF VERA SHRIMP Playwright explores magical powers as a coping mechanism
THE OUTSIDER Magical theatre performance from a new perspective Finnish performer Janne Raudaskoski’s new show The Outsider fuses traditional clowning technique with magic and modern multimedia to examine one man’s attempt to make sense of a peculiar new environment. Raudaskoski introduces his alter-ego : ‘A naive character, not of this world, emerges onto the stage and sees people for the first time. His alien eye experiences the extraordinary nature of the human world and searches for good and bad examples of humanity. The show uses humour to help communicate serious issues, and it’s also touching. I am in the solo lead role and also perform all the walk-ons, so altogether I am performing 40 roles – some of these at the same time, which is definitely magic.’ He believes there is a different rhythm in European work than British or American. ‘It is slower,’ says Raudaskoski. ‘But this is not as traditional as other European pieces. My work moves between art and entertainment: I try to break the boundaries between the two forms. The performance asks audiences to consider questions around humanity and think about their challenges and passions, no matter what their cultural roots and backgrounds are.’ Raudaskoski is heavily informed by 1930s movie stars, who played with the pathos of the underdog. ‘Charlie Chaplin made people laugh and cry, though here the character is more influenced by Buster Keaton,’ he says. ‘A stony face fits better with the technological tricks. My aim is to take the silent film imagery and present it in the modern day, in full frosted colour with different special effects’. But, he admits, there is something of his own personality reflected here. ‘I recognise in myself the feeling of being an outsider in society,’ he says. ‘I also look at the events in the world with wonder, but with my eyes very much open, as my character does.’ (Lorna Irvine) Q New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 5.30pm, £12 (£10). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £8. 92 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Following a critically and commercially successful run of Fat Alice at the Traverse, Alison Carr is introducing her latest creation to Edinburgh audiences this August in The Soaking of Vera Shrimp. Fourteen-year-old Vera’s preternatural ability to read the emotional content of raindrops, soaked up from the water’s contact with others, provides the basis for a show that explores universal themes in an intimate setting. ‘At its heart, the show is about grief and hope,’ says Carr. ‘I wanted to explore a character who is feeling lost and lonely, something we have all, to varying degrees, felt in our lives.’ After the death of her mother, Vera’s discovery of her power gives her a way to cope with the tragedy. ‘Her conviction and determination keep her going, actively researching and learning about her amazing ability,’ says Carr. ‘It gives her focus while all around her things are changing.’ Beginning life as a narrated storytelling show that won the 2013 Live Theatre / The Empty Space Bursary Award, The Soaking of Vera Shrimp evolved through a collaborative process into a solo performance that places its ‘funny, brave, bolshy and vulnerable’ protagonist – played by Tessa Parr – centre stage. ‘It’s all told directly to the audience,’ says Carr, ‘and that brings a real connection to what we’re talking about and exploring.’ Helmed by 2007 Arches Award-winning director Rosie Kellagher, this unique solo show-cum-science lesson promises a moving yet funny look at a young girl’s recovery from heartbreak. (Jordan Shaw) Q Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 12.45pm, £7.50–£9.50 (£6.50–£8.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
RECLAIMING VIETNAM Autobiographical journey unearths past secrets Kim Chinh’s autobiographical story is a reminder that identity is not simply a matter of birth or location: the American writer and actor discovered that there was a part of her that she had not always acknowledged. ‘I started with a rant just after a trip to Vietnam with my father,’ she says. ‘It was my dad’s first time to see his country again after 40 years, but I came back to the US feeling cheated.’ Not having learned Vietnamese and feeling that ‘my knowledge of the culture had been so limited,’ she created Reclaiming Vietnam as a way of exploring her relationship with her heritage. Despite being a personal solo show, Chinh promises plenty of action. ‘It’s a play where once it starts, you lose track of reality because you’re so drawn into the world of the play. You’re on a motorbike in Vietnam, with balmy breezes and the ghost-filled nights. You’re on a rollercoaster ride with the extreme ups and downs.’ Chinh says she's excited about presenting her work to Edinburgh audiences. ‘The audience are there to hear a secret and take part in the healing process. They are judge and jury.’ (Gareth K Vile) Q Greenside @ Infirmary Street, 618 6967, 17–29 Aug (not 23), 12.35pm, £8 (£6).
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6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 93
FESTIVAL THEATRE | Day Planner
PHOTO © JAN VERSWEYVELD
Theatre fans can get their fix all day long without even taking a dramatic pause. Gareth K Vile maps out your itinerary so you don’t have to
10AM The Maids Start the day with Genet’s
BDSM gender-switch melodrama, now switched back again. theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 510 2384, 7–22 Aug (not 9, 16), 10.10am, £8 (£5).
11AM Consumption A physical and
humorous drama about how we devour each other emotionally and literally without even knowing it. theSpace on the Mile, 510 2382, 10–28 Aug (not 16, 23), 11.05am & 12.05pm, £9 (£5). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £9 (£5). Urinetown Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire presents a musical pisstake of control and capitalism. Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 17, 24), 11.45am, £12–£13 (£10–£11). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £10.
