Fest 2010 Issue 1

ee Fr

www.festmag.co.uk ival the best fest reviews!

INSIDE

Keepers Doon MacKichan Penny Dreadfuls Hans Teeuwen

Colin Hoult watch out Edinburgh, he's created a monster!

Comedy, theatre, music and more: your complete guide to the festivals

festcontents

Tales from

Edinburgh #1 Russell Kane: mistaken identity

T

wo years ago I realised how much I looked like Pete Firman. He has the same problem. We’ll have each other’s names hollered as we canter past mistaken comedy fans; if they chase asking for a photo, no blushes follow, no apologies, no realisation that one human has been utterly mixed up with another.

They don’t see it, even up close. Pete and I find it less hurtful to play along. So I hug his adorer and grimace meekly into the tiny digital lens as it captures its false memory.

The most surreal moment was in 2008, when I was sitting with my girlie in the Loft Bar at the Gilded Balloon. I still had the gig-sweat in my hair and on my shirt. The endorphins hadn’t quite finished with me; I had that marvellous glow of apres-gig satisfaction. That’s when a forty-something well-groomed Scottish woman plonked herself on a stool at our tiny table. “How was it?” she said.

“The show?” I said.

“Aye.” I’m at a stage in my career where I have to pretend to recognise someone even if I don’t. She looked important - she had that TV-person aura about her. “Great! Hot, as usual, but the audience loved it.” I said. She laughed warmly.

“Aye - it’s a funny shaped room.” My room was an oblong. A plain rectangle. It couldn’t be less funny if it had pictures of Maddy nailed to the wall.

“I suppose so, yes,” I managed.

“Now, tomorrow!” She clapped her hands. I caught a waft of Chanel. She was assured. Who the fuck was she?

“Tomorrow...err.. Yes.” She continued unfazed by the social terror in my eyes.

“I’ve got the radio confirmed for 11am, press for 3pm - and the face-to-face at 6pm.”

“Right.” I said. She was clearly insane.

“You’ll be back in time for tea.” We both laughed – her warmly, me weakly. “You really do look sweaty, young man.”

“That’s a Pleasance venue for you.”

“The Pleasance?”

“The Besilde.”

“What the hell were you doing over there?” There was an awkward moment.

Her mouth gaped again - she still smiled, but there was a degree of whirring going on. A pause.

“I don’t know,” I said. We both laughed again.

“You’re mad,” she said, “Mad!” She then stood up. If she hadn’t said what she said next I never would have understood: “See you later, Pete!” she said brightly as she left. I’d just had a meeting with Pete Firman’s publicity advisor. The person in charge of knowing his every movement.

And she hadn’t had a clue.

Russell Kane: Pleasance Courtyard, 9:10pm – 10:10pm, 4–30 Aug, not 11, 18, £5.00

Contacts

Fest is your free guide to the Edinburgh festivals Pick us up from venues across Edinburgh.

Publisher Sam Friedman

Editorial

Editor Evan Beswick Deputy Editor Ed Ballard Comedy Editor Lyle Brennan Theatre Editor Arianna Reiche Books & Music Nick Eardley Kids Editor Tom Hackett

Production

Creative Director Matthew MacLeod Photo Editor Julia Sanches Prod. Deputy Dan Nicholson-Heap Web Editor Craig Wilson

contact fest hello@festmag.co.uk 0131 651 6057 Published by

Fest Media Limited Registered in Scotland number SC344852 Registered address 30-38 Dalmeny Street, Edinburgh EH6 8RG Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but the publisher cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate. Show times, prices and venues may be subject to change.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher.

© Fest Media Limited 2010

Illustration - Abigail Beeley

4 fest

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festcontents 8 Features 12 Victims of comedy

Forming a close relationship with a comedian can be a risky business

16 Doon MacKichan

The star of Smack the Pony and The Day Today explains the allure of serious theatre

19 Comedy

26 Hans Teeuwen

The absurdist comedian, singer and political activist is a chaotic delight

27 Sophie Black

The Former Fat Tongue comedian falls a bit flat in her solo Fringe effort

27 Celia Pacquola

Single-life never sounded so charming in Pacquola's novel stand-up

28 Miles Jupp

Cricket, stand-up and unashamed poshery find perfect comic harmony

41 Theatre

42 What Would Helen Mirren Do?

Anita Parry finds inspiration in the world's sauciest Dame

43 Traverse Love Stories

The legendary Traverse Theatre paints contemporary love with morbidity and whimsy

44 Trapping(s)

The much-hyped experimental dance piece drowns in cliché

54 Bunny

Jack Thorne's surreal new work explores urban coming-of-age

60 Kids

60 Junior reviewers

Fest's team of kids cast their eyes over Farm Boy and the List Operators

61 John Hegley

The mandolin-playing absurdist is has been involved in children's theatre since the 1970s

62 Music

62 Professor Green

The British hiphop hero on his journey from the estates of Hackney to the top of the charts

66 Books

66 New Labour's Legacy

The verdict on the Blair-Brown era from two people intimately involved with them

68 Hot tickets

Events in Charlotte Square sell out fast - but some talks still have tickets left

70 Listings The only magazine with full Fringe comedy and theatre listings!

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 5

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11:15am

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perfectday Face it: you're never going to see or do everything that the festivals have to offer. But with a bit of planning, you can at least do the best of what's going on.

Better still, let the fest team plan your perfect day!

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 7

Creating a

Monster After the low-key success of last year’s Carnival of Monsters, Colin Hoult returns to the Fringe with an army of characters new and old.

Lyle Brennan talks to a man ready to up the ante for 2010

I

n London’s Camden Market, swarms of crusty old punks and goth kids are weaving past parlours offering custom tattoos, genital piercing and decorative scarification. If you want to be different, this is where you come to get the right look, build a suitably obscure record collection and drink alongside people every bit as unique as yourself. In the stalls, independent traders pander to all manner of subcultures and alternative lifestyles – but in the little black box of the Etcetera Theatre, perched above it all, something genuinely odd is coming to life.

“Like a slug!”

“Like a heron!”

“A bit less Germanic.”

“Yes, and then you grab her arse.”

Colin Hoult paces the stage, gnawing at an apple as he cycles through a medley of misfits, each of his characters rendered with its own accent, bearing and particular brand of wretchedness.

It’s three nights before the fourth preview of Enemy of the World, and experimentation is still in full effect.

Crying out these instructions like callers at the world’s weirdest line dance are director-cum-cast-member Steve Evans (previously of sketch group The Dutch Elm Conservatoire) and producer Kat Nugent (Hoult’s wife). Zoe Gardner later steps through the door and right into character, bouncing off Hoult with an impossibly straight face and a similar knack for the ridiculous. Together they are piecing together what will become the follow-up to Carnival of Monsters, an hour of twisted character comedy and anarchic sketches that in 2009 took a portakabin by the Pleasance Court-

yard and turned it into a freak show.

Watching at this early stage, the effect is something like flicking between channels: out of context, few of these rough ideas make sense. The cast look jarringly ordinary in t-shirts and trainers, Evans’s guitar is currently of the air variety – and yet these scraps of colourful characters and pitch-black humour are unmistakably products of the same mind that spawned last year’s offering.

Hoult's latest show looks even more ambitious than Carnival – which was far from safe. “I’ve gone beyond my means a bit," he admits, "and decided to do a trilogy.”

Whereas the first in the series centred on monsters, this latest instalment (his Empire Strikes Back, he calls it) will push villains to the forefront, before things come to a close with the theme of heroes. It’s a big idea, a product of an excitable imagination that's not easily put out by low budgets, small casts and smaller theatres.

The challenge of paring down these grand designs to a more practicable form has become something of a recurring theme in Hoult’s work. Given the macabre tone of Enemy of the World, it comes as a surprise to hear Walt Disney named as an influence, but it was the animator’s creative strategy of filtering ideas through a workforce divided into three groups—Dreamers, Realists and Critics—that inspired Hoult’s method.

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 9

festfeature To him, the first of these roles comes naturally, and so we have a comedy show with the look of 1920s German cabaret, structured around life, death and beyond, and soundtracked by "the band from the Titanic, as ghosts." Among the ideas Hoult floated while writing was a recreation of an entire scene from Transformers: The Movie. Another began with the premise "that the BNP had taken over Britain, and this was the sketch show that could happen in that world." Today, though, his more realistic and critical (yet sufficiently indulgent) team is more concerned with the practicalities of using a Mr Potato Head prop for three weeks without the spud rotting.

Having been reined in, last year’s final product took on the feel of a macaroniand-glitter-glue homage to the melodramatic and macabre tradition of the horror genre. It was shot through with observational wit, songs and snippets of poetry. Today’s rehearsal suggests that this recipe will remain constant, showing traces of Hoult’s geeky admiration for the excess of HP Lovecraft novels and

the kitsch of Doctor Who (an episode of which lends its name to this year’s show).

This is a man whose honeymoon on the Costa del Sol involved a special detour to a "witchcraft and torture museum" which housed shrunken heads, an iron maiden and a ludicrous hybrid animal exhibit that one Flickr user dubbed "Toad with a lawyer’s face." He talks about these grotesque and exotic inspirations with a starry-eyed enthusiasm that brings to mind Ed Wood, the director of sensational ‘50s B-movies and subject of Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic. Appropriately, today's rehearsal is interrupted when a sound effect lifted from a thousand flying saucer scenes warbles from his phone.

Despite an aesthetic that draws on exploitation cinema and Victorian gothic, his characters will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who has encountered the eccentricities of everyday life. The "monsters" Hoult conjures up were spawned not in dungeons and laboratories but in the supermarkets and job centres of his native Nottingham.

Take Len Parker, the superficially macho martial arts enthusiast whom he unleashed on the studio audience of BBC3’s Russell Howard’s Good News late last year. This deeply insecure hard man evolved from a resident at the nursing home where Hoult used to work: “The first day I got there, he was sat there in a string vest—a really big bloke—and he was like, "So you’re working here now, are you? Do you do karate? He wasn’t nice like Len, he was actually sort of horrible. And he did this whole thing about how he used to do karate and he was in this competition against a 12-year-old lad – he broke his arm!”

Hoult’s brash thespian, Anna Mann, was also born in reality. Hoult is too tactful to identify the true inspiration for this deranged old ham, but he confirms that she sprouted from his background in theatre. Lapsing into the character’s abrasive RP, he recounts what it was like to work with what he admiringly terms "real actors": “They just talk – but they’re

all quite thick, which I find fascinating. I was reading a book at the time and this person went, ‘What are you reading?’ I was reading Crime and Punishment, so I told her and she went, ‘Oh, fuck off! Oh, that’s wonderful! Oh, you clever man!

Clever boy! You’re very brainy, aren’t you?

Oh, shut up. You’re a genius!’”

Though he speaks of these muses with a sort of baffled fondness, the resulting treatments can, at times, be unflinchingly cruel: "It’s been a shit life," reflects one of his more piteous creations, having endured decades of bullying. The consensus in the room is that this particular line might be just a shade too gloomy.

"Yeah, but there are a lot of people who’ve never had a good moment," Hoult protests, grinning. It’s typical of a performer who, when not simply indulging in the outlandish, seems to revel in making his audiences squirm with unbearably pathetic personas, ensuring that the hour is never quite an easy ride for those watching.

Through a series of uninhibited audience interactions, last year’s show saw the tables turned to expose an off-guard public as the true monsters of its title.

As might be expected from a theatre school graduate, Hoult puts this down to the influence of avant-garde dramatist and serial fourth-wall botherer Bertolt Brecht, who has an unlikely successor in Hoult and his playful harassment of the front rows.

“Yes, you’re creating this world,” he argues, “but at the same time these people are in the room with you, and it can be quite pretentious to pretend they’re not.”

The approach is yet to go wrong, though he recalls a torrent of Twitter abuse he received after a BBC3 viewer failed spectacularly to realise that the supposed audience member Hoult had picked on was in fact credited cast member, Dan Snelgrove. Inevitably, Hoult is coy when asked if Snelgrove (whom he poached from a local punk band purely for his reckless stage antics) will return for Enemy of the World. But regardless of who or what is involved this time, Hoult’s Fringe audiences can expect to find themselves dragged into the midst of his bizarre little world.

“It’s not a power thing,” he insists. “I don’t want to humiliate people. But if it works it’ll actually feel quite joyous.”

Pleasance Courtyard, 4:45pm – 5:45pm, 4–30 Aug, £5.00

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festfeature

The victims of

comedy

12 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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festfeature Spend a lot of time around a comic and you run the risk of making an unflattering appearance in a standup set. Fern Brady finds out whether or not there is such a thing as too close to home

I

f you've ever avoided the front row of a comedy gig for fear of becoming an unwilling participant in the show, then you'll have some sympathy for the partners and families of comedians, whose lives regularly feature in standup gigs.

Comedy in which audiences are assured that what they're hearing is a "true story" has the potential to be memorable and unique. But the lengths comics will go to—the sheer willingness to compromise their personal lives for the sake of the audience's enjoyment—is fascinating. But what are the consequences when they step off stage?

The case of American comic Sunda Croonquist is a cautionary tale to all who tread this fine line. She made the news last year when, after years of mother-inlaw jokes, the woman in question finally snapped – and sued her.

Think of it as a spectrum of how much people are willing to reveal: at one end there are comedians who use nothing

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Left - Des Bishop

Above - Kai Humphries & partner, Kylie

Next page - Jason Cook

"All of a sudden I'll realise that, just for a short space of time, I'm being flippant about something that's not as flippant as it seems" personal; at the other are those that take episodes straight from real life and bring them directly to the stage. The space in the middle is occupied by those who draw on real life but blur the edges a bit, either to soften the blow to the victims of comedy or to accentuate the funny in a particular incident.

Seattle-based comic Dave Fulton plans to bring a show to next year’s Fringe with the working title, “Based on a True Story”.

He claims that some comics have such an appetite for anecdotes that they find themselves engineering real life in search of situations that can be used onstage.

“It's not like I look for weird stuff to happen

to me but I've got friends that actually seek out weird things they can talk about on stage. Doug Stanhope's like that. And then there’s the people that pass off an invented episode as an anecdote. “People so often go ‘True story! True story!’ and it never is,” complains Fulton.

For many comics, the process of turning real-life incidents into a comedic narrative seems to serve as a way to distance themselves from the upsetting reality of a situation. Fulton recalls a recent set he performed after his sister was violently attacked by her boyfriend. “I talked about the fact that this piece of shit did that and he got sent to prison, but because he was

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 13

festfeature arrested and I never could get at him, I decided to get his address in prison and set him up with catalogues that advertised children's underwear products. The prison wouldn't let it go through cause it was considered offensive material. Children's underwear! She was in the audience when I performed that and she loved it.”

Kai Humphries and Jason Cook are two comedians who often find the temptation to turn a domestic argument into a joke too great to resist. And even though Cook’s wife tries to get him not to perform material about their private lives, she seems resigned to the fact that he will continue nonetheless.