NOON Islands Couple meltdown melodrama
from a rising young company. Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 18), 12.10pm, £9.50–£10.50 (£8.50–£9.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6. Fausted Ecologically aware update of the old chestnut about souls, devils and the quest for knowledge. C Venue, 0845 260 1234, 9–15 Aug, 12.55pm, £9.50– £10.50 (£7.50–£8.50) (£5.50–£6.50).
1PM Spectretown Matt Lenton (Vanishing Point) directs this new play that begins with a tape and dives back into the past through musical memories. Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 17, 24), 1.30pm, £12–£14. Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £8. Boris: World King See the satire before Boris decides that this is within his grasp, and we bow to our moptopped overlord. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 19), 1.45pm, £8–£10.50 (£7–£9.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
2PM Faulty Towers The Dining Experience Fringe perennial promises
food but delivers the authentic taste of that terrible seaside holiday. B’est Restaurant, 0845 1544 145, 6–31 Aug (not 11, 18, 25), 2pm, £45–£49.50. Miss Sarah A missing woman at a festival sparks the mystery in this brand-new script from Cicada Studios. ZOO, 662 6892, 9–31 Aug (not 17, 24), 2.50pm, £9 (£8). Previews 7 & 8 Aug, £6.
3PM This Will End Badly Four short
plays that jump in on the masculine crisis, from the author of last year’s surprisingly charming Awkward Conversations with Animals I’ve Fucked. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 18, 25), 3.20pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£7.50–£9.50). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. Electric Dreams Are we a nation in shock? London company Dumbshow are inspired by Naomi Klein’s political warning. Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17, 24), 3.50pm, £9–£11 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. 94 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
ANTIGONE Oscar-winning French film star Juliette Binoche appears in Ivo van Hove’s production of Antigone at the King’s Theatre this month, part of the Edinburgh International Festival. The English Patient actress plays the title character in Sophocles’ Greek tragedy against Patrick O’Kane as Kreon, Antigone’s uncle. The stripped-back, contemporary adaptation of the classic tale played a run at London’s Barbican and toured Europe earlier in the year, before making its way to Edinburgh. See interview at list.co.uk/festival Q King’s Theatre, 473 2000, 8–22 Aug (not 10, 17), 7.30pm, £17–£48 (£8.50–£24). Preview 7 Aug, £15–£44 (£7.50–£22).
4PM I Am Not Myself These Days Based on a true memoir, one man remembers his double life in 1990s New York: ad man by day and drag queen by night. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17, 24), 4.15pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. 10x10x10 Ten ten-minute-long theatrical monologues, written by ten comedians and performed by ten different comedians, to celebrate ten years of the award-winning Comedians’ Theatre Company. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug, 4.30pm, £9–£12 (£7–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
5PM Citizen Puppet ‘A sort of verbatim, true-crime, murder mystery, puppet docudrama.’ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 5pm, £9.50–£12 (£8.50–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6. Building God Poet David Lee Morgan calls for a revolution, inspired by science, Marxism and the dream of human potential. Banshee Labyrinth, 226 0000, 7–31 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 5.10pm, free. Muse The real woman behind Cabaret’s Sally Bowles, who turns out to be more than a sexy voice and a good pair of legs. SpaceTriplex, 510 2395, 10–29 Aug (not 16, 23), 5.15pm, £8–£10 (£7–£8).
6PM Trigger Happy! Dandy Darkly
simultaneously scares and arouses with
his latest satirical cabaret – political and sensual somehow. CC Blooms, 226 0000, 8–30 Aug (not 19), 6.45pm, free. The Year of the Hare Finnish existential detective drama based on a classic novel that deals with man’s battle with nature. Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 17, 24), 6.45pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 5–7 Aug, £6.
7PM Baba Brinkman’s Rap Guide to Climate Chaos The Canadian rapper
lays down the truth about the weather and its implications for human survival. Gilded Balloon, 622 6552, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 7pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 5–7 Aug, £7. Festivus One night at the hottest new music festival in the country, Festivus explores the emotional extremes of this hedonistic environment. C Venue, 0845 260 1234, 5–31 Aug (not 17), 7.30pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£6.50–£8.50).
8PM Alchemy of the Piano Will Pickvance
gets improvisational on his favourite instrument – expect magical moments of musical mayhem. Summerhall, 560 1581, 8–30 Aug (not 17, 24), 8.20pm, £12 (£8) (£30 F). Preview 7 Aug, £8. On Track One woman, one treadmill: provocative performance from Belgium presents autobiography both mental and physical. Summerhall, 560 1581, 7–30 Aug (not 9, 10, 13, 16, 17, 20, 23, 24, 27), 8.30pm, £10 (£8).
9PM The Temptation of St. Anthony
Music and movement explore the religious mania that saw one 4th-century saint decide to spend time alone, with his demons. Summerhall, 560 1581, 16–30 Aug (not 24), 9.15pm, £12 (£9) (£32 F). Previews 13–15 Aug, £7. A Brief History of Evil Scotland’s company of wolves give a big idea the physical theatre treatment. Summerhall, 560 1581, 7–11 Aug, 9.50pm, £10 (£9) (£38 F).
10PM Blake Remixed Great British mystic
is redesigned by Christian rapper Testament. Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–29 Aug (not 19), 10.15pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6. Jethro Compton’s Frontier Trilogy: The Rattlesnake’s Kiss Hidden
deep in the dust of the American West, the outlaw comes face to face with the lawman in search of justice. C nova, 0845 260 1234, 5–31 Aug, 10.30pm, £11.50–£13.50 (£9.50–£11.50).