“We did have words once,” Cook recollects.

“Because I wrote a bit and thought ‘I'll do it when she's not there’ – then one night I forgot she was there. It was something deeply sexual. It was about boobs. It was about how some people don't have boobs that are exactly the same size. And because she was sitting with everyone that knew her at the club, as soon as I started talking about her boobs, everyone turned around and started looking at her.

The audience plus the comics and the promoter were all turning round, looking at her boobs and going: "Ah... symmetrical!"

Cook’s fellow Geordie Kai Humphries says his girlfriend Kylie has a similar attitude to stories in which she plays a starring role. “I do one joke about her coming into the bathroom while I'm having a bath and she just sits down and starts having a wee as if nothing's the matter. The minute it happened I said ‘I'm going to use this.’”

Kylie told him it wouldn’t work, but with a little enhancement by way of a punchline, it came to form part of his set.

“In my joke I gave it a twist – that when you're in a warm bath, feeling relaxed and someone's weeing in front of you, you can't help but join in.”

The surprisingly tolerant Kylie tells me: “It's OK in venues where people don't know who I am but it's hard when he does it in his own venue where obviously a lot of the crowd know who I am and will glance over.”

Despite these grey areas, there is a definite line Humphreys is not allowed to cross.

“We've got an understanding that if there was anything that I really, definitely didn't want in, he won't put it in. Because

I have seen things in the past where it wouldn't have been right to put them in because they were too personal. And he has refrained from embarrassing us and putting them in. The lines still have to remain separate a bit, haven't they?”

All the comics I spoke to seemed to have some respect for the line Kylie describes. Little has happened to Dave Fulton that he has declined to expose to an audience for laughs, but even he admits to feeling “a little apprehensive and self-conscious” when he turns to some episodes of his former life, where his exploits included dealing cocaine in Idaho,

14 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

filling it with a US baby laxative and selling it to the local neo-Nazi compound. “My parents never found out about that.”

Des Bishop tells me about how it feels when, mid-routine, he finds himself approaching certain aspects of his private life. “All of a sudden I'll realise that, just for a short space of time, I'm being flippant about something that's not as flippant as it seems. When you realise – ‘My god, this is bordering on me feeling I'm just not able to do this.’”

One such topic—Bishop’s terminally-ill father—has subsequently become the main subject of his 2010 Fringe show.

His decision to construct an entire set around his dad’s lung cancer seems to take personal comedy to a new level. He describes sailing close to the wind with intensely personal material as an almost cathartic experience. “I prefer it when comedy can affect me in more ways than just making me laugh,” he says. “This is the last thing we'll do together. That’s the opposite of sad, it's kind of a wonderful thing, even though it's emotional."

And his family understand why Bishop goes for such intimate material. “Personal jokes about serious matters are something that doesn't really bother us as a family.

The whole process started back when I was talking about my own illness [with testicular cancer] so talking about my dad's was a natural enough progression.”

And far from finding fault in his son's comedic interpretation of his life, Bishop says his father is simply “delighted that his story was interesting enough to make a show.

“He doesn't actually know it yet, but I've put him down as a co-writer on the poster – because he is.”

Des Bishop - My Dad Was Nearly James Bond, Assembly @ George Street, 8:05pm – 9:05pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16, 23 Jason Cook: The End (Part 1), The Stand Comedy Club II, times vary, 4–29 Aug, not 16 Kai Humphries - Evolution, Underbelly, Cowgate, 5:25pm – 6:15pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16

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festfeature

Doon But Not Out Doon MacKichan knows the depths of comedy and tragedy first-hand. She speaks to Tom Hackett about her foray into drama, and that one time she shared a bed with Hugh Grant...

"I

t’s about death, leukaemia and divorce," says Doon MacKichan matter-of-factly.

It’s not a sentence you expect to hear from an actress best known for specialising in nonsense: in the all-woman sketch show Smack The Pony, and as Collaterlie Sisters, the straight-faced economics correspondent who read out daft market updates on The Day Today. So you might think her work has taken a serious turn with her stage show Prima Doona, premiering at the Fringe this year.

In fact, MacKichan is no stranger to straight theatre. Her theatre CV is at least as varied as her comedy one, if not quite as high-profile. Her last trip to Edinburgh— back in 1996—was a straight adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, which she penned with Martin Miller, a "dry, dour" Scottish author who also helped out with the drafting of the new show.

MacKichan's first trips to Edinburgh came with her Manchester University drama group in the early '80s. In honeyed English vowels that betray no hint of her Scottish heritage, she tells me that her most vivid memory of this is having to "sleep in a toilet, with a pink tap and a nice smell of bleach."

An even more hectic Festival in 1986 saw her doing three shows a day and bunking up with Hugh Grant. "There were loads of different theatre groups staying in one house" including Grant's short-lived Oxbridge sketch group The Jockeys of Norfolk, and inevitably "everyone started shagging everyone else. So Hugh and I ended up in the top room, but nothing went on, can you believe it?!", she laughs.

"I'd roll in at one o'clock after having done

a cabaret show... too tired for Hugh Grant – what kind of an idiot?"

MacKichan claims she had no great ambitions for a career in either acting or comedy until quite late on. But she was caught up in the excitement of a time when "comedy was becoming the new rock'n'roll" both in Edinburgh and on the emerging alternative comedy scene in London. "There was a lot of experimentation, and ability to fail" she recalls fondly.

"It wasn't the kind of 'All Bar One' comedy that you get now... you'd go into a pub and literally have a piece of paper that you'd written that morning, and perform it."

In this spirit, MacKichan used to go on at comedy nights performing short character monologues. She found herself sharing the stage with the likes of Kevin Eldon, Julia Davis and Mark Heap – "all comic geniuses, I think" and the clique who would later help to reinvent British TV comedy in the mid-90s with shows like Big Train and I'm Alan Partridge.

MacKichan's own break into the media came in the form of On The Hour, the spoof radio news show that prefigured The Day Today; and later came Smack The Pony, a real landmark for women in British comedy.

"What was great about Smack was that the straight person could become the funny person," she explains. Rather than being consigned to playing straight foils for more amusing male characters, "we were able to play around with that idea.

When it's just two women in a sketch, you can say 'okay, this time I'll be the lead and you be the feed.' And that was respected because it was our show. So yes, it was delightful. Very liberating."

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All the while, MacKichan was treading the boards in serious and comic productions alike, winning favourable reviews for supporting roles in productions of Mother Courage at the National Theatre and A Respectable Wedding at the Young Vic. But her new Fringe show is a departure. Prima Doona is a piece wrenched from MacKichan's psyche after a very gruelling three years during which "loads of shit happened at once." She keeps fairly tight-lipped about the exact details, but allows me to say that "the obsessive thing that dominated our family life" at that time was her son falling ill with acute myloid leukaemia, a cancer of the blood that saw MacKichan in and out of hospital and desperately fearing her child's death.

"It was a three-year period of my life that was basically frying pan-in-the-face time," she says. "I was just ambling along with the same old grouches and gripes that we all have, and suddenly it was the big, big one, the thing that everybody fears most, which is their kid dying. It's telling that story just before it and just after it."

The title comes from a nickname MacKichan gives herself, due to her tendency to be a "selfish, up-my-own-arse actress," working herself up into a state about relatively petty problems. The three years of heartache forced her to reconsider her priorities, she says. "It's that interesting thing of rewinding once you've had that experience, and going 'My God, that's really funny that I gave a toss about that.'''

It's a story that MacKichan felt she had to tell: "I didn't know whether to write it as a book, or something I would read on the radio, or as a sitcom or something like that." Eventually though, the stage seemed the best option. "I wanted to make it quite dark and funny, and also very physical... I do fling myself around a lot in it."

The result sounds like the kind of undefinable beast that Edinburgh can be so good for: an honest, comic confessional addressed to the audience, not standup and not quite theatre. "I don't really know what it should be billed as," she admits. "I know there's a lot of people coming, and all the hype, but I don't quite know what it's going to be like yet. I won't know till I'm there, which is quite scary – but that's how it should be."

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 5:30pm – 6:30pm, 4–30 Aug, not 10, 17, 24, £5.00

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festfeature

edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 17

by half HHHH

They don’t dress like Victorians any more but the Penny Dreadfuls are still Edinburgh’s brightest young things Page 20 Photo - Idil Sukan

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festcomedy

Too clever

August August10-12 10-12 || edinburgh edinburghfestival festivalguide guide2010 2010 fest 19

festcomedy Penny Dreadfuls

HHHHH Now in their fifth year performing together at the Fringe, The Penny Dreadfuls still come across as the exciting young upstarts of the comedy circuit – still as enthusiastic, still the too-clever-by-half schoolboys Edinburgh audiences know and love. But gone are the Victorian aesthetic and the adventure stories in favour of some matching yellow and black tracksuits for this, their entirely modern new sketch show.

It's a slick production. They shift seamlessly from sketch to cracking sketch in a seemingly casual manner that can only be rigorously rehearsed. The low-budget street racers, the sweet-scoffing kidnappers and the ever-present sex pest are all cleverly interwoven via callbacks and surprise returns so that the show is at once varied and unified. It's the physicality of the comedy, more than the writing, that generates the biggest laughs. Thom Tuck's face in particular is fantastically malleable, and a certain sketch works despite consisting of little more than his facial expressions changing silently in response to a fisherman's gory narrative.

There are one or two sketches that don't quite fit with this otherwise tightly executed show – namely the father and son role-reversal with its smatterings of Monty Python's

Robert White's Outrageously Peculiar Organ

HHHHH Resplendent in electric blue boaters, matching tanktop and jet blonde hair, Robert White takes to tonight’s stage like an absurdist Tintin preparing for adventure. As you might imagine from Britain’s only Asperger’s comedian, White’s stand-up is far from conventional and most of this this

working-class playwright, and the rather odd Twilight parody.

The latter in particular garnered a huge audience response, despite treading on well-worn ground. Television probably

beckons for the Penny Dreadfuls, although in many ways their comedy seems best suited to the stage. After all, who needs a real car when you can roll about stage on a wheely-

chair and get twice the laughs?

[Catherine Sylvain]

year's show verges gloriously on out-and-out comic anarchy.

Rushing into the crowd in the opening seconds, he blares his trumpet into the ears of unsuspecting audience members before scuttling off stage without a word of explanation.

Later he forces a poor bald man to join him on stage, first humiliating him, then grabbing his testicles, and finally cajoling him to dance the Hokey Cokey to the tune of coconut shells.

If this sounds a bit bewilder-

ing, that’s because it is. Deeply.

But nestled in among the chaos are also frequent signs of a hugely imaginative comic brain. A skit explaining how different celebrities ‘edit word documents’ displays a surreal talent for wordplay and a set of keyboard jingles parodying the royal family is brilliantly dark. Inevitably with such a wide array of ideas, not all White’s material succeeds.

His excessive preoccupation with gay rape jokes wears thin

towards the end and some of his shouty outbursts are genuinely a bit scary.

Nonetheless, if you’re looking for originality, White has it in abundance. Gloriously re-igniting the spirit of anarchy at the Fringe, he is surely an early contender for The Malcolm Hardee Award. [Sam Friedman]

20 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

Pleasance Courtyard, 6:00pm – 6:55pm, 4–30 Aug, not 17, £5.00

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 9:30pm – 10:25pm, 4–29 Aug, not 17, £5.00

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festcomedy

Three Card Trick

Musical comedy Doc Brown: Unfamous HHH

Brothers Streep HH

Axis of Awesome: Songs in the Key of Awesome HHH

A genre on the up, the marriage of music and comedy can be a difficult affair, demanding a delicate balance between listenable compositions, snappy links and, of course, the humour worked into the lyrics themselves. Fest took a taste of the produce on offer this year.

First up is Fringe newcomer and comedy rapper Doc Brown (***), whose Unfamous relates his disappointing flirtation with hiphop stardom.

Essentially a nice young man from North London, he draws great mileage from the oxymoron that is "British rap". He is quick to ridicule hiphop’s selfaggrandising guns-and-bitches posturing, counterpointing it with distinctly British humility and geeky enthusiasm.

It’s fertile comic ground, but Brown ends up switching one form of egotism for another.

While rap’s bling-encrusted bravado is undermined with ease, Brown’s parodies are packaged in a self-indulgent autobiographical narrative that. Though he's sincere, his life story often fails to captivate. Despite tales of feeling overshadowed by novelist sister Zadie Smith and hobnobbing with Kanye West, the urge to fast-forward to the musical segments increases as the hour progresses.

But when Brown segues into invariably deft and inventively rhymed verses, it becomes clear that this is where the real substance lies.

He hits his stride with linguistically artful riffs on nature

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documentaries and rude-boy slang before initiating a freestyle battle which, given a more cooperative crowd, could flourish into a thrilling piece of audience interaction.

It’s disappointing, then, when a mawkish finale takes the tone of a youth-club ploy to make family values cool. If he were to play on his strengths (punchy musical numbers, not longwinded namedropping) this nearly man of the rap game could yet make his mark on the world of musical comedy.

Things don’t look quite so hopeful for squeaky-clean South African acoustic duo The Brothers Streep (**).

A handful of minor chords is about as dangerous as they get, with Dylan Hichens (softly spoken, suited, charming) and Simon van Wyk (suited, charming, softly spoken) sauntering cheerfully through a set of saccharine ditties.

Their chirpy, impeccably harmonised tunes toy with the financial crisis, supermarket etiquette and Disney’s idealised princesses, but the laughs are consistently thin on the ground. The music itself lacks variation and is rarely used to complement the material it contains. The pair remain watchable throughout and and their centrepiece—a tribute to Anna Paquin, the star of HBO’s True Blood—is a playfully esoteric highlight.

The polish disappears between songs as the Brothers flounder through some hesitant audience interaction, often cutting short each other’s aimless trains of thought and half-hearted apartheid gags.

Next to their well-rehearsed songs, this stilted babbling feels lazy. Their apparent ingenuousness could explain

the lack of the comedic conceit here needed to tie the show together. But without distinctive personalities and strong material between songs, this highly likeable act fails to make a lasting impression.

The same criticism can hardly be levelled at Australia’s Axis of Awesome (***), whose hard-rocking showmanship is never short on character.

They have their group dynamic down to a T: guitarist Lee Naimo as the lanky simpleton; Benny Davis as the gifted stooge on keys, incessantly bullied for his height; Jordan Raskopolous as (by his own admission) a Jack Black-alike frontman with ego enough to dwarf his sizeable paunch.

Excess is the keyword as Axis make the most of their encyclopaedic musical knowledge, dissecting a range of genres and stitching them back together as irreverent, well-observed mockeries of sleazy R’n’B, 80s synth pop and Christian rock.

It takes a while to warm to the band’s crudely drawn personas, but as momentum builds it’s impossible not to enjoy delights such as a fully choreographed analysis of boy band clichés and a wonderfully

tactless ballad about adopting a senile old man.