11PM Weekend Rockstars What happens when our rocks start to fail us? What do we do when our stars don’t guide us where we thought they would? Underbelly Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, 8–30 Aug (not 17), 11.10pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
Festival
VISUAL ART
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LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
PHYLLIDA BARLOW: SET The influential tutor and sculptor brings new works to Edinburgh It’s the sheer, literal volume of Phyllida Barlow’s sculptural work that excites when it’s glimpsed in person. It fills the space, bearing a sense of weight and of oddly manipulated scale. The 71-year-old sculptor and former tutor to Douglas Gordon and Rachel Whiteread has created new work that is a mish-mash of largescale productions cast in wood, plastic and polystyrene, and daubed with paint and plaster. The materials are mostly lightweight, but the visual effect of these pieces suggest they’re precarious, bone-crushing things. In one corner a stack of stone-grey plaster ‘boulders’ totters on a sandwich arrangement of wooden pallets. In another, a bundle of pallets are piled dramatically in no particular – or traversable – order. Propped against the walls are chunky slabs of what might be concrete, while scaffolding and wooden posts are crudely cemented together in framelike arrangements. The sensations involved
in viewing these works are mixed, with the rogue paint covering the objects reminding of the bright disarray of an art studio and the concrete-effect materials used suggestive more of a building site. ‘Untitled: blockade’, is a breathtaking showpiece upstairs; a floor-to-ceiling circular wall of sharp-edged geometrical shapes ringing the room. Viewable almost entirely only from the outside, its occasional dead-end recesses accentuate the fact that any single viewpoint gives little opportunity to achieve a sense of perspective. The mind may be drawn to thoughts of the globalised economy by the piece; it’s like being lost in a maze of longdistance shipping containers, and only when we’re shown an accidental glimpse inside are we given any sense of its internal fragility. (David Pollock) Q Fruitmarket Gallery, 225 2383, until 18 Oct, free. OOOOO
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 95
FESTIVAL VISUAL ART | Hitlist
Rachael Cloughton highlights some of the best visual art in the festival’s first week
review, page 101. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two, 624 6200, until 27 Sep, £9 (£7).
ARIEL GUZIK: HOLOTURIAN This Mexican artist’s ultimate ambition is to build an undersea capsule to enable humans to communicate with sea life; in the meantime, he’s constructed a submarine musical instrument for the same purpose. See preview, page 101. Trinity Apse, until 30 Aug, free.
HANNE DARBOVEN: ACCEPTING ANYTHING AMONG EVERYTHING Mesmerising lists and tables of numbers are a major feature of one of the first major exhibitions in the UK by this important German conceptualist and composer, a friend and contemporary of Kosuth and Weiner. Talbot Rice Gallery, 650 2210, until 3 Oct, free.
HANNA TUULIKKI, SING SIGN: A CLOSE DUET A musical and visual work inspired by a 1765 street map, performed by composer / artist Tuulikki and Daniel Padden, and exploring the different ways in which we experience the city. See preview, page 98. Gladstone’s Land, 226 5856, until 30 Aug, free. THE AMAZING WORLD OF MC ESCHER Dreamlike, vivid yet always rigorously logical prints and engravings from the highly influential Dutch artist; amazingly, for an artist so embedded in the popular imagination, this is his first major retrospective in the UK. See
JOHN CHAMBERLAIN: SCULPTURES This American artist brought abstract expressionism to sculpture with his intriguing and oddly sensuous works made from parts of trashed cars; also featured are works in metal foil and perspex. See review, page 101. Inverleith House, 248 2971/2849, until 4 Oct, free. PHYLLIDA BARLOW: SET Towering sculptures and installations by a veteran artist and tutor enjoying a late-career resurgence after being tutor at the Slade to such distinguished artists as Rachel Whiteread and Martin Creed. Impressive, disturbing and
thought-provoking. See review, page 95. Fruitmarket Gallery, 225 2383, until 18 Oct, free. KENNARDPHILLIPPS: HERE COMES EVERYBODY Scabrous, uncompromising and sometimes darkly hilarious photomontages from Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps, whose ‘Photo Op’ made Tony Blair look like he was taking a selfie in front of a blazing oilfield. See feature, page 97. Stills Gallery, 622
6200, until 25 Oct, free. POP AND BOOM: 70 YEARS OF NUCLEAR CULTURE An interactive exploration of our love/ hate relationship (well, more lie-awakein-a-cold-sweat-worrying-about relationship) with nuclear weapons, to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. See feature, page 97. Gayfield Creative Spaces, 6–20 Aug, free.
Rethinking the past Free public lectures to challenge popular beliefs and reassess intriguing events from throughout history. 10–13 August 2015 www.shca.ed.ac.uk/festivallectures
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
96 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
MICHAEL WOLCHOVER
ART HITLIST
John Chamberlain: Sculptures
list.co.uk/festival
Protest Art | FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
PHOTO © KENNARDPHILLIPPS
kennardphillipps, Here Comes Everybody, [Study#1Paper money] (2015)
F O T R A E TH T S E T O R P Neil Cooper speaks to art-activists kennardphillipps and Carol Naughton about their Festival shows, and how they capture and inspire the spirit of dissent
B
omb Culture was the name of poet and painter Jeff Nuttall’s personal analysis of the 1960s counter-culture from a frontline which, in 1968, when his book was published, was still very much in place. Its title referred to how the threat of nuclear war had influenced a post-Hiroshima generation who embraced anti-nuclear sentiments through the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament (CND), founded in 1957 with a unilateral opposition to what would now be termed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Much of that spirit of dissent can be found in Here Comes Everybody and Pop and Boom: 70 Years of Nuclear Culture, two exhibitions which combine activism and art in a way where protest and people power becomes both mass spectacle and a work of art in itself. Where Here
Comes Everybody shows off a series of photomontages and digital prints by kennardphillipps, the collaborative duo of Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps, Pop and Boom is a compendium of pop cultural artefacts inspired by the nuclear threat, and pulled together by Greenham Common veteran Carol Naughton to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. ‘If you just show images of the disaster itself,’ Naughton explains, ‘there’s a horror to it and people switch off, so I wanted to commemorate it in a way that felt real for people, and show how nuclear weapons have influenced popular culture. In the first years it was purely reactive, then in the 80s the whole thing took off as protest rose, and the two together were very powerful. Nowadays nuclear weapons in books and films are incidental, and people don’t realise what nuclear weapons are, so part of the exhibition is to remind people of their significance.’ It was Kennard’s images in the 1980s for CND, Stop the War and other campaign groups that provided a visual identity for a youth-driven protest movement that was immediate and subversive in a way that chimed with the post-punk era’s alternative DIY cut-and-paste aesthetic. ‘At that time it seemed like EP Thompson, the veteran CND activist, would be in the NME every week,’ Kennard observes. ‘It was cruise missiles that brought people together, but today they’re seen as acceptable 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 97
FESTIVAL VISUAL ART | Protest Art
Comes Everybody, kennardphillipps, Here 5) [Study#2 Austerity] (201
CALL AND RESPONSE
and as a part of life. Part of our exhibition is to show people what’s been going on, so you get an aesthetic experience, but it also might activate them, even if that might take 15 years.’ This trickle-down effect can be seen in the way the Greenham protests against Trident – which Kennard likens to ‘a living collage’ – influenced the Occupy movement’s collective actions that re-engaged people with grassroots protest following the politically moribund New Labour years. kennardphillips is a direct result of this, with their best-known work probably being ‘Photo Op’, which fuses together an image of a grinning Tony Blair taking a selfie on his mobile phone against a backdrop of a burning oilfield in Iraq. Described by the Guardian as ‘the definitive work of art about the Iraq war’, kennardphillipps’ 2005 piece was chosen by the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester as the image for a poster to promote an exhibition about the relationship between contemporary art and war. With two of the UK’s biggest advertising companies refusing to display it, this exposed how public spaces can be controlled by commercial forces. Phillipps agrees with Kennard that their fusion of activism and art aims to ‘activate a conversation. The space in Stills for Here Comes Everybody is very much a space for conversation, and that’s going to develop into a conversation with the stuff that’s already there at the moment as well as the stuff that’s going to come in, but there’s a verbal conversation as well, and the space has been designed as a place to hang out as much as anything. There’s no one thing that dominates the space, and it’s going to be completely different in a couple of weeks.’ This will be the result of whatever comes from kennardphillipps’ War on War Room, an open access workshop space that will set up shop in the St James Centre, where, assisted by kennardphillipps with Glasgow artist Scott Laing, people will be able to make their own work which will then form part of Here Comes Everybody. ‘I think that’s where I see what art can do,’ says Naughton. ‘It’s about inspiring people to take an issue and come to the shopping centre and express how you feel about it. It’s not just showing the history of something. It’s showing how public protest can change things.’ kennardphillipps, Here Comes Everybody, Stills, 622 6200, until 25 Oct, free; The War on War Room, St James Centre, until 31 Aug, free. Pop and Boom, Gayfield Creative Spaces, gayfield.co.uk, until 20 Aug, free. The exhibition will open with Launching The Bomb on 6 Aug, featuring performances by Mark Thomas, Vladimir McTavish and Samba Sene and Divan, plus appearances by Peter Kennard and Cat Phillipps. 