For the third year running, Axis of Awesome wheel out their now famous "Four Chords" medley, a masterful routine in which an ever-expanding string of pop songs are shown to adhere to exactly the same formula. It evolves year on year; it has placed the group in the YouTube hall of fame, and it is without doubt one of the few truly special party tricks on show at the Fringe. Axis virgins cannot fail to be thrilled when this appears as the penultimate number, but considering that this—the undisputed peak of the gig—is recycled material, it’s just a shame that nothing else in this year’s offering quite matches this level of ingenuity [Lyle Brennan] Brothers Streep: Gilded Balloon Teviot, 6:15pm – 7:15pm, 4–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00 Axis of Awesome: Songs in the Key of Awesome: Gilded Balloon Teviot, 7:45pm – 8:45pm, 4–30 Aug, not 18, 25, £5.00 Doc Brown: Unfamous: Pleasance Courtyard, 7:00pm – 7:55pm, 4–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 21

festcomedy Tom Craine: Choirboy to Addict and Back Again

HHHHH Despite his complaints about the stuffy Pleasance Hut (“like gigging in a shoe”), this tiny venue suits Tom Craine quite well. With an act loosely based on endearing material from his life, he works the intimate setting well and builds a warm rapport with the audience from the off.

Delivered in a Rowan Atkinson-esque voice full of stutters, squeaks and the odd rolling ‘r’, almost every line raises a smile, as well as some chuckles and a few knowing stares from parents when Craine talks about his young nephews.

Although he is slightly young compared to most comedians chasing the ‘feel-good’ market, he fares well without producing truly memorable moments. There are peaks and troughs: while material about his nephew’s taste in dinosaurs works well, an impression of a precocious child Mozart feels forced.

However, the lines that really bring out Craine’s potential are those that seem most out of character. His imaginings of a corrupted Santa Claus and some snide asides on the cult of Princess Di show how he could be a sharper, crueller and probably funnier comic if he only allowed his dark side a freer rein.

The best material comes at the end, as he relates a wonderfully unpleasant mix-up involving a disembodied anus.

Immediately, he adds: “Too unpleasant? I’m not taking it out.”

Removing the anus is the last thing he should do. With a little more work in this direction, Tom Craine could be very funny indeed. [James Ellingworth] Pleasance Courtyard, 6:00pm – 7:00pm, 4–30 Aug, not 11, 18, £6.00

Alex Zane: Just One More Thing

HHHHH It’s disarming when someone you’ve actively disliked on television turns out to be talented and likable in person.

If you’re put off Alex Zane by fleeting glimpses of his television output for the teen demographic then I urge you to give him another chance.

Just One More Thing takes its name from Columbo, a show which made a big impression on Zane when he was young.

His childhood influences and experiences are dominant subjects and he speaks at length about how awkward and unpopular he was at school.

Carrying a briefcase and playing Dungeons & Dragons were among the ways he ensured his status as a social pariah.

These sections are funny, but he also uses them to lay bare a more vulnerable side of himself, and it’s one that seems considerably more appealing than his brash TV persona.

Still, his more cocksure performance style does come in useful when he interacts with the audience. In fact his off-script moments are some of

Eirlys Bellin: Unaccustomed As I Am

HHHHH Presenting herself as a successful public speaking guru, likeable comic actress Eirlys Bellin introduces four more characters who’ve recently sought her help. With this neat, straightforward framing device, economically accomplished with a quick change of footwear, Bellin is amusing enough as speech expert Hayley, slotting in a lovely allusion to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in the wake of an awards ceremony stagediving incident.

Engaging throughout, the Welsh comic nevertheless falls

22 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

the funniest of the night.

His skill as a performer shone through when he fluffed one of his skits – presumably accidentally. Taking us back through it ended up being far funnier than the joke itself.

This is Zane’s first stand-up show in a while and definitely his most high-profile one so

far. He does have a real flair for this, so hopefully we can expect more in the future.

With any luck Channel 4 will find something more worthy of his ability than Rude Tube.

[James McIrvine]

into a pattern of provoking polite titters rather than consistent laughs. Hayley’s first client, a middle-aged woman desperately trying to ingratiate herself with youngsters at her daughter’s birthday party, namedropping pop bands in clunking malapropisms, is scarcely original – though her efforts to turn the event into a Facebook-invite free for all display more invention. Similarly, posh Grace, campaigning to become residents’ association president of her tower block after a fall on hard times is captured with the broadest strokes, though there’s the odd line to suggest the character could succeed with greater depth of detail from Bellin and

co-scribe Ben Lewis.

Next, a tipsy bridesmaid, flouting convention to address the wedding reception, settle a few scores and make an ill-advised declaration of love, truly starts to grate with her relentless textspeak. Yet Bellin finishes assuredly. Her Mexican cleaner, delivering a eulogy on the old pervert she used to work for, is a more layered creation, a caricature to be sure but an enjoyable one, blurting more than she knows when she repeats her late employer’s kinky instructions.

[Jay Richardson]

Pleasance Dome, 10:00pm – 10:55pm, 4–30 Aug, not 16, £5.00

Pleasance Courtyard, 3:30pm – 4:20pm, 4–30 Aug, not 16, £5.00

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festcomedy Hans Teeuwen: Smooth and Painful

HHHHH This is only his third solo show at the Fringe, but already the Fringe wouldn't be the same without Hans Teeuwen.

Reprising several routines from his brief 2009 run, the absurdist Dutchman’s jazz mentality sees his compositions repeated yet phrased slightly differently, with fresh movements added to the mix. His childhood memories of the Fairytale Forest and its creatures, the archetypal conventions of such stories subverted by his steadfast refusal to indulge their cutesy logic, are now less intentionally stilted, and his interaction less awkward, making for a far more effective payoff when he introduces a lion with an unexpected problem.

In truth, there’s far greater structure to his chaos now, which is not to say that he can’t still surprise with a sneering diatribe against world music – merely that his

first half-hour, in particular, is buoyed along smoothly on a masterfully maintained, if delightfully anarchic rhythm.

A card trick, clearly doomed to fail, brings a moment of intense self-recrimination that sucks the audience deep into his ridiculous despair and draws the room’s energy with it. So he releases it immediately with a crowd-pleasing rendition of Mozart. On his teeth. With a lighter.

Appreciating that his musical virtuosity can always buy him time and applause, he’s free to take greater risks during his patience-testing extended narratives – his father’s reassurance that the young Teeuwen is safe from sharks becoming a wonderfully unhinged comment on his marriage. The I Like ... piano finale remains grubby, tremendous fun, so regardless of whether you saw him last year, seek Teeuwen out again.

[Jay Richardson] Pleasance Courtyard, 10:30pm – 11:30pm, 4–29 Aug, not 11, 18, 25, £8.00

Alfie Brown and Ivo Graham

HHHHH Ivo Graham’s jokes about his gawky younger self saw him prevail in last year’s So You Think You’re Funny contest, and he’s sticking to his theme for his first full Fringe show.

It’s a rich comedic seam to mine—who didn’t have an awkward adolescence that's fun to laugh about, now it’s over?—and Graham is mining for all he’s worth. At 19, he won’t be able to do so for all that much longer, but he’s good enough that changing his tune won’t present a problem. He races breathlessly through material about Facebook, boarding school, and geeky childhood pastimes. A welcome sense of risk comes courtesy of occasionally edgy

ad-libs and a well dealt-with heckler, whose pint Graham confiscates with cheerful insouciance.

While Graham can draw on

26 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

a stock of practised material, Alfie Brown, the second of tonight’s double-header, tries to relieve the pressure by getting his balls out for a spell. It might

be churlish to focus on a brief if memorable incident in a set that, on only its second night, was far from polished – but really, there’s material that’s a bit rough around the edges, and then there’s someone’s junk in your face.

Enough gold shines through the nerves to suggest that Brown has talent as well as mere anatomy – like when he wins the audience over with a genuinely charismatic soliloquy from Hamlet, only to dispel the gravitas with an expertly-timed burst of swearing. But for now these moments are interspersed with pauses, and outnumbered by routines which are wilfully shocking but not all that funny. [Ed Ballard] The GRV, 9:50pm – 10:50pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16, 23, £2.50

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festcomedy Sophie Black: A Sketch Show

HHHHH Sophie Black stumbles onstage already fully in character and immediately drags the crowd into a strange world that, while fully realised, is just out of the audience's reach. Once part of sketch troupe Fat Tongue, Black now sings the same tune—a series of absurd character sketches—but without the rest of the choir. The result is that Black seems to be the only one in on the jokes. While her act is gently amusing in a teatime Radio 4 sort of way, Black's

Celia Pacquola: Flying Solos

HHHHH Considering how Celia Pacquola's show at last year's Fringe was an analysis of her break-up from a cheating ex, on paper Flying Solos seems to be her "I'm fine" moment.

But rather than a sermon on the joys of singledom and an invitation to feel how firm her arse is, Flying Solos turns out to be an uplifting and exuberant show tracking Pacquola's quest to learn to play the piano solo from The Pointer Sisters' classic 'I'm So Excited'.

For those less inclined towards 80s pop, Pacquola's show also covers broader ground. Flying Solos is about the things you do alone and only alone – from masturbation to dying and all the food you eat off the floor in between. Pacquola confesses to high school humiliations, pig herding and finding a father figure in the

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real problem is that, in search of laughs, she replaces the genuinely funny with the just plain surreal.

At one point Black asks us to imagine Orlando Bloom engaged in a military coup of Malta, disguised as Saddam Hussein and toting nuclear weapons. This is typical of Black, layering details on top of pop culture references in the hope that the sheer randomness of the scenario will be comedy enough. But Black's creativity in the end leaves the audience just a tad confused, struggling to make sense of a one-eyed film producer who thought ET would

be excellent in The Colour Purple. The unfamiliarity of the characters is not helped by how little time Black leaves to flesh them out, before discarding them for a new sketch.

While Black expends much effort in linking each sketch through callbacks, she would do better to include some degree of genuine observation to give the show real bite and relevance to reality, rather than the neatly unified but distant world it currently inhabits.

[Catherine Sylvain]

Maff Brown Looking After Lesal

HHHHH

electronic voice on the Facebook game Bejewelled ("Don't worry dad, Bejewelled is going to walk me down the aisle!").

Between these anecdotes come regular video updates of her progress on the piano, following the stock narrative of any underdog story. She passes through stages of optimism, disillusionment and despair – imagine Rocky but with an 80s mid-selling pop song to conquer, rather than the gigantic Apollo Creed.

Pacquola remains irrepressibly buoyant throughout, and so likeable that you want to laugh even at the jokes that don't quite flow. Flying Solos is a charming and life-affirming show – one you will leave feeling like you too could complete a pointless and time-consuming feat of niche talent, just to satisfy yourself. [Catherine Sylvain]

It’s natural for those of us with strong parental bonds to unconditionally see the good in those who have shaped us from birth. It is abundantly clear that Maff Brown, born to a family of similarly quirkily forenames, holds his parents in high regard.

He regales his audience with anecdotes about them that never manage to hit any comedic highs, but are peppered with moments of good homely fun.

The titular Lesal is Brown’s father, and it’s the tumultuous relationship between these two men that ignites a spark of pathos that smoulders through Brown’s stories. Regrettably, the relevance of the father diminishes as the show crawls toward an ill-conceived finale. The narrative drive that Brown attempts to establish at the show’s opening quickly dissolves into a collection of tenuously linked quotations from the mouths of his family members. The problem lies in the fact that such pedestrian observations are just empty gestures when the audience does not share the same bonds of family. More than once, Brown’s over-familiarity with his characters leads him to forget to tell his audience whom he is talking about at a given moment.

Brown’s stage persona is engaging and genuine, if overwrought at times. His stint as a warm-up act for the TV chat show Loose Women is reflected in his delivery: his fast-talking brashness sometimes overwhelms the low-key, gentle humour of his act. He has charm in abundance, but his shoddily crafted act leaves his audience confused, underwhelmed and, ultimately, alienated. [Adam Knight]

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 6:00pm – 7:00pm, 4–30 Aug, not 17, £5.00

Pleasance Courtyard, 9:30pm – 10:30pm, 4–30 Aug, not 16, £5.00

Pleasance Courtyard, 4:30pm – 5:25pm, 4–30 Aug, not 17, 25, £5.00

edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 27

festcomedy Arj Barker - Let Me Do The Talking

HHHHH It has been ten long years since Arj Barker last appeared at the Fringe – a decade which has seen the San Franciscan hit comedy pay dirt thanks to his role as Dave in HBO comedy juggernaught Flight of the Conchords. Sadly, on the evidence of this show, one thing he has not done since his last visit to Auld Reekie is write a few decent jokes of his own.

Taking to the stage with huge confidence, Barker is an assured performer oozing bonhomie and charm. Like an eager Labrador with tail wagging, he very nearly gets through this 55 minutes by sheer force of personality alone. But it is soon clear that things are not as they should be – and not just because he apparently thinks that Star Wars was released in 1978.

The fact that the biggest

laugh comes from the impeccable timing of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo fireworks is damning enough. That the second biggest laugh comes from some fairly pedestrian ad-libbing about an audience member making a dash for the toilets seals Barker's fate.

His set is little more than a series of shaggy dog stories with interminable set-ups followed by payoffs which are at best artless and at worst hugely disappointing. There is little to tie these heavy-handed monologues together and no sense of getting to know the comedian on anything more than a superficial level.

It's a wasted opportunity for an obviously talented comedian and there's no mistaking the air of anticlimax as he leaves the stage after his final misjudged riff. [David Hepburn] Assembly @ George Street, 9:20pm – 10:15pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00

Miles Jupp: Fibber in the Heat (A Cricket Tale)

HHHHH If you are visiting the Fringe with an American please take them to see Miles Jupp. They will be delighted. Any aspect of English culture that has disappointed – say, that we don’t all wear monocles and think the Queen’s “just spiffing” – will be forgiven. For what could make them feel more secure in their preconceptions than a selfdeprecating Brit talking with a cut glass accent about his cricket obsession.

In 2005, Jupp’s acting career looked like it had peaked and was showing dangerous signs of spoiling his enjoyment of the Ashes. Enough was enough. If even an actor didn’t have time to catch a full Test series he’d have to find a new calling. Within a year he’d blagged his way onto the English team’s Indian tour

28 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

and was sure he’d be a cricket correspondent.

As you’ve probably guessed from the fact that he’s currently at the Fringe, the journalism career didn’t go as planned. We should be grateful. For however erudite his description of an English batting collapse might have been, we would not have had this show.

Jupp poignantly and humorously captures that awful sense of desperation in knowing that you don’t belong somewhere.

He is a wonderful storyteller and, while we might not share his passion, he makes it possible for us to understand his.

Even if the thwock of leather on willow holds no sentimentality for you or your transatlantic chum, you may still both have to concede that this is “bloody marvellous”. [James McIrvine] Gilded Balloon Teviot, 8:00pm – 9:00pm, 4–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00

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festcomedy New Art Club - Big Bag of Boom

HHHHH Tom Roden and Pete Shenton claim to have administered oral pleasure to reviewers, with mixed results, and it’s a mixed Big Bag of Boom they present here. A greatest hits medley of their 12-year career as a comedy duo working in interpretive dance, this is an hour of both their funniest routines and, according to Roden, “the experimental stuff that’s unintentionally funny”.

Two men in tight, shiny leotards are, of course, inherently amusing and there’s a significant degree of clowning to their accomplished shtick. But this show is more than just a gimmick – for all their lithe, impressive ease of movement, the back and forth banter between the pair has the effortlessness of a seasoned double act, contriving a genuine correspondence between two disparate art forms.

Framing routines by requesting the audience close their eyes and reopen them on command, facilitating some breakneck costume changes and daft visual gags, the show includes some truly memorable set-pieces: a fusion of pointed, aggressive poses with clicking voicework becomes a knockabout sporting contest; a culturally dubious, traditional Australian dance undergoes a change of emphasis when the Minogue sisters are evoked; and best of all, an IRA punishment beating is performed to the feelgood soundtrack of KC & The Sunshine Band’s Give It Up. Still, the bitty format can’t help but frustrate. Routines begin echoing those that have come before, while emerging themes, such as Roden’s disgust at Shenton’s larky unprofessionalism, aren’t quite fully developed. [Jay Richardson] Assembly @ George Street, 7:15pm – 8:15pm, 5–29 Aug, not 10, 17, £5.00

Felix Dexter: Multiple Personalities In Order

HHHHH Felix Dexter is a stunning impressionist, but this is virtually the only remarkable thing about his show Multiple Personalities In Order. It is at once gently amusing yet entirely predictable. He is, after all, a well-regarded actor, but as a comedian his material is bland and unadventurous, relying almost entirely on the clapped-out vehicle of racial stereotypes.

The show is a mixed bag of straight standup and caricatures, all of which are

30 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

impeccably executed but also just too tediously familiar. The ghetto man who freely accuses others of racism feels particularly old hat while the the bigoted country gent who can't pronounce Barack Obama is stale. As a standup too Dexter is competent, but suffers for the simplicity of his material. There is, however, something comforting in the way he describes how hiphop music videos exploit women and that old white people are awkward around him; these observations are presented as if he's the first to notice. As his material inevitably drifts to Tiger Woods, Dexter tries a few more daring lines, suggesting that the public is able

to forgive Mike Tyson for his similar indiscretions because at least it was black women on the receiving end. It seems that nearing the end of his set Dexter runs out of cliché and is forced to actually venture new opinions.

Dexter is a great comic talent languishing in tired material, and while Multiple Personalities has a sort of safe old-school appeal to it, it's not a particularly interesting show. A cracking East London accent is no substitute for an entire standup set. [Catherine Sylvain] Pleasance Courtyard, 9:00pm – 10:00pm, 4–30 Aug, not 11, 18, £7.00

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festcomedy Nick Mohammed is Mr Swallow

HHHHH Despite flirting with the meatgrinder of BBC3 comedy for the past year, Nick Mohammed has managed to find time to put together a Fringe show. This year he returns to his character Mr Swallow, a screeching self-help guru caught somewhere between Joe Pasquale and Little Britain. Such is Mohammed's ability that some audience members appear to take the character purely on face value – including the gent Mohammed commands to rush off and buy him a pint before the show starts.

Camp, cutesy and decidedly wretched, Swallow flits from Powerpoint presentation to violin as he ostensibly instructs the audience in techniques to improve their memory, tossing out a somewhat effective array of one-liners, sight gags and one stand-out set piece involving Vanessa Mae in the process.

That said, the best character performances require meticulous forethought in order to maintain that credible illusion of hilarious spontaneity. Mohammed is still clearly warming to the material, leaving the joins in Mr Swallow's performance quite visible, with the occasional incongruous segue soliciting more raised eyebrows than belly-laughs.

Much of the absurdism Mohammed crams into his 45 minutes onstage is good for a smirk, but very little is developed to the point where it's memorable. If anything, such is his charm you'll find yourself rooting for Swallow – a bit of extra planning and a few minor rewrites could easily transform the show.

There's no denying Mohammed's talent and stagecraft.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the eponymous Mr Swallow. For the moment.

[Mike Sterry] Pleasance Courtyard, 6:00pm – 6:55pm, 4–29 Aug, £6.00

Paul Foot

HHHHH Paul Foot isn’t like other comedians. This much can be gleaned from a quick glance at his gangly frame, his bizarre attire and avant-garde haircut.

His comedy is as unconventional as his appearance and, over the past few years, it has helped him build something of a cult following among aficionados, critics and fellow performers.

Foot reckons that he doesn’t have fans but rather "connoisseurs." Certainly he has little mainstream appeal, and that's what makes him so wonderful: he stands bravely, sometimes provocatively, out from the crowd. He likes to test boundaries and find out what audiences are prepared to endure. For instance, he spends several minutes elabo-

rately berating one audience member for not applauding his entrance. Later, he dedicates almost five minutes to receiving an imaginary phone call, silently revelling in the

32 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

confusion of his crowd. There are few comedians with either the bravery or the ability to pull this off.

There are stylistic similarities between Foot and more

mainstream comics like Russell Brand or Noel Fielding (who directs this show). Foot’s tendency to go off on daft tangents while discussing village-hall inanities is very much reminiscent of Brand’s quirky domestic surrealism.

However, there is much more of an anarchic edge about Foot’s work, with a dangerous quality about him --as those who sit uncomfortably through his brilliant "homophobic shire-horse" section will be able to attest.

It should be pointed out that Foot might not be suited to the casual Fringe punter.

However, for comedy fans, this set has to figure highly on the Fringe wish-list. [Ben Judge] Underbelly, Cowgate, 7:40pm – 8:40pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16, £6.00

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festcomedy Cactus - The Seduction

HHHHH In a room not dissimilar to a lecture theatre, Jonno Katz begins his one-man show Cactus - The Seduction with an English lesson, or more accurately, a short course in New Zealand slang. “Rooting”, “doubling” and “dinks” explained, the fun really begins when Katz unzips his shirt to become Phil, a man so desperate to find love he has followed his lonely heart into the desert – "where no one else is looking," he rationalises.

And so it goes, with Katz not only switching scenes at lightning speed with only his zipper guiding us in and out of locations, but also along the way switching characters

within locations and switching characters within the memories and dreams of each of those previous characters.

In short, Cactus is a lot to fol-

low. But so skilled is the way in which Katz’s transforms from man to other man to woman to insect that we are not left behind for a second.

revolves around his various eccentricities of taste and the consequent difficulties of being "the only eccentric in the village", Hodgson does feel at times like a bit of a one-dressBarbie.

But his ingenuity is in the way that his narrative moves discreetly between

circumstantial comedy and profound social commentary.

An anecdote about fancying the Spice Girls masks a diatribe against the dehumanising of women by the media. His recounting of the time he met his tat-collecting match at the posthumous auction of a fellow “accumulator” is also a poi-

Relentlessly, we are swept along on the wave of Katz’s infectious energy, getting laughs out of his unexpected eye-twitches and even silly dancing in the memorable scene, 'I Just Can’t Get Enough'.

But for all the crowdpleasing, a couple of the cruder sex gags fall flat and it is when the performance resorts to the smutty that it is at its weakest. Katz’s charm lies instead in the moments of reflection that follow scenes of relived humiliation at the hands of prospective lovers and his musings on the greater philosophical significance of his efforts. [Mainga Bhima] Assembly @ George Street, 6:50pm – 7:50pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16, 23, £5.00

Wil Hodgson Punkanory

HHHHH I wasn't aware that Happy Meals came with free tattoos nowadays, but Wil Hodgson's arms suggest otherwise. The description on his flyer of “a deranged bricklayer that's wandered through a branch of Claire's Accessories” is pretty accurate, and once that startling pink hair and nail polish has gripped your attention, Hodgson manages to keep it almost unwaveringly for the next hour.

Just as Hodgson isn't your average bloke from Chippenham, Punkanory isn't your average standup. With his home town used for backdrop, this beer-bellied bard chronicles the banalities of small-town west-county life in a convoluted soliloquy, barely pausing for breath. The obsessive precision with which he recounts conversations and events makes for a well-observed but quite dizzying show. And as a great deal of his material

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gnant reflection on mortality and legacy. Hodgson demands your attention, in more ways than one, but if you give it to him you'll be well rewarded.

[Rebekah Robertson] Just The Tonic at the Caves, 3:50pm – 4:50pm, 5–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 33

festcomedy Ronna and Beverly

HHHHH Back in their native Los Angeles, Jewish American yentas Ronna Glickman and Beverly Ginsburg are cult stars. Caked in makeup and gloriously adorned in gold jewellery, they’ve been harassing unassuming stars at Hollywood’s UCB Theatre for years.

Here in the UK, though, where the bolshy Jewish mother stereotype is less familiar, the pair might have their work cut out. Indeed, tonight’s audience look thoroughly bemused as the duo chaotically set out their shtick as chat-show hosts cum self-help gurus. The pair's backstory is pretty straightforward: they're long suffering friends of 40 years, with Ronna playing the patronising stooge to Beverly’s babbling, scatological joker.

Although initial forays into their book for the ‘newly divorced’ are amusing, the pair are clearly at their best when fussing over hapless celebrity guests. First up tonight is Glaswegian comic Hardeep Singh Kohli, who looks ruffled by the persistent mockery of his hosts. The more he tries to dismiss their inane questions,

34 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

the more Ronna and Beverly come into their own, gently taunting him into submission.

Luckily, dapper standup Tom Allen fares much better, affably yielding to the pair’s jibes about his ailing career.

The semi-improvised style of the show gives the duo a slightly chaotic feel, and they wander to an anti-climactic

finale. Yet what the show lacks in substance, it makes up for in comic energy. Ronna and Beverly may be quintessentially American creations, but their keen wit transcends cultural borders. [Sam Friedman] Pleasance Courtyard, 5:45pm – 6:45pm, 4–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00

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festcomedy Andrew Lawrence: The Too Ugly For Television Tour

HHHHH Bad reviews can, on occasion, be a boon to comedians simply for their comic value. Andrew Lawrence doesn’t get many of them, but he does embark on a harangue about his reviewers’ tendency to call him a misanthrope. After his hour is over, it's hard to disagree with them.

He's misanthropic – but in the most endearing manner. Self-deprecating and understated, he tears into his career, his relationships and anything else in view with deadpan, stoic wit. His selfdeprecation is never tiresome or self-indulgent; it is perfectly pitched for optimal impact.

Lawrence’s standup is mostly anecdotal, and he uses his comedic talent to full effect with hilarious imitations and roleplay.

Nick Helm - Keep Hold of the Gold

HHHHH Nick Helm is a big presence.

The cramped surroundings in the basement of the Tron do little to stifle his intensity, and his opening slew of gags is forcefully—even maniacally—delivered. This year’s show, Keep Hold of the Gold, is charming, very funny, and a fine showcase for this young comic’s burgeoning career.

Helm’s performance style involves a fusion of straight jokes, jovial songs and a sort of anti-comedy poetic monologue. At its best, there is a very subtle wryness to his humour, and in poems such as ‘The Lioness’ we see Helm talking about love—his central theme, broadly speaking—in touching, original ways. Other successes include the disaffected musical number ‘I Don’t Want a Job in Admin’, which is

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Despite sounding excruciatingly constipated (Lawrence himself claims he has “the voice of a sex-offender”), his delivery is flawless. Interspersing monotonous tirades with quirky quips and one-liners, Lawrence has a remarkable ability to engage an audience.

Some of the rants miss the mark, and sometimes he seems on the verge of taking himself too seriously. Jokes about girlfriends with penises and rants about “corporations” occasionally bore an otherwise engrossed audience. On the rare occasion when he stoops to a cheap shot, he’s quick to acknowledge it with a shrug and a cheeky, sheepish grin. With a touch more variety, Lawrence's sheer comic talent has the potential to transform this show into a winner. [Iman Qureshi] Pleasance Courtyard, 9:20pm – 10:15pm, 4–29 Aug, not 16, £5.00

a nice analysis of the principles of an aging arts graduate. Helm is a captivating performer, and his singing voice—a Captain Beefheart growl—isn’t bad at all.

The show only falters when Helm moves away from his intelligent doggerel and breaks into the easy, hackneyed one-liners which pepper his set. It is, at times, difficult to reconcile the comic who keeps telling ‘pull-back-and-reveal’ jokes (the dullest of which is a schoolboy gag about impregnating a child bride) with the renaissance man whose monologues are understated and generally impressive. One gets the feeling that Helm is spreading himself too thin across the board: is he bawdy or refined, a sensitive soul, or merely crass? [Frank Lazarski] Downstairs at the Tron, 3:40pm – 4:40pm, 5–29 Aug, not 18, £2.50

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 35

festcomedy Shirley & Shirley

HHHHH Joanna Carolan and Pascale Wilson are brave women. The pair seem to specialise in the excruciating, self-sacrificing end of comedy and aren’t afraid to dribble, dry hump or get a little tactile to provoke a laugh from an audience. As accomplished physical comedians they are able to tackle a variety of sketches and don’t rely on stock comic targets, apart from the elderly who populate ‘The Winnie Mandela Community Centre’.

Shirley and Shirley complement one another perfectly; Wilson is tall and rangy while Carolan is blonde and petite. Together they are able to create engaging and often inventive sets of characters such as incestuous theatre brats Oliver and his sister Clemmy, and Britain’s Got Talent competitors ‘Hands On’.

Some sketches fall slightly flat, particularly a foulmouthed WI member and her cat-obsessed companion.

Aerobics-based skits seem to be a favourite and appeal to the male contingent of the audience –one frisky punter gives Carolan more than she bargained for - but she takes it in her stride.

They also show quick wit when it comes to audience participation, managing not to cross the sometimes fine line between a good ribbing and causing offence.

The humour is fairly lewd and at odds with the ‘Universal’ billing (let’s just hope the kids in the audience think they’re playing with a rather veiny plastic sausage) but big kids who like to indulge in considered puerility with a smattering of profanity won’t want for laughs. [Susan Robinson] Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 2:45pm – 3:45pm, 5–30 Aug, not 16, £5.00

Robin Ince and Michael Legge Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire

HHHHH Robin Ince and Michael Legge are both very, very angry men and they're not afraid to show it in this fantastically unhinged hour of well-aimed vitriol. This is the first time the duo have worked together in Edinburgh, but their on-stage chemistry and enjoyment of each other's outbursts is obvious as they try to fathom when it is justifiable to get furious. The answer appears to be pretty much all the time.

36 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

The show starts with the shortest of sketches but then it's swiftly on to a series of standup performances and prepared readings about things likely to make the performers', and the average Fringe goer's blood boil. There are highlights aplenty but stand-out moments include a particularly unsuccessful trip to Sainsbury's and a savaging of certain journalists. Both men wear their intellect as a badge of honour, referencing a list of often somewhat obscure authors and artists, but it never threatens to alienate or descend into arrogance.