98 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Sarah Hardie is an artist, art writer and curator, specialising in the human voice. Artist, composer and vocalist Hanna Tuulikki (pictured below) works across a range of visual and audio forms, with a focus on the voice as a means to build worlds out of sound. Here they talk about their respective performances: songs for someone who isn’t there and SING SIGN. Sarah Hardie: It seems we are very interested in call and response, but we actually work with this form in different ways: your commission for the Edinburgh Art Fesival, SING SIGN: a close duet, captures a longed for reciprocity which I find our moment of promised connectivity (eg. social media) often actually fails to deliver, whereas mine, songs for someone who isn’t there, is very interested in the call and (lack of) response, a failed reciprocity, a violent silence … Hanna Tuulikki: Interesting connection. Within SING SIGN: a close duet, there is call and response, but the relationship shifts with neither vocalist dominating the ‘call’. In terms of call-response as performance, in my work the audience encounters a formal exchange, a duet. In yours, they seem part of the exchange. Do the vocalists in your performance call out to the audience? SH: Yes, my work generally calls out to an imagined or lost ‘someone’, which is each member of the audience and none of them simultaneously. Ed Atkins, David Austen, Crispin Best and Marco Godoy’s works presented in songs for someone who isn’t there, alongside my guiding work of song, can each be read as a ‘lullaby’ to someone who isn’t there – by ‘lullaby’ I mean a way of understanding oneself as alone. I’m testing the ground between the singer and the ‘someone’ – asking ‘someone’ to sing back, playing out the inevitable failed promise of reciprocity. songs for someone who isn’t there sees song as a kind of (dead-end) pathway to reach the lost ‘someone’. I wanted to ask you about this idea of song as pathway in relation to SING SIGN. HT: Quite literally, my score derives from pathways, from a 1765 Edinburgh street map. The wordless melody splits between the singers in accordance with the ‘closes’ branching off the Royal Mile. Adopting BSL, the choreography translates street names into gesture. Like you, I’m interested in paths – closes – as metaphors of connection and separation. Q Hanna Tuulikki, SING SIGN: a close duet, Gladstone’s Land, 226 5856, until 30 Aug (live performances, Fountain Close, 8, 15, 29 Aug), free, edinburghartfestival.com
PHOTO © ROBIN GILLANDERS
PHOTO © KENNARDPHILLIPPS
HANNA TUULIKKI AND SARAH HARDIE
Catching a show you’ve never even heard of, but it’s the best bes thing you’ve ou’v ever seen…
Find out who’s performing this year 07-31 August 2015
edfringe.com
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 99
The UK’s largest annual festival of visual art 30 July—30 August 2015 edinburghartfestival.com Festival commissions Charles Avery Marvin Gaye Chetwynd Julie Favreau Emma Finn Ariel Guzik Hanna Tuulikki Kemang Wa Lehulere Important historic and modern surveys Lee Miller and Picasso at Scottish National Portrait Gallery, M.C. Escher at Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, David Bailey at Scottish National Gallery, John Bellany at Open Eye Gallery, James Morrison at The Scottish Gallery, significant surveys of Scottish art at The Queen’s Gallery and City Art Centre, Victorian photography at National Museum of Scotland
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100 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
Solo presentations Phyllida Barlow at The Fruitmarket Gallery, John Chamberlain at Inverleith House, Kwang Young Chun at Dovecot Gallery, Charles Avery at Ingleby Gallery, Hanne Darboven at Talbot Rice Gallery, Beatrice Gibson at Collective, Tara Donovan at Jupiter Artland, Toby Paterson at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, kennardphillipps at Stills, Derek Michael Besant at Edinburgh Printmakers New generation artists The Number Shop, Rhubaba, Skinny Showcase, Edinburgh College of Art, Platform: 2015, a new festival initiative showcasing early career artists Art Late & Detours Acts include Phill Jupitus at Inverleith House, Carol Ann Duffy at Talbot Rice Gallery, Man of Moon at Collective, Miaoux Miaoux at Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Story Pocket Theatre at Jupiter Artland, WHITE at The Biscuit Factory
Previews & Reviews | FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
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REVIEW THE AMAZING WORLD OF MC ESCHER First major UK retrospective of the influential Dutch artist and designer OOOOO
PHOTO © MICHAEL WOLCHOVER
PHOTO © TOM NOLAN
To label the work of Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher ‘undiscovered’ is anything but correct, yet the fact that this is his first major retrospective in the UK exposes the ring of truth to such a description. Escher, of course, is one of the most familiar artists of the 20th century, but his standing in the contemporary art world doesn’t mirror that of, say, Picasso or Dali, fellow subjects of mass market hardback collections. Like Dali in particular, Escher created works that were accessible but mind-bending. They made him a visual icon to the 1960s’ counterculture and, long after his death in 1972, his work’s mesmerising sense of logical confusion – Escher was fascinated by mathematics – found its way into visual tributes by way of everything from the movie Labyrinth to The Simpsons. The show starts with the first half of his life, when he trained as an architect and then worked as a graphic artist in relative obscurity until the mid-1930s, developing fascinations with woodcut printing, the Arabic tiling of the Alhambra in Spain, and rendering images of buildings, inspired by his time in Italy. Returning to northern Europe in 1933, Escher began to create some of his more famous pieces: geometric riddles which combined clean monochrome, hallucinatory images and a liking for puzzles of perspective and repeated patterns. The fact that he created many prints means that all of the major works have been sourced, including the baffling staircase arrangement ‘Up and Down’ and the much-copied maze of logicdefying stairs ‘Relativity’. In person, the intricacy and detail of these delicately shaded, almost photorealistic works becomes as vivid as the singular visions they portray. (David Pollock) Q Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two, 624 6200, until 27 Sep, £9 (£7).