Legge and Ince riff effort-

lessly throughout and ad-lib expertly around audience members' niggles. In fact, they have so much fun they fail even to get to the end of their prepared material, leaving Ince to motor through a bewildering array of topics in the closing minutes. The self-confessed grumpy old (well, middle-aged) men could clearly continue for another hour without an ounce of flab or filler. It's doubtful that many in the audience would complain if they did. [David Hepburn] The GRV, 2:00pm – 3:00pm, 7–18 Aug, £5.00

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festcomedy

RAPID

MP..." begin most of his stories, before he glazes over at the glamour of it all. It's less a comedy set, more a one-sided interview.

His name-dropping quickly gets old and, tellingly, his best one-liners are in fact Prince Phillip's. Though The One to One Show is not entirely unenjoyable thanks to a precious few moments of genuine humour, this is for fans of Brandreth's broadcast work only. [Catherine Sylvain]

Free Until Famous with Lewis Schaffer

Pleasance Courtyard, 4:30pm – 5:30pm, 4–30 Aug, not 11, 18, £10.00

FIRE

HHHHH

There is something wrong with Lewis Schaffer: he is not famous. He acknowledges that his besuited appearance should deem him a big-time comedian, but he's not, and here he sets out to question why.

His act may be a bitter pill to swallow. It's snarky, dark, and flirts with volatility; beginning by criticising both himself and his audience's reactions and then descending into a kind of self-help session with audience input. Despite a number of barbed remarks, Schaffer ultimately comes across as unfailingly charismatic. See him while you can - after all, he may not be free forever.

[Jennifer Blyth] Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 7:30pm – 8:30pm, 5–29 Aug, £free

Gyles Brandreth: The One to One Show HHHHH

Famed as an after-dinner speaker, Gyles Brandreth certainly gives you that afterdinner feeling – specifically Christmas dinner spent with a boozy, long-winded uncle.

Essentially, this is a series of tedious anecdotes culminating in a sexual proposition – at least for the lady in the first row. "When I was an

Domestic Goddi: Wonderland HHHHH

Despite its genteel predictability, Wonderland is not without its strong points. The show boasts capable comic performances, but some of the gags have seen better days, relying all too heavily on the mundane and scatological.

Incision is rare as foodies and the upper classes come in for easy send-ups, though high points emerge as two deranged teenage girls devour a napkin and Power Mummy's week-old daughter fails to express an interest in chamber music.

Innuendo bores as a well-meaning mother who crashes her lesbian daughter’s date to lend her a vibrator, while throwaway gags about domestic abuse add little and a couple of higher necklines are perhaps advisable. But, considering the polite reception, this act will no doubt continue to draw Fringe-goers until Domestic Goddi: The HRT Years. [Susan Robinson] Pleasance Courtyard, 2:45pm – 3:45pm, 4–30 Aug, £5.00

Andrew Collins Secret Dancing HHHHH

As a former author, broad-

38 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

caster, scriptwriter and editor, Andrew Collins is something of a renaissance man. This, his first foray into standup, arrives on the coattails of his podcast with Richard Herring, the popularity of which sees his first night packed out.

The spectre of Herring is never far away but Collins's unhurried delivery would put many more experienced comics to shame. Audience interaction is conversational, not confrontational, and a theme of travelling from A to B unifies an otherwise scattershot range of musings.

The most successful segments cover areas Collins is clearly passionate about— bird-watching, 'accidentally' moving to Surrey, sloppy use of English—but other, over-long stretches suggest a 40-minute set padded out an hour. Much of the show builds to a finale concerning the secret dancing of the title. It's simple, wonderfully realised and places physical comedy on Collins's already bursting CV. [David Hepburn]

Jay Foreman: Pretend You're Happy

Bannermans, 12:30pm – 1:30pm, 7–21 Aug, £free

Underbelly, Cowgate, 1:40pm – 2:40pm, 5–29 Aug, not 18, £6.00

HHHHH

That Jay Foreman can't half play the guitar. As the audience files in, there's some wonderful fingerpicking drifting from the speakers. It's only when a hidden voice chirps up that one realises the complex musical lines aren't from a CD, but from Foreman beginning his show.

This fine musicality continues throughout Foreman's own compositions. He's an accomplished songwriter and keeps the music varied and interesting. It's sometimes jazzy, sometimes wistful, but always tuneful.

It's a shame, then, that this layered complexity doesn't wend its way into Foreman's lyrics. For the most part they are jolly, whimsical numbers, vapidly referencing 80s and 90s culture. With the exception of a slightly distasteful singalong about putting "chavs" on the moon, this is midafternoon frivolity and nothing more. But an hour is a long time for it, so you'd better be feeling frivolous. [Evan Beswick]

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ASSEMBLY AND A LIST ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

“...had the audience in fits with his resonating observations of common experiences” The Scotsman

“

HHHHH the audience was in a state of uncontrollable joy”

The Age

“Get ready to giggle yourself silly” Melbourne Weekly

Search Assembly Festival

5-29 August 20.20

(Not 9,12,16,19,23,26) Tickets £9-£14

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 39

festmag.co.uk

From the

blogs Throughout the festival we'll be updating Fest's website with the anecdotes, gossip, and idle musings of Fringe performers.

Here's a taste of what's on offer...

Online Now Dave Hill (right) ("a highly boneable public figure from the United States") becomes the first human ever to scale Arthur's Seat: "As I clawed my way to the top, I was pretty sure no one in history had ever managed to climb this high and I imagined I was trampling over the fossilised remains of lesser men who had tried before me."

Maeve Higgins understands how important it is to look the part, especially when you're applying fake tan: "I never bother putting any on my bottom or anything because even if those jeans with a hole in the back come back into fashion I’d probably stick to the older pairs with a covered bottom."

Sam Simmons takes a relaxing stroll among the good folk of the Royal Mile in his first hours in Edinburgh: "I then see a woman dressed like a busty wench. I like boobs, I think to myself. I see men dressed like Vikings, a soggy Egyptian mummy man, snow white, ghouls, clowns, jugglers (hardly a life skill). I even saw one of those statue people who paint themselves bronze having a sandwich on his break. I told him I could see him moving and he told me to 'shut it.'"

Over the next few days Kate Fox the comic (also the BBC's poet-in-residence) presents an ode to a performer's first night in Edinburgh Tom Allen on why performing at the Fringe is a bit like a communal shower after a P.E. class Tiffany Stevenson on how performing standup comedy in China has changed her outlook on artistic freedom Scod of musical comedy act Tripod on how he's into "all that elfy wizardy sort of stuff" Lili La Scala the ex-street performer and renowned glamour puss tells us where to go for vintage clothes John Herrman

40 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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HHHH

The two-man cast of Keepers conjures a touching tale of friendship set in a lighthouse Page 44

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festtheatre

a rare treasure

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 41

festtheatre tabú

What Would Helen Mirren Do?

HHHHH The mission statement of NoFit State Circus is “to be the circus everyone wants to join.” A noble goal, though one which would seem to sit uncomfortably with its latest show tabú’s attempts to pose serious theological questions. While the allure the “dark side” holds for humanity is considered throughout the piece, this affects the overall atmosphere more than the specific content.

Happily, the show is lent an underlying sense of pathos and fragility, while its focus remains firmly fixed on dizzying spectacle and communal activity.

As the audience enters the facade of a flying saucer situated on some otherwise unused wasteland off Leith Walk, an off-beat, immersing experience is clearly imminent.

Once the lights go down, national stereotype characters (whose behaviour irritates as

Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You

HHHHH On the morning of 7 July 2005, the poet and performer Molly Naylor was on the London Underground, making her way back from a night out. Also on the train that day was a young man called Shezad Tanweer. As the train approached Aldgate tube station, Tanweer detonated a homemade bomb hidden in his bag, killing himself and seven others.

Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You follows Naylor as she picks up the pieces of her life in the aftermath of the attacks. At times this monologue is faintly reminiscent of Stefan Golaszweski’s highly rated recent solo work; there is a similarly pleasant poetic rhythm to Naylor’s script, and

HHHHH

much as it amuses) begin to act as both performers and ushers.

The audience is cajoled and directed towards different areas of the tent, as trapeze artists soar overhead and acrobats trampoline in their midst.

The many set-pieces are rigorously choreographed, most possessing a satisfying narrative of their own. One highlight is a performer in platform boots partially stripping and rolling a cigarette while suspended on a tightrope. Though tabú is circus at its most modern and

she makes frequent use of a second-person narrative to describe her own romantic encounters.

However, Whenever I Get Blown Up is a much less accomplished piece of theatre, with little substance to underpin Naylor’s stylistic flourishes. Being based on real-life events seems, in this case, to be a major constraint.

Where a fictionalised account may have been able to explore far darker areas of her character’s psyche, Whenever I Get Blown Up instead meanders aimlessly from London to Cardiff to Cornwall with precious little character development or drama. Even the section in which Naylor recalls the immediate aftermath of the bombings lacks a sense of peril, and fails to capture the fear of being caught up in a terrorist attack.

There is a rather telling

42 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

forward-thinking, such risqué innovations are performed so artfully as to assume a sense of timelessness. Clearly enamoured with circus tradition, NoFit even finds room in its repertoire for more traditional capers, when a lady clown inadvertently, and repeatedly, bludgeons her unfortunate colleague’s testicles with a hula-hoop. Where do I sign up?

[Lewis Porteous] NoFit State Circus, times vary, 4–30 Aug, not 10, 17, 24, £16.00

moment as Whenever I Get Blown Up comes to a close in which Naylor describes with mock-disappointment her psychological recovery going “without too much drama”, a sentiment that is sadly reflective of the production as a whole. [Ben Judge] The Zoo, 1:55pm – 2:55pm, 6–30 Aug, not 17, 24, £5.00

For those of us under-30s who identify with middle-aged, pre-geriatric culture (you’ll know us by our Coronation Steet-filled hard drives and the panic attacks we suffer when we realise we’ve forgotten our daily fish oil), What Would Helen Mirren Do, Josie Melia’s one-woman show inspired by legendary silver screen saucepot Helen Mirren, was always unlikely to fail. And indeed, Melia’s sparkling, light-hearted piece, detailing the self-discovery of till-worker Susan (Anita Parry), knows its audience – perhaps at the cost of any wider appeal.

Susan is a middle-aged divorcée due promotion at her Huddersfield supermarket.

The audience is taken in and out of corporate team building sessions, Susan’s shop, and her newly emptied nest. Parry portrays the cast of characters— a hammy group leader, a seedy manager, a Herculean, hypochondriac co-worker—with a truly gifted ease that’s rarely over the top.

Like those sassy ladies’ comedies of the noughties from which WWHMD seems to take much of its inspiration (Calendar Girls and Mamma Mia, both mentioned in the performance, come to mind), Parry lulls its audience into a state of quaint, mothered bliss, which at moments can border on dull. But what could on the surface be interpreted as little more than a stage adaptation of these films is in fact more nuanced: Susan’s story of finding excitement in a quiet existence speaks to an often-overlooked audience, and Parry’s portrayal of Susan’s relationship with her disabled son, in particular, is both poignant and tasteful. [Arianna Reiche] Hill Street Theatre, 7:25pm – 8:35pm, 5–22 Aug, not 10, 17, £5.00

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festtheatre Three Card Trick

Traverse Love Stories

While You Lie HH

My Romantic History HHHH

Girl in the Yellow Dress HHH

Love is in the air at the Traverse this year, as Scotland's premier new writing theatre hosts three brand new productions all focusing on the complexity and imperfection of relationships.

However, Valentines' Day romcom mush this line-up most certainly is not.

Given top billing as the Trav's flagship production, While You Lie has been attracting a lot of attention. Written by the exciting young playwright Sam Holcroft and directed by the award-winning Zinnie Harris, it tells the story of two young (or youngish) urban couples battling to stay together under the oppressive blanket of economic instability.

While You Lie never quite

seems to know what it's trying to say. What begins as an attempt to explore the idea of honesty in relationships—from assessing the impact of truthfully answering the question "does my bum look big in this" to the psychological harm caused by infidelity—lurches clumsily into capitalist and sexual exploitation before the characters are implored to choose between a path of charity or of selfishness by a sinister, otherworldly doctor. While not short of ideas, While You Lie seems to get bored and abandon its various narrative strands long before reaching anything near a satisfactory conclusion.

Its greatest flaw, though, is its nauseating ending, which is gratuitous without any artistic compulsion. The horror of the gory, violently sexual crescendo of While You Lie completely overshadows the supposedly sensitive reconciliation between Holcroft's two young protagonists. There are some notable performances, in particular Claire Lams as the sexy-yet-vulnerable secretary Ana. The play, however, is simply too weak to be anything beyond a disappointment.

Much more successful is My Romantic History, a charming and irreverent comedy about accidental romance.

Set in a nondescript Scottish office, two not-quite-so-younganymore colleagues embark on an affair that neither of them particularly wants. Told alter-

natively from the perspectives of both the male and female leads, it is an exploration of the importance of our first teenage loves, of our excessively high expectations of others, and of how two people can read the same situation very, very differently.

What makes this production so thoroughly enjoyable are the two perfectly weighted comic performances from Alison O'Donnell and Iain Robertson.

Scottish viewers of a certain age will remember Robertson slurring the line "Sarah, I really fancy you. So how about it?" in the infamous early-noughties Health Education Board of Scotland's TV advertisement, a credential to which D.C. Jackson makes cheeky reference in his nicely observed script. Robertson's character, Tom, is both the relatable everyman and the contemptible, insensitive jerk.

O'Donnell's Amy is alternately strong-willed and independent, and clingy and insecure. Much time is spent deciding who to side with before My Romantic History finally comes to its satisfying, if a little predictable, conclusion. It is a play that is simultaneously funny yet sensitive and also pleasingly reassuring.

If My Romantic History is concerned with an absence of chemistry, The Girl in the Yellow Dress is characterised by its electric presence.

Set in Paris, the production is dominated by the sexual

The Sunday Times ★★★★

“wicked, utterly original, exhilarating”

HOT MESS

a play by Ella Hickson (Eight, Precious Little Talent)

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tension between Pierre (Nat Ramabulana), a French-Congolese student of English tutor Celia (Marianne Oldham). He is a refugee of a country in the grip of civil war, she is looking to escape the social pressures of Middle England.

The Girl in the Yellow Dress is reflective of the best traditions of French romantic cinema: it's sexy, it's challenging, it's smart and there's a strong incestuous undercurrent running below the surface. But it's not entirely satisfying. The ending feels too tidy given the complexity of Pierre and Celia's relationship, while attempts to deal with questions of race feels too underdeveloped to be thematic and too explicit to be allegorical.

It does, however, feature two brilliant performances: Ramabulana perfectly captures the deep complexity of a character trying to find his place in the world. Oldham is worthy of special praise: her portrayal of Celia's metamorphosis from the sassy, sexy and confident urbanite as she first appears into the damaged, vulnerable woman of reality is spectacular.

[Ben Judge] While You Lie, times vary, 5–29 Aug, not 9, 16, 23, £17.00 My Romatic History, times vary, 5–29 Aug, not 9, 16, 23, £17.00 The Girl in the Yellow Dress, times vary, 5–29 Aug, not 9, 16, 23, £11.00

The Scotsman ★★★★

“a huge writing talent”

6PM - 7.30PM 6 - 30th August Venue 347 Hawke & Hunter 12 Picardy Place EH1 3JT

ww www.hotmesstheatre.com

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 43

festtheatre Trapping(s)

Keepers

HHHHH

HHHHH

Trapping(s), like television hit Glee, uses music and dance to explore the theme of adolescence. Glee polarizes people.

Many love it; some think it’s just awful.

Trapping(s) is just awful.

From its opening cliché (“this is the first day of the rest of our lives”) through to its poor finale, there’s not one inspiring moment.

At first it’s hard to tell if this is a genuine production or some sort of joke. Though, since playing ineptitude for laughs requires exhaustive choreography, it soon becomes clear that this isn’t the case.

It’s bizarre that they’ve staged a dance show when so few of them can clap in time. Yet the routines are so unambitious this shouldn’t really matter. In one set piece the cast members balance books on their heads. Next some of them stand on a book – though not all of them as some fall off.

It goes on.

In fairness the acting isn’t as bad as the dancing, but that’s not saying a lot. The script, however, is dreadful.

Documentaries about hoodie violence present modern youth in a more favourable light.

There’s no attempt to create any real characters and instead we’re given a series of coming of age platitudes and sickening love scenes.

Skins, The Inbetweeners and even Glee show that it is possible to portray pubescent emotion without making everyone lose their lunch. Not so with Trapping(s). A more tasteful expression of love and the human condition was provided by two tramps enjoying a quickie in an alleyway near the theatre. Watching them felt less embarrassing. [James McIrvine]

Keepers is a rare treasure, a show with grace and elegance in every action. A simple, stripped-down piece of physical theatre about the bond between a pair of lighthouse keepers in a storm, the cast of two endear themselves to the audience immediately with moments of excellent physical comedy on the sparse set.

A rhyming, alliterative script blends perfectly with the live music and sound effects that accompany every action. The timing is so perfect as to suggest a symbiotic link between

theSpace @ Venue45, 5:05pm – 5:50pm, 6–14 Aug, not Sundays, £6.00

musician and actor. Throughout, repetition of actions and elements from the keepers’ routine, with their struggle to keep their (literal) light burning, allows later images to feed off earlier emotions, forming a skilfully woven patchwork. Shows this beautifully executed are often called "polished", a word which simply doesn’t fit here: it feels lovingly carved, shaped and moulded, and the result is a thing of beauty.

This approach works particularly well after the characters’ relationship comes under stress and forces them to confront pain, isolation and loss – all handled with delicate

poignancy. Despite the dark subject matter, the elegance of the characters’ movements and language remains, creating a touching portrait of the beauty to be found in anguish.

Even though Keepers is a short piece, some moments of slight sag do occasionally creep in, leaving the finished piece just shy of perfect. Nevertheless, this is an exceptionally tender and nuanced portrait of friendship in adversity. It holds the audience rapt. [James Ellingworth]

ing arguments laden with counter-culture clichés held at uncomfortably close quarters.

This is a strikingly earnest play which does well to juggle a wide array of art-protest themes. Writing irony-free about such a well-parodied artistic scene is no mean feat. Minus points for the obligatory Skins-esque party

scene—complete with characters who are so wasted and throbbing electro beats—but a solid twist and engaging character interplay rescue this from being an anonymous addition to the Fringe repertoire.

[Oliver Farrimond]

Pleasance Courtyard, 4:00pm – 5:00pm, 4–30 Aug, not 11, 18, £5.00

Derelict

HHHHH Awkward profundity and angry proto-hippies are the currency of choice in this rather cluttered play. It follows an ensemble of furious young things competing to find the best use of an empty Victorian mansion. In a nod to William Golding, they propose differing visions of how best to utilise the house as an art space, splitting the nascent collective.

The narrative is a gradual boil of competing agendas and youthful spirit, although rather a lot of time is spent developing the group dynamic.

This is done well, but the lack of narrative turns does mean that the work lacks punch.

An unexpected revelation in the final few minutes goes some way to rectifying this, but Derelict is too lacking in cogent exposition in its early stages to trace a genuinely absorbing story from beginning to end.

A small performance space conjures the bric-a-brac squat environment effectively, though it does occasionally leave the numerous performers shuffling in and out of each other’s way, render-

44 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

The Zoo, 4:00pm – 5:00pm, 6–30 Aug, not 11, 16, £5.00

www.festmag.co.uk

festtheatre

at sundown at sundown The story of the end of our lives told in our youth. A collectively imagined autobiography about the unraveling of memory. A joyous physical theater collage about clinging to the past and letting it go.

www.atsundown.net

Aug 07 - 13 @13:20 Aug 14 - 21 @18:30

Belt Up’s Lorca is Dead

HHHHH A meeting has been called at the Bureau of Surrealist Research and everyone’s invited. We are here in the study of writer Andre Breton, alongside the likes of Rene Magritte, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, to see a re-enactment of the life and death of the great poet Federico García Lorca.

The difficulty is that the surrealists can’t agree on how to proceed. Their divergent politics make storytelling problematic and the meeting is frequently at near anarchy.

The audience, members of which are pulled into the action at various points—most memorably to play Lorca himself, albeit briefly—is kept guessing throughout. The show is peppered with bizarre dramatic non-sequiturs that make the

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evening feel more like a series of sketches than a work of narrative drama. Towards the end of the evening, however, when Lorca’s story gathers momentum and the characters have had a chance to establish themselves, a fragile narrative appears. This, in addition to some fine performances from Marcus Emerton as Breton and Joe Hufton as Buñuel, makes for an affecting conclusion.

The cleverness in this writing effectively evokes the spirit of the time, but intellectual in-jokes, whether they be literary, philosophical or political, sometimes feel a bit like showing off.

Not all the risks that Belt Up Theatre takes with Lorca is Dead pay off, but that’s the danger of not playing safe. It may not be perfect, but this is just the sort of risky theatre-making that the Fringe is all about. [Jo Caird] C soco, 7:00pm – 8:15pm, 4–30 Aug, not 25, £9.50

www.allmalebacchae.com

Aug 07 - 13 @15:30 Aug 14 - 17 @20:30 Aug 18 - 21 @22:30

www.silkenveils.net

By Amy Tofte Directed by Pacho Velez

Aug 07 - 13 @12:00 Aug 14 - 21 @17:00

Aug 07 - 13 @14:20 Aug 14 - 21 @19:30

No Performances on Aug 16th £8 Gen | £5 Con tix: 07074 20 13 13 www.venue13.com

On Lochend Close Off the Royal Mile

Run through the MicePace Sonic Maze while you wait!

CaLARTS festival theater August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 45

festtheatre Wolf

HHHHH To what extent are wolf and man interconnected? This is a question that few people are asking, but one that the Authentic Artist Collective are throwing themselves at, nevertheless.

This physical theatre production, set in the atmospheric depths of The Caves nightclub, attempts to illustrate the “ecology, psychology and mythology” of the relationship between humans and wolves, exploring ideas of pack mentality and our place in the world. With no barrier between the performers and punters, the audience spend much of the time being herded around by snarling actors whose wrestling and rutting create an anarchic, paganistic atmosphere that is both all-encompassing and unnerving; a unique device that, while uncomfortable, is the show’s strength. That new characters emerge continuously from the body of the audience seems to leave one with nowhere to hide,

with a feeling of constant exposure to the feral pack of wolves running wild around the performance space.

However, the flaw of this production is that when one’s suspension of disbelief fails, as happened to this reviewer on more than one occasion, Wolf feels like

little more than a extended youth-theatre workshop, a problem made worse when, toward the end of the play, an uneasy audience is forced to participate. Moreover, with minimal plot and what can favourably be described as a series over-enthusiastic performances, there isn’t much

The Man Who Was Hamlet

HHHHH Did the son of a glove maker from Stratford write Shakespeare? Not according to George Dillon, who in this one-man-show plays Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford – the real genius behind star-crossed lovers and the suicidal Dane.

Sigmund Freud, Orson Welles and Sir John Gielgud are amongst those who have favoured de Vere’s authorship, and next year Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance star in Anonymous, a film which promises to settle once and for all why the bard couldn’t possibly have been a chav.

Dillon, to his credit, has got

there first, and his literary aristocrat is as rogueish and charming as Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder II (who, more orthodox scholars maintain, has just as realistic a claim to the authorship).

Regardless of who wrote

46 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

what, Dillon’s performance is exceptional. As well as portraying de Vere at all ages and states of mind, he imitates numerous characters including Pope Pius V and Elizabeth I. He plays them all for laughs but none laughably.

of a frame upon which to hang an hour-long show. For this reason it’s very difficult to form any sort of emotional attachment to Wolf.

[Ben Judge] Just The Tonic at the Caves, 12:15pm – 1:15pm, 5–29 Aug, not 17, £5.00

Most beguiling is his rendering of the simple and illiterate William from Stratford whom de Vere charitably helps with his poetry.

The action scenes are just as impressive. One man acting out fencing scenes and storms at sea could easily look ridiculous but Dillon pulls it off.

It possibly runs a tad too long and the moments of selfpity, though played well, occasionally jar with the piece’s otherwise impeccable pacing.

Yet, whatever you think of the historical authenticity of Dillon’s claims, his de Vere is entirely believable. [James McIrvine] Hill Street Theatre, 7:10pm – 8:40pm, 5–30 Aug, not 10, 17, 24, £5.00

www.festmag.co.uk

Festival COMEDY HIGHLIGHTS Highlights.com check online for 16 more top shows Toby Hadoke - Now I Know My BBC A heartfelt love letter to Auntie Beeb, by Dawson Award winning creator of Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf. Hadoke justifies a square-eyed childhood with a romp through thirty years of TV icons.

Underbelly, Cowgate 18:55 (19:55) 5 - 29 Aug (not 18)

‘Always riotously funny; sometimes surprisingly touching.’ Time Out

the lincoln company

DownThe

Rabbit

Hole

by Alice Batchelar

No Son Of Mine

Pleasance Courtyard 15:15 (16:15) 4 - 30 Aug (not 11, 25)

A double act for anyone who looked up at their father and yearned for adoption. Featuring Perrier nominee Rufus Jones and Alex Kirk, whose TV credits include Mongrels, Extras, Peep Show and Lead Balloon.

‘Hilarious... one of the most amusing shows on the Fringe.’ Scotsman on Dutch Elm

www.festmag.co.uk

Alice Re-imagined... ÊÛi ÕiÃÊÛ LÀ> ÌÊÛ Û>V ÕÃÊÛ>À iÌÞ {ÊqÊÎäÊ Õ}Ê­ ÌʣȮ £Ó°äx« Ê­ä Àxä® / V iÌÃÊËÇ°xäÊqÊË °xä ViÃà ÃÊËÈ°xäÊqÊËn°xä

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 47

festtheatre At Sundown

HHHHH Charging eight pounds for a 45-minute lunchtime show is a bold move for young actors at the Fringe. It needs to be backed by vitality, skillful execution and an unceasing flow of fresh ideas. At Sundown fails almost completely in all of these areas.

Questionable value for money is just one of the play’s many problems. At Sundown begins with a vaguely interesting exploration of the minds of dementia sufferers, using a disjointed mixing of the imagery of young and old. But ten minutes in, the show is effectively over, having settled into constantly regurgitating the first few minutes’ material with only the slightest of variations.

One deadpan explanation of the science behind Alzheimer’s becomes several, none of them of any real interest, while the same is true of the elements of physical theatre. The first time stories of dementia are told during a jaunty dance number it is worthy of attention, but by the fifth, everything is stuck in a tedious faux retro groove.

The inspiration eventually dries up completely, reaching the nadir in a sequence in which the characters blurt out adverbs while acting out the corresponding emotion: laughing while saying “laughing” in a way that wouldn’t be out of place in an after-school drama club.

Even after a tame opening flurry, this performance never threatens to step up a gear.

Bereft of ideas, watching At Sundown peter out slowly is a poor way to spend lunchtime in Edinburgh. Sit down with a sandwich and choose something better. [James Ellingworth] Venue 13, times vary, 7–21 Aug, not 16, £8.00

Face

HHHHH There was once a feature on Russell Brand’s radio show called “Sounds Nice, Is Nasty”, which was devoted to misinterpretable words. Ethnic cleansing and friendly fire were both mentioned; ‘comfort women’, the subject of Face, could well have been included.

The label was given to the thousands of sex slaves the Japanese army employed in World War II. Coerced or kidnapped from Japan’s occupied territories, around 200,000 women are thought to have been forced into the military brothels

The Circle Line and Plastic England

HHHHH A double-bill of bleak, philosophical plays based around loss and disillusionment in the modern world, The Circle Line & Plastic England have some pretty creative theatrical ideas on offer.

The opening Circle Line focuses on obnoxious investment banker Michael Gibson. Ably played by Rob Ward, he’s your stereotypical conceited city boy, complete with Oxbridge nostalgia and unhappy marriage.

Losing his family and his job on the day of the 7 July bombings shakes his cold, dispassionate worldview to the core, and trig-

48 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

supposedly sanctioned by the Imperial Army. The Japanese government has yet to issue a formal apology for the treatment of ‘comfort women’ and for years refused to even acknowledge their existence.

The ETS Theatre Company’s starkly assertive Face is one of the few places you will hear the victims’ testimonies, which took some 40 years to recount.

Written and performed solely by Haerry Kim, Face re-enacts the account of one young Korean girl, shipped to a Japanese military base and repeatedly raped morning until night by soldiers feeling a tad homesick. The nature of the

subject renders theatrics and costumes inappropriate, and to an actor like Kim they are superfluous. She is an astonishing performer, completely believable as both the elderly scarred survivor and the innocent young girl.

While engaging from start to finish, it is a difficult show to watch and one whose subject matter completely eclipses its production values. You may not enjoy watching Face, but it will feel like a necessary education on an issue rarely dramatised. [Catherine Sylvain]

gers some deep soul-searching.

It’s his feminine “inner self”, constantly by his side on stage, which really makes the play interesting. As “Michaela” explains her existence to the audience through a bewildering scientific discourse on subatomic physics, it’s clear that this is a play which requires some brainpower to keep up with.

The way the two characters interact as Michael’s world collapses around him is fascinating to watch. Michaela tries to reconnect Michael with a world he feels increasingly distant from, while he aggressively tries to isolate himself even further.

Plastic England is compel-

ling, but lacks the creativity of the preceding play. The main character, wheelchair-bound Jim Wheelwright, isn’t particularly easy to sympathise with as he sorrowfully narrates the story of his life and his wife’s death. Throughout this, he laments the disappearance of the England he loved.