PREVIEW ARIEL GUZIK: HOLOTURIAN
REVIEW FRANCE-LISE MCGURN: 3AM
REVIEW JOHN CHAMBERLAIN: SCULPTURES
Mexican artist presents underwater invention
Ambiguous mixed media works from the Collective Gallery’s Satellites Programme OOOOO
Dynamic creations by late American sculptor
Questions of language, gender and identity permeate this body of work by Glasgow-based France-Lise McGurn, part of Collective’s Satellites Programme for emerging artists. A sound work, broadcasting softly to the crowds on Calton Hill, sets the tone. Inspired by castrato singers, it immediately creates ambiguity: male or female voices? Human or electronically made? The ambiguity continues inside. McGurn paints androgynous figures, drawn from a range of sources: illustrations in French language textbooks, product advertisements, vintage health posters. They have the confidence of line of modernist oil sketches, but any identity or meaning is veiled. The ideas then extend into installations made of sections of printed vinyl, cardboard boxes, and knotted electrical cable sculpted into shapes, draped with paint-stained fabrics. Her work is said to be ‘groping at the frustrations and instabilities of language’, but she counters this with a deliberate ambiguity which doesn’t help pin down the problem. This is a show in which even the questions being addressed are unclear. (Susan Mansfield). Q Collective Gallery, 556 1264, until 30 Aug, free.
Inverleith House lost its Creative Scotland funding earlier this year, but not before programming a coup for the summer, the first major UK exhibition by American sculptor John Chamberlain. Chamberlain, who died in 2011, has gone down in the annals of art history as ‘the man who crushed cars’. This exhibition tells us how much of a genius he was. Outside, four large sculptures in bright metallic colours have a pop-art Jeff Koons garishness about them. The real revelation is inside, though. The ground floor gives us classic Chamberlain, sculptures made from car parts. Sometimes they are crushed into new shapes, often they are used as is; at no point does he disguise what they are. Yet they are grouped into new shapes with an acute sensitivity to both form and colour. Chamberlain sculpts like a painter: this is the abstract expressionism of the scrapyard. Upstairs is perhaps more remarkable still: sculptures made from foam, tied with cord, presenting a different face from each new angle. Chamberlain takes ordinary, disposable things and, while never denying what they are, transforms them into surprising new things. (Susan Mansfield) Q Inverleith House, 248 2849, until 4 Oct, free.
Ariel Guzik more than qualifies as a visual artist who ‘conjures an imaginary world in their work’, a criterion for this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival Commissions Programme. The objective for Guzik’s complex practice incorporating invention is a practical one, albeit one that alludes to a magical and largely unknown part of our planet; for over a decade, the artist has searched for ways to communicate with cetaceans. ‘Whales and dolphins are true others; a parallel civilisation to ours. If in this process we achieve a simple gesture, just an exchange of glances – as has happened in my experiences in Baja California and Costa Rica with the Nereida capsule – the meaning of this search is fulfilled,’ says Guzik. For his first exhibition in the UK, visitors will have the chance to get up close with Guzik’s latest endeavour. ‘Holoturian is the product of several decades of work designing and building machines and instruments in my lab,' he explains. It also brings Guzik one step closer to his ultimate ambition of inventing an underwater manned ship, the Narcisa, that will enable encounters between humans and cetaceans. (Laura Campbell) Q Trinity Apse, until 30 Aug, free.
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6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 101
THE LIST EVENTS
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The List EVENTS
Events
CALENDAR FESTIVAL DETOURS: A POCKETFUL OF GRIMMS Story Pocket Theatre brings the Brothers Grimm’s stories alive (see preview, page 63). Part of Edinburgh Art Festival. Jupiter Artland, 01506 889900, 7 Aug, 4pm, £4.
FESTIVAL DETOURS: PHILL JUPITUS The comic and TV panellist goes all poetic. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival. Inverleith House, 248 2971, 12 Aug, 4pm, ÂŁ4.
NOTHING EVER HAPPENS HERE IN ASSOCIATION WITH BLACK T NIGHTS: BILL WELLS & AIDAN MOFFAT With support from SAY Award-winner Kathryn Joseph (see preview, page 70). Summerhall, 560 1580, 12 Aug, 9pm, ÂŁ14.
ART LATE NORTH: WHITE Glasgow band on the rise headline Edinburgh Art Festival’s tour of late-night performances and talks in the city. The Biscuit Factory, 629 0809, 13 Aug, 9.15pm, £5.
MUSEUM AFTER HOURS See preview, left. National Museum of Scotland, 0300 123 6789, 14 Aug, 7pm, ÂŁ16 (ÂŁ14). Also 21, 28 Aug.
MUSEUM AFTER HOURS: FRIDAY FRINGE TAKEOVER A night at the museum offering a showcase of global performers
F
or three nights during August, the National Museum of Scotland opens its doors after hours, giving audiences a multi-genre spectacle of international Fringe talent programmed by the festival gurus here at The List. For the first of those three nights, on Friday 14 August, the main stage plays host to Seed: Advancement, as Japanese group Tenrindaiko blend taiko drumming and swordplay in a fastpaced display of rhythm and skill. 360 ALLSTARS (see preview, page 56) present their urban take on the traditional circus, replacing jugglers and unicycles with professionals in disciplines such as basketball freestyling, breakdancing and BMX Flatland. If those acts don’t get you moving, Discotheque Machine (see preview, page 58) will. These dancers, or ‘morphs’, want to cure you of your dance floor shyness and they’ve an extensive soundtrack and a talent for imitation to help them achieve it. Those seeking to be amazed can join magician Kevin McMahon as he blends magic with science or Renz Novani, the Poet of the Impossible, as he performs card magic and sleight of hand accompanied by eloquent prose. Fans of spoken word poetry can listen to the musings of ‘Stay-atHome-Dandy’ Luke Wright and ‘Nerdsmith’ Dan Simpson. As well as live entertainment across three stages, this adults only event offers bars, street food and a chance to explore the galleries. (Rowena McIntosh)
ART LATE SOUTH: MIAOUX MIAOUX Scottish producer, musician and songwriter Julian Victor Corrie will close Edinburgh Art Festival’s second Art Late event. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 624 6200, 20 Aug, 6pm, £5.