The production spends a lot of time dwelling on the themes of decline and guilt, building up to Jim’s cathartic confession to his carer Mavis. It’s engaging, but The Circle Line is likely to be the more memorable half of the overall show. [Neil Pooran]

C soco, 7:50pm – 8:50pm, 4–30 Aug, not 16, £7.50

C, 3:45pm – 5:30pm, 5–6 Aug, £6.50

www.festmag.co.uk

2010

‘Clear. Beautiful.

Masterful.’

Lumiere

Lemi Ponifasio MAU Tempest: Without a Body

Birds with Skymirrors

Saturday 14 & Sunday 15 August 8.00pm The Edinburgh Playhouse

Tuesday 17 August 8pm & Wednesday 18 August 2.30pm The Edinburgh Playhouse

Supported by the City of Edinburgh Council and Creative Scotland. Charity No SC004694.

Supported by

Tickets 0131 473 2000 eif.co.uk

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28 Traverse Theatre Lothian Road, 0131 228 1404

19 Pleasance Dome Bristo Square, 0131 556 6550

29 Edinburgh Playhouse 18-22 Greenside Place, 0131 473 2000

10 Dance Base 14-16 Grassmarket, 0131 225 5525

20 The Famous Spiegeltent George Square Gardens, 0131 226 0000

30 Just the tonic @ The Caves Niddry St South, 0131 208 2351

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9 Cabaret Voltaire 36 Blair Street, 0131 225 9744

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27 Zoo Southside 117 Nicolson Street, 0131 662 6892

18 Pleasance Courtyard 60 Pleasance, 0131 556 6550

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26 The Zoo 140 The Pleasance, 0131 662 6892

17 C Plaza George Square, 0845 260 1234

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24 The Hub Castlehill, Royal Mile, 0131 473 2000

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21 Sweet Grassmarket 61 Grassmarket, 0870 241 0136

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festmap Underbelly

56 Cowgate, 08445 458 252

Based in the cavernous former vaults of the Edinburgh Central Library, Underbelly is the youngest of the so-called big four venues. Recognised as the most self-consciously hip major venue, Underbelly is home to two bars and the late-night comedy showcase, Spank.

The Queen’s Hall

85-89 Clerk Street, 0131 668 3456

The year-round home of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, this full-size concert hall holds host to an eclectic mix of events for the Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe and the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival throughout August.

Udderbelly

Usher Hall

Easily the most physically distinctive venue in Edinburgh, Udderbelly is literally a giant, upside-down, purple cow.

With a capacity of 400, Udderbelly is the also the Underbelly family's largest performance space and regularly plays host to the biggest names in comedy.

One of Britain’s leading concert venues, the Usher Hall’s spectacular acoustics, its size and it’s world-famous organ made it a sorely-missed absentee from last year’s programme. But while the £25 million refurbishment won’t be fully complete, the doors will be thrown open in August for the likes of Sir Willard White and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Bristo Square, 08445 458 252

Pleasance Courtyard

60 Pleasance, 0131 556 6550

As the largest single site in Edinburgh for stand-up comedy, the Pleasance Courtyard is something of a hub for comedy enthusiasts. It's the place to discover the next big thing, to see the biggest names and to enjoy an afternoon's celeb-spotting in the sunshine.

Pleasance Dome

1 Bristo Square, 0131 556 6550

Situated on Bristo Square, the Pleasance Dome spends much of the year masquerading as Edinburgh University's student union. However, during August it plays host to the Pleasance's more avant garde theatre offerings.

Moreover, it houses Edinburgh's famous Mosque Kitchen.

Zoo Venues

140 The Pleasance & 117 Nicolson Street 0131 662 6892

Zoo’s two venues—housing five separate performance spaces—are particularly famed for their hosting of new writing. Modern dance and cabaret are also big here.

Sweet Venues 61 Grassmarket 0870 241 0136

Sweet return to the Fringe in 2010 at their Grassmarket location. Home to much small theatre and newcomer comedy, Sweet shows can be variable but some pleasant surprises are always found lurking in the programme.

The Stand Comedy Club 5 York Place, 0131 558 7272

Edinburgh’s only year-round independent comedy club, The Stand has become the venue of choice for a group of high profile comedy renegades, such as Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson, who have shunned the glitzy commercialism of the big four’s Comedy Festival in favour of the Stand’s more intimate and authentic charm.

Greyfriars Kirk

86 Candlemaker Row, 08452 26 27 21

While hosting an active Presbyterian community, the idyllic Greyfriars Kirk has a less-than-secret dual role throughout the year as one of Edinburgh’s regular classical music venues.

August continues in this vein with an extensive EIF programme.

www.festmag.co.uk

Lothian Road, 0131 228 1155

Assembly @ George Street 54 George Street, 0131 623 3030

The former hub of the Fringe before its shift to Bristo Square, George Street is the Assembly rooms’ flagship venue.

In addition to two bars, the stylish Georgian complex continues to attract a mix of big names and hot newcomers – though which of these categories John Smeaton fits into is anyone’s guess.

C Venues

c @ Chambers Street / C too @ Johnston Terrace / C s0c0 @ Chambers Street / C Central @ north Bridge, 0845 260 1234

It’s probably fair to say that C Venues live up to their marketing buzz words, “vibrant, vivacious, variety.” With five locations in the centre of the city, there’s a wealth of spaces to fit a huge variety of new work, from the awardworthy to the mediocre.

Traverse Theatre

Cambridge Street, 0131 228 1404

The Traverse is the spiritual home of Fringe theatre. Opened in 1963 on the premises of a former brothel, the venue has long cultivated a reputation as Scotland's premier new writing theatre and represents one of the only 'safe bets' for audiences looking for quality at the Fringe.

Bedlam Theatre

11b Bristo Place, 0131 225 9893

Housed in an impressive neo-Gothic church, Bedlam is the oldest studentrun theatre in the country. Although its Fringe programme largely consists of student productions—which can vary wildly in quality—you're likely at least to stumble across a few unpolished gems.

Gilded Balloon

13 Bristo Square, 0131 622 6552

Home of Late 'n' Live—the original and most raucous late-night comedy showcase—the Gilded Balloon, though perhaps the most diminutive of the big-four venues, still offers a staggering 70 shows a day in eight performance spaces.

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 51

festtheatre When the Sex is Gone

HHHHH At the world’s largest arts festival—and, considering it takes place in a smallish capital city, maybe the most crowded— even airspace is at a premium.

The success of a performance can depend on whether the artist in question can outshout the performance next door.

From the moment Tommy Bradson’s character, Charlie, tumbles onto the stage, there is no question that the muffled shouts of the adjacent act are to be allowed to get in the way of these autobiographical outpourings without a fight.

In a narrative split between Charlie’s dual, hermaphrodite identity, our first Charlie is a stripper – the star attraction of red light districts from Paris to San Francisco and everywhere in between. Charlie sings the story of her unconventional life in big showtune style, each song detailing a sexual episode significant in the construction of the bawling, desperate, disdainful prima donna who staggers and sways before us.

Our second Charlie is a boxer – a prizefighter who might be the embodiment of prescribed masculinity were it not for all the slap. Zipping between personalities, Bradson’s disturbing perfomance crackles with a passion that often bubbles over into a spitting rage. For the whole hour, we are at Bradson’s mercy: one moment straining to hear as Charlie whispers confessions into her glass, only to be assaulted with a barrage of unintelligable verbal punches in the next. But there’s an inherent problem here: the big question of the relationship between the two Charlies remains unsatisfyingly unanswered. [Mainga Bhima] Underbelly, Cowgate, 11:30pm – 12:35am, 5–29 Aug, not 16, £6.00

Naked Splendour

HHHHH The first few days of the Fringe are often used by critics to try to sniff out the weird and the wonderful whilst most punters are still trying to find their way around.

Perhaps this is why the first showing of Philip Herbert’s curious performance piece is attended solely by three young male critics, who are given paper, boards and pencils as they file in. We’ve all read the programme blurb so we know what we’re letting ourselves in for, but any nerves we may have had about watching a very large, late-middle-aged man strip down to his willy are swiftly quashed by Herbert’s gentle, avuncular presence. Softly spoken and with just the level of mild camp that you’d expect from someone who used to be Julian Clary’s ‘straight’ man on TV, Herbert minces

The Chinese State Circus Mulan

HHHHH The Chinese State Circus certainly aren’t afraid of history. Proudly proclaiming their heritage they remind us that some of the acts performed are thousands of years old. To compound this, Mulan wraps itself around the story of a peasant girl who grew up to lead an army, a tale itself enshrined in Chinese mythology.

In Tony Wilkie-Millar and Tian Run Min’s adaptation, however, Mulan provides less a narrative drive, and more a thread which links a collection of difficult, occasionally mesmerising, set pieces. Mulan is more an idea than a story – the idea of how girls can fight. To that we should add - and they can do circus, too.

Cao Jing’s Mulan seems designed to prove this point.

Fifteen years of Kung Fu train-

52 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

on to the stage in an Africanstyle dashiki and greets us with a beatific smile.

The hour that follows consists of a series of nude poses that the three critics sketch enthusiastically, while Herbert regales us with tales from his long career as a life model. These range from the gently humorous to the genuinely moving, with pauses to consider the questions that naturally occur to people about life models: How much are you paid? Is it uncomfortable? What happens if you get an erection? The sense of common purpose among the audience members creates a real bonhomie and we all seem pleasantly surprised by how nicely our drawings come out. It really is a quite lovely way to spend an Edinburgh afternoon. [Tom Hackett] C central, 3:10pm – 4:05pm, 5–30 Aug, not 17, £8.50

ing show in every sinew of her body. More than a match for the Shaolin Wushu Warriors she twists, turns and wields a sword with breathtaking ease.

Physically impressive as it may be, this spectacle only takes you so far, and Mulan is at its best away from its central characters.

Outside the narrative a couple perform a complex dance of courtship on silks.

Flying above us they mirror each other in a love tug-ofwar. Matched triumphantly by Wu Jia Ji’s score they speak of equality more eloquently than anything else in the show.

With its focus on history, Mulan undoubtedly misses the opportunity to re-imagine what Chinese circus might be,

but there is no denying it acts as a reminder of its continued power to entertain. w[Corinne Furness] Ocean Terminal Big Top, times vary, 6–22 Aug, not 12, 19, £15.00

www.festmag.co.uk

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 53

festtheatre Rachel Rose Reid: I’m Hans Christian Anderson

HHHHH Centred on a fascination with the work and life of Hans Christian Andersen (and not “Anderson” as she spells it on her tickets), this show is all about love. From Reid’s entrance to the soundtrack from The Little Mermaid, her stories of failed relationships and false expectations challenge the perception of romance in popular—namely Disney—tales. Andersen’s optimism with regards to the love life of his characters is a recurring theme.

But the often-explored topic of overly enthusiastic preconceptions should not put you off; Reid is a talented performer. She has a gift for storytelling, and while this is one of the first previews of this year’s show, her delivery is near flawless. She weaves an engaging narrative, talking about her long list of “first loves” and their various shortcomings, dipping in and out of her interpretations of Andersen’s life, and taking a leaf out of her hero’s book by probing the “relationships” of somewhat bizarre objects – namely a tree and a collar.

This is not laugh-a-minute theatrical comedy. When Rose’s crescendos do come, they tend to be a story of letdowns from relationships past. But she is nonetheless an endearing character who draws in her audience with her tales.

There are a couple of welcome surprises. Reid is also a fantastic singer, and the two occasions when this talent is brought to the fore are a highlight. Hans Christian Andersen may have built a reputation as hideously boring, but this show is certainly not.

[Nick Eardley] Pleasance Courtyard, 2:05pm – 3:05pm, 4–30 Aug, £5.00

Bunny

HHHHH With writing credits that include Skins and Shameless, Jack Thorne is known for writing snappy lines for disenfranchised teens. Quick, clever and encased in an urban poetry that both delights and resonates, he packs each sentence with a punch. No word is wasted, no repetition accidental, he has a track record of crafting pithy dialogues and Bunny is no exception.

Brought to Edinburgh by lauded new writing theatre company Nabokov, Bunny is a dynamic production of a sharp text. Rosie Wyatt’s Katie bounds into vivid and jabbering life in front of a cartoon background that mirrors her story frame for frame. Jenny Turner’s guileless illustrations and Ian William Galloway’s deceptively low-fi video design echo both Katie’s childish energy and adult knowing.

In a breathless metropolitan drawl, Katie describes an accident with an ice cream that leads to a manhunt. We watch as she slips down a rabbit hole through a sequence of remarkable occurrences. Thorne’s skill is to make each choice both

An Evening With Dementia

HHHHH Trevor T Smith gives an affecting performance as he makes visible the rarely-seen struggle of dementia sufferers from their own perspective.

This idea is commendable and original; clearly a talented and experienced actor, his physicality is startlingly convincing, almost distractingly so, from the moment the lights go down.

At first, by refusing to see the dementia “sufferer” as such, the play could serve as an empowering comedy created for those with the

54 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

the stuff of fantasy and totally acceptable; you are complicit with Katie through each decision and judgement.

Wyatt is engrossing as the lost girl at the centre of this journey. She is a bundle of teenage confidence and insecurity; one moment she’s a woman, the next a child, she plays each inflection of Thorne’s script beautifully.

There is a tangible un-

dercurrent of desperation in Bunny that raises the stakes at each stage of this adventure; everyday situations take on the mantle of cruel victories and with a thrilling potency, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. [Honour Bayes]

illness. Smith gives advice on how to navigate a route around a moth-eaten memory, presenting an awareness of, and control over, his steady decline. But An Evening With Dementia is ultimately a drama, and further into the performance, tears—induced by touching half-remembrances—are never far away. It is important to note that this is not mere sadness for sadness’ sake. The script includes some remarkable imagery and elegiac dialogue, prompting a philosophical exploration of the journey of life and what lies at its finish line. It takes a damaged but fundamentally wise perspective on life and

requires its audience to contemplate its own existence – a feat which only solid drama can manage.

An Evening With Dementia is unconventional. One cannot avoid wondering whether it might be better in written form – perhaps as a novel. The script itself, though very beautiful and thought-provoking in parts, still feels confused, and unsure whether it is a empowering comedy, a political satire, a Shakespearian tragedy or a brave contemporary monologue. [Sarah Hardie]

Underbelly, Cowgate, 2:10pm – 3:10pm, 5–29 Aug, not 18, £6.00

Radisson Blu Hotel - Great Scots Hall, 4:05pm – 4:55pm, 6–28 Aug, £5.00

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August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 55

festtheatre

RAPID

country music laments, and hula-hoops whilst wearing rollerblades, refusing to acknowledge the limitations of her confined space.

Though her script is witty and moving, it is too fragmented to fully satisfy. Instead, Hi, How Can I Help You? is best admired as a showcase for its creator's enviable array of skills. [Lewis Porteous]

Mandrake

Laughing Horse @ Cafe Renroc, 9:15pm – 10:15pm, 6–29 Aug, not 11, 18, 25, £free

FIRE

HHHHH

Mandrake explores Machiavelli's ruthless political philosophy; in a play where the hero’s sole aim is to get his end away with someone else’s wife, it’s unsurprising that the characters are repellent.

Where the company succeeds is in making depravity compelling. Most watchable is Rob Stott as sponger Lackwealth who, for a substantial fee, enables the lead to "do the nasty" with the object of his lust. Andrew Boxer, who plays this unfortunate, earns laughs as he ensures his wife’s adultery.

Mandrake, however, is very much of its time and setting it in modern dress doesn’t make it seem more relevant. It’s a strong production, but of limited appeal. [James McIrvine] Zoo Southside, 1:40pm – 3:10pm, 6–30 Aug, £6.00

Hi, How Can I Help You?

Lulu HHHHH

The Rififi Theatre's Fringe production of Wedekind's controversial classic Lulu leaves its audience with nothing but questions: Why was a hula-hooping star (Marawa the Amazing) chosen to act in a complex lead role? Why such frantic narrative pacing? Why would a largely musical show not calibrate their acoustics in a way which allows dialogue to actually be heard?

Lulu is a flawed hookerwith-a-heart-of-gold story with a lead actress whose lifeless performance is continuously overshadowed by her infinitely more dynamic and accomplished co-stars, background singers, and utterly mind-blowing costume and set design. Think: classic kabuki meets—dare I say it?

—Lady Gaga.

HHHHH

True to her status as the first openly gay Miss America contestant, issues of sexual identity and national politics abound in Scout Durwood's Edinburgh debut, which is set entirely within a New York City house of domination on the night of the 2008 presidential election.

Durwood's manic efforts to embody her various roles reveal her versatility and fearlessness as a performer. She sings beautifully, effortlessly segueing into unaccompanied

gruous lesbian kiss and an appearance from Elvis Presley.

Adding to the general chaos, the experimental direction and colourful clutter of props keep the stage very busy visually.

Musically the cast deliver a strong performance, with a solid set of catchy numbers, but the affected strangeness of the production distracts from an endearing story and enjoyable music.

Despite revelling in its own unorthodoxy, Operation Greenfield remains bright and unashamedly positive. [Neil Pooran]

Zoo Roxy, 10:35pm – 11:35pm, 6–30 Aug, not 13, 14, £8.00

Operation Greenfield HHHHH

Operation Greenfield is a heady mix of Christian imagery, live rock music and hectic stage direction. At its heart is the story of four middle-England teenagers coming together to form a band, with inevitable rifts, friendships and rivalries.

But the show is marred by moments lacking explanation, including a bizarrely incon-

56 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

Zoo Roxy, 8:35pm – 10:05pm, 6–28 Aug, not Sundays, £7.00

Of Women and Horses I Have Known HHHHH

A story about a foul-mouthed lady addicted to pills and horse racing sounds both fascinating and odd. Add an awkward husband, a mother from the 'old world', a slightly ditzy foreign maid, and we have an enjoyably hellish family reunion. Yet here it goes wrong – maybe there’s too much insight, perhaps certain jokes are still private and unlikely to make a room full of strangers giggle.

There is some amusing physical comedy and a few funny lines, but nothing is particularly affecting. The play is never tedious and the cast exudes energy and likeability, but their narrative is lost between the pointless fretting and comic clichés, moving in too many directions without reaching a destination. [Helen Harjak] Underbelly, Cowgate, 8:40pm – 9:40pm, 5–29 Aug, not 17, £6.00

Wake HHHHH

From the opening line Alec Duncan flits between impersonations of his father, brother, uncle and aunt in

an attempt to prove himself innocent to the audience. But innocent of what? That only becomes apparent when a second actor appears on the scene to disrupt his otherwise flawless defence: his wife, Mary (Ashley Booth).

With a cleverly crafted script, the audience is thrown into the heart of this thespian couple's marital storm as the characters whirl tempestuously around the stage and seats, interchanging past for present and themselves for others at an astonishing rate and with consistent accuracy.

Though Wake's themes occasionally feel overstated in the sometimes obtusely self-conscious dialogue, Brittain and Booth's remarkable performances make for an exhilarating ride. [Rebekah Robertson] Bedlam Theatre, 8:00pm – 8:40pm, 6–28 Aug, £5.00

The Call Of Cthulhu HHHHH

The key element in telling a tale of psychological horror is to bind the audience into the drama as tightly as possible. Unfortunately this H.P. Lovecraft adaption threatens to share its pain and anguish, but never quite connects.

Admittedly, this is not all Michael Sabbaton’s fault. Sloppy technical work is partly to blame for constant breaks in the emotional link. A climactic gunshot rings out slightly too late and an anachronistic synthesiser invades the 1920s setting.

Playing a string of men who encounter the malevolent god Cthulhu, Sabbaton portrays their descents into madness well, but doesn’t always succeed in making the characters initially captivating; it is often hard to care about their fates.

[James Ellingworth] Hill Street Theatre, times vary, 5–30 Aug, not 10, 17, 24, £5.00

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reel toreal real

‘H O T ’ ET T IC K bu rg h Ed in g Ev en in N ew s

THE MOVIES MUSICAL

PLEASANCE COURTYARD 30th · 6pm August 4th–30th 0131 556 6550 | www.reeltoreal.co.uk

58 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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festkids

Lil' critics

Fest's own reviewers, Tom Hackett and Louise Black, are shown the ropes by our junior judges, Ewan Robertson and Samantha Ovenstone

The List Operators for Kids

HHHHH Pleasance Courtyard, 2:30pm – 3:25pm, 4–31 Aug, not 17, £5.00

Tom Hacket says...

Ewan Robertson says...

The List Operators' sketch show for a regular adult audience was one of the neglected gems of last year’s Fringe. Experimental, cerebral and very silly, it combined an admirable desire to push comic boundaries with a fervent commitment to making people choke on their drinks with laughter. This year, they’ve taken that philosophy into the family arena, and the results are as richly, satisfyingly funny as any comedy show you could hope to see here.

Each wilfully anarchic sketch pushes just firmly enough at the door of what’s deemed too rude for children to enjoy: we get plenty of farts, some poo, some sick and even, in a heartstopping moment for many parents in the room, a section where children are invited to make a list of "rude words".

The pair work with energy and skill to keep everything under control, whilst maintaining an illusion of free-wheeling madness that kids of all ages will absolutely adore.

The List Operators for Kids is a funny show in a weird way. I saw fun from start to finish because straight away when you walked in there were signs all over the set which said things like, "Don’t notice this!" – I noticed it! At the beginning they do a checklist which starts with their names and turns into dirty underpants being thrown everywhere! They make more lists as the show goes on.

They really involve the audience which makes it interesting. They got a dad on the stage and he was up and tootin’ – LOL. It keeps moving on to something different so it's like lots of shows in one.

It's just like good cop, bad cop, with one of them always trying to be sensible and the other one being really silly.

There's lots of toilet humour – it's both funny and gross! This is the funniest show I have ever seen and I wanted it to keep on going. Who knows what the next sketch would be about?!

60 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

Farm Boy

HHHHH Assembly @ George Street, 11:45 – 12:45, 5–30 Aug, not 17, £5.00

Louise Black says...

Set years after War Horse, Morpurgo’s Farm Boy is an exploration into how the introduction of machinery affected British farming. This stage adaptation is centred around a cherished 1922 Fordson Tractor – a character in its own right. The Fordson dominates both the stage and the attention of grandfather and grandson as they delve into the past to tell the story of how the tractor came to live in their barn. The bond between the kindly grandfather and the grandson, sparkling with youth and vitality, is a joy to watch as the two actors effortlessly bring the story to life. It is to the performers’ credit that the audience are transported into their world without the aid of elaborate props or staging. This is a heartwarming piece of theatre that paints a sentimental picture of the innocence of rural living and an unbreakable family bond.

Samantha Ovenstone says...

Farm Boy is based on the book by award-winning children’s author Michael Morpurgo and is the sequel to his World War One novel War Horse.

It is an enthusiastic piece of storytelling, guaranteed to keep your attention throughout. There is no scenery and only a few props, like the tractor, but the piano music and lighting set the scene and change the mood as necessary. The actors’ descriptions and actions help you picture the scene clearly like you’re actually there.

The actors Matt Powell and John Walters play the characters really well and have a close relationship that you can really believe in. There are some sad parts but enough laughs – especially when grandpa learns to read and the chicken catching at the fair.

There is an exciting ploughing race between the tractor and two horses – but who will win? If you want excellent storytelling, great acting and some comedy this play is for you!

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festkids

Word Play Known to older audiences as a consummate wordsmith, John Hegley has been entertaining children for years and, as he tells Tom Hackett, they continue to surprise and amaze

W

ord-weaving, mandolinplaying surrealist John Hegley is something of a legend on the adult comedy and poetry circuits. For thirty years now, his gently absurd take on the minutiae of English life has been delighting audiences and earning him admirers as diverse as Stewart Lee and Quentin Crisp. But a lesser-known strand of his career is his work for children. Indeed, he’s been equally comfortable pratting about in front of family groups since the very beginning.

Hegley started out in children’s theatre in the late '70s and hasn’t ever really stopped. His playfully silly approach is a natural fit for an all-ages audience, as is the innocence of much of his material, throwing together imagery like dogs, glasses and carrots in unexpected combinations.

One of the great things about very young audiences, he tells me, is that "they much more want to give you bits to put in the show. So the show will be a combination of what you've got and what they've got, and directing bits that they give you.

So you take on a directorial role, to some extent."

Hegley’s enthusiasm for his job is evident in what he says, but he talks in an unassuming, rhythmic monotone, his London accent conveying quiet confidence rather than exuberant passion. Tellingly, he only gets really sparkly when he’s introducing unusual words into our conversation, like "cob" and "riverweed". He wants to "celebrate" these lesser-known words in his shows, he says.

"The main thing is that we have a good time," he says. But "I certainly want them to have enjoyed language and maybe go out and look for other poetry." He started running poetry workshops for children many years ago. "I remember how difficult it was getting them to understand what poetry is," he recalls. "But I've stopped trying to ask that, and getting them to enjoy themselves with words – which is a much easier thing to do."

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Hegley reckons kids have a "natural affinity" with words and will often muck around with them of their own accord. He points to "a lot of stuff in the playground, rhymes that they know, ‘Do you like jelly?

– I’ll punch you in the belly’, ‘Mrs White had a fright, in the middle of the night,’ all that stuff." It’s really just a case of tapping into this innate interest.

Hegley’s surrealism can also be enhanced by the presence of a young audience. "You get some very straightforward answers," he says. "For instance, if you ask them ‘What’s the difference between a dog and a coathanger?’ they might say, ‘You can hang your coat on one.’

But you get some unusual ones too. I once asked the children the difference between a dog and a deckchair, and one of them said ‘chairs can’t fly'. So you get some straightforward answers, and some very oblique ones!"

The new show is based on "a very simple Australian folk story" that someone told him whilst he was on a sort of guided donkey walk in Gloucestershire last year.

The story involves a host of creatures whose names begin with each name of

the alphabet, so "B is Barn Owl, C is Cob, D is Donkey... I won’t tell you what A is because I want them to guess." A human child goes and asks the animals for advice about a "thing", a threatening presence in the story.

"The thing is not a monster," Hegley explains, "but it’s an unknown thing. It’s a story about how you deal with that which is alien to you, and whether the best way to deal with it is through aggression or friendliness."

It sounds like typically engaging, stimulating and funny stuff, and will be housed this year in an unusual venue.

The Pleasance Ark is a grounded boat made of reclaimed materials, with various environmentally aware activities taking place inside, as well as plenty of pure entertainment. Hegley hasn’t seen it yet, so I ask him what he expects from it.

"Well, it'll be wooden," he says carefully, the playful sparkle punctuating the monotone once again. "And hopefully a good 'un."

Pleasance Courtyard, 5:00pm – 6:00pm, 15–22 Aug, £7.00

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 61

festmusic

Going Green British rap’s emerging pop star Professor Green speaks to Nick Eardley about his upbringing on a London estate and "keeping it real"

W

ere there to be a British version of 8 mile—Eminem’s part-biopic screen debut— Professor Green would have a narrative to fit the bill. Like so many of his American contemporaries, Green—the alias of Hackney-raised Stephen Paul Manderson—has moved from the crime and drug cultures of an estate-based upbringing to the world of popular music.

Like the most famous white rapper of all time he had an often-fractious relationship with his parents, like 50 Cent he nearly died after being violently attacked early in his career, and like Dr Dre he has a soft spot for soft drugs. His name, he laughs, comes from “a keen interest in

plants” when he was younger.

Green’s debut album, July’s Alive Till I’m Dead, shot into the charts at number two, only held off the top spot by the comeback album from his transatlantic competitor, Eminem. Whilst he may not have reached the same heights as rap superstars of the recent past, his collaboration with Lily Allen (‘Just be good to Green’) and sampling of INXS’s ‘Need You Tonight’ have given him an appeal that transcends the “cliquey” boundaries of London’s underground rap scene. It’s a welcome transition.

“I don’t know if I expected it but I’m definitely happy at the success of the album. I kind of live on the basis of low expectations”, says Green.

62 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

In a career kick-started by an impromptu rap battle in London, the 26 yearold has quickly found his feet. Originally signed to The Beats—Mike Skinner of The Streets’ record label—he moved to Virgin last summer after the former collapsed.

Transferring to Virgin has helped propel his career from a name known on the underground scene to one penetrating the charts.

Despite the inevitable changes that come with success, the Londoner is keen to retain what led to his being noticed in the first place – namely, a desire and an ability to speak his mind. He talks honestly, denouncing the “faceless” music he believes that many of his contemporaries

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festmusic are producing, while lauding Lily Allen for her say-it-as-it-is persona. People, he believes, are too PC, and he readily dismisses those who have criticised his assimilation into popular culture.

“They always talk under their breath – they’re just a bunch of muppets. There’s so much stigma attached to being an underground rapper. It’s a cliquey scene and I never really liked it and was always very open about that.

“I think I’ve progressed a little, but even in the poppier songs like ‘I Need You Tonight’ I don’t compromise on the bars. I’m still rapping, there are still those elements of the real stuff in there.”

“I’m still making the music I was. The only thing that’s changed is I’m doing a little bit better for myself. So that’s clearly where their problem lies, not with the music.”

Green’s increasingly jet-set lifestyle (we’re speaking just after his return from Italy) is a long way from his upbringing.

Raised in Upper Clapton by his grandmother after his teenage parents split up, Green says he was exposed to things he shouldn’t have been at an early age. On

first name terms with the local police, it was the sort of hip-hop childhood that has become a familiar story for rap artists, and one he says he wouldn’t change.

“Your social conditions dictate who you are. Everything I’ve gone through has affected me in some way, be it good or bad. It’s all added up to make me the person I am. I think it’s played a huge part in my career.”

Some of what he has gone through, though, nearly killed him. Two months before signing to Virgin, Green