FESTIVAL DETOURS: CAROL ANN DUFFY WITH JOHN SAMPSON The first female poet laureate teams up with her favourite musician. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival. Talbot Rice Gallery, 650 2210, 21 Aug, 6pm, ÂŁ4.
EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL: LIMMY Creator of the BAFTA-winning Limmy’s Show, Brian Limond has written his first book, Daft Wee Stories (see preview, page 70). Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 373 5888, 22 Aug, 9.45pm, £10 (£8).
FESTIVAL DETOURS: MAN OF MOON Bluesy noirish duo on a rapid rise out of obscurity. Part of Edinburgh Art Festival. Collective Gallery, 556 1264, 26 Aug, 7pm, ÂŁ4.
National Museum of Scotland, 0300 123 6789, 14 Aug, 7.30pm, £16 (£14). Also 21, 28 Aug. 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 102
FESTIVAL INDEX
Festival INDEX 10X10X10 94 360 Allstars 56, 102 4X4 Ephemeral Architectures 54 A Pocketful of Grimms 5, 60, 63, 102 Aatif Nawaz 40 Adam Bennett 60 Adrienne Truscott 4, 32, 49 Ahir Shah 14 Aidan Moffat 70, 102 Akram Khan 54, 55 Albee Vector the Sound Collector 60 Alchemy of the Piano 66, 94 Alex Edelman 32, 39 Alexi Murdoch 68 Alfie White: Space Explorer 5, 59, 60 Ali Brice 52 Alistair Barrie 33 Allien Lullabies 69 Alun Cochrane 52 Am I Dead Yet? 91 An Oak Tree 80 Angela Barnes 52 Anna Calvi 68 Antigone 5, 74, 94 Ariel Guzik 100, 101 Art Late 102 Aunty Donna 51 Austentatious 10, 48 Baba Brinkman 74, 91, 94 Bailey’s Stardust 4 Balletronic 5, 54 Beard 32, 35 Bec Hill 38 Beth Vyse 33 Bill Wells 70, 102 Blake Remixed 4, 85, 94 Blofeld and Baxter 51 Bobby Mair 52 Boris: World King 94 Bridget Christie 52 Building God 85, 94 Butoh Beethoven 56 Camille O’Sullivan 66 Carol Naughton 97 Charlie and the Philosorappers 85 Chicken 82 Chicken Licken and the Little Red Hen 60, 63 Chilly Gonzales 66, 68 Chris Turner 52 Cinder-Ella 64 Circa 54 Cirque Le Roux 58 Citizen Puppet 94 Clare Plested 52 Colin Leggo 33 Company Chordelia 54 Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl 80 Consumption 94 Correction 54 Crap Music Rave Party 66 Dan Simpson 102 Daniel Kitson 74, 82, 104 Danielle Ward 14 Danza Del Caribe: Itara 58 Darren Walsh 38 David Callaghan 52
Diane Spencer 52 Discotheque Machine 54, 58, 102 Distillation of Humanity: Whisky Theatre 28 Dive 66 Earlier / Later 82 Edinburgh Gin’s Night of Literature and Liquor 28 Electric Dreams 94 Every Brilliant Thing 82 Fausted 94 Fawlty Towers 94 FEAST 80 Felicity Ward 33 Fern Brady 2, 52 Festival Detours 102 Festivus 94 Flight 63 France-Lise McGurn 101 From Scotland with Love 68 Frost and Ireland 52 Funmbi Omotayo 45 Funz and Gamez Tooz 60 Gary Little 52 George Egg: Anarchist Cook 28 Goldie 70 Guru Dudu’s Silent Disco 27 Gyles Brandreth 52 Hal Cruttenden 50 Hanna Tuulikki 98, 100 History of Porridge 28 Hotel Paradiso 53 Hula House 27 I Am Not Myself These Days 94 Impossible 74 Imran Yusuf 40 Islands 94 Jack Campbell 52 Jay Rayner: My Dining Hell 28 Jellybean Martinez 52 Jem Brookes 38 Jenny Bede 45 Jethro Compton 27, 94 Joanna Neary 46 Joe Lycett 49 John Chamberlain 101 John Henry Falle 52 John-Luke Roberts 33 Jonny and the Baptists 82 Jonny Pelham 45 Joseph Morpurgo 5, 32, 48 Juliette Binoche 5, 74, 94 Kaiser Quartett 68 Katherine Ryan 4, 31 Kathryn Joseph 70 kennardphillipps 97 Kevin McMahon 102 Key Change 15, 74 King Creosote 68 Kitten Killers 50 Late’n’Live 52 Laura Lexx 33 Lazy Susan 51 Le Gateau Chocolat 5, 69 Lee Nelson 51 Leo Kearse 38 Liam Williams 5, 13, 32 Limbo 11
Need help navigating your way around our Festival coverage? We’ve made a neat list of all the Festival shows covered in this issue right here. We’ll leave you to add your own highlighter pen notes or Biro scribbles around it, as you wish
Limmy 102 Lloyd Griffith 52 Lolly 45 Lost Map’s Howlin’ Fringe 65 Lou Sanders 52 Luke Wright 102 Lungs 82 Mac Twins 69 Mark Steel 33 Mark Thomas 52 Marshall Jefferson 70 Massaoke 66 Matthew Crosby 52 MC Escher 101 Mel Moon 33 Mid-Brow 51 Mike Wozniak 14 Milton Jones 39 Miss Sarah 94 Morgan Berry 14 Morgana Le Fay 85 Muse 94 Museum After Hours 102 Neil Henry 49 Nick Cody 45 Nightmares on Wax 70 Nijinsky’s Last Jump 54 Nish Kumar 4, 32 Ockham’s Razor 56 Oliver Meech 49 Omar Hamdi 40 Optimo 70 Our Teacher’s a Troll 82 Paines Plough 82 Panto Science: The Periodic Fable 64 Paradise Bride 85 Paul Lucas 73, 74 Peter Antoniou 49 Phil Jerrod 45 Phyllida Barlow 95 Piff the Magic Dragon 19, 49 Pip Utton: Playing Maggie 89 Pippa Evans 14 Polyphony 74, 82 Pop and Boom 97 Puddles Pity Party 5, 18 Rap Guide to Climate Chaos 74, 91, 94 Reclaiming Vietnam 92 Richard Pulsford 38 Roaring Accordion 66 Robert Glasper 5, 67 Robert Lepage 10 Robin Morgan 52 Roundabout @ Summerhall 82 Sajeela Kershi 40 Sam Simmons 5, 19, 32, 42 Sarah Callaghan 44 Satan Speaks: Why I Don’t Exist 85 Scottish Ballet 54, 56 Seymour Mace 52 Shakespeare Untold 60, 61 Simon McBurney 10, 74, 75 Simon Munnery 52 Simon Slack 52 Sing For Your Life 91 Sirenia 27 Spank 52 Sparrow-Folk 51
Special Edition 2015 54, 56 Spectretown 94 Stef Smith 20, 74 Stephen Carlin 52 Stephen K Amos 52 Steve Hall 50 Stewart Francis 32, 39 Swallow 20, 74 Sylvie Guillem 4, 10, 54, 55 Tenrindaiko 102 Terry Farley 70 Tether 89 Tez Ilyas 40 The Art of Reduction 28 The Barry Delusion 52 The Bookbinder 63 The Christians 5, 74, 86 The Clean (As Possible) Comedy Show 52 The Colour Ham 49 The Elephant in the Room 58 The Encounter 74, 75 The Enourmous Turnip 28 The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven 4, 85 The HandleBards 27 The Harmonium Project 4, 23, 66 The Hendrick’s Emporium of Sensorial Submersion 28 The History of Gluttony 28 The History of Music 60, 64 The Human Ear 82 The Improverts 52 The Jest 52 The Magic Porridge Pot and Other Tasty Tales 60 The Maids 94 The Mrs. Mash Show 28 The Outsider 92 The Red Chair 79 The Secret Life of Suitcases 60 The Soaking of Vera Shrimp 92 The Temptation of St. Anthony 85, 94 The Tubes 70 The Wee Man 52 The Year of the Hare 94 This Will End Badly 94 Thünderbards 51 Titania: A Solo Cabaret 69 Tonight With Donny Stixx 74, 86 Tony Law 52 Trans Scripts 5, 73, 74 Trevor Feelgood 52 Trigger Happy! 94 Tristissimo 58 Trygve Wakenshaw 52 Urinetown 94 Vanity Bites Back 79 Vertical Influences 54 Wave Movements 68 Weekend Rockstars 94 When Blair Had Bush and Bunga 91 Where Do Little Birds Go? (Underbelly) 89 Whisky Tango Foxtrot (Underbelly) 89 Worbey and Farrell 66 You Look Tasty! 64 Yve Blake 50 6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 103
DANIEL KITSON
From The List
ARCHIVE
Who’s this fresh-faced and considerably more hirsute young fella? Only Daniel Kitson in 2002 – the year he won the Perrier. Seems the notoriously elusive comedian wasn’t always thus (though his ‘self-indulgent whimsy’ thankfully hasn’t changed much). Since then, he’s picked up a few Fringe Firsts for his more theatrical works and this year he’s back with Polyphony, a solo piece (with help from some audience members armed with iPods). Kitson’s not so free and easy with speaking to the press these days, so enjoy this wee interview we did with him in August 2002, before he became the cult behemoth he is now. Polyphony, 7–29 Aug (not 11, 18, 25) 12.15pm, Roundabout @ Summerhall, £12. It’s sold out though. Sorry.
NEXT ISSUE
WED 12 AUG
No rest for the wicked. Our next issue will be packed with tons of Fringe reviews, as well as EIF, Art and Book fest chat. Plus, keep up to date on list.co.uk/festival for more reviews than you can shake a flyer at and follow us: @thelistmagazine and facebook.com/ thelistmagazine 104 THE LIST FESTIVAL 6–13 Aug 2015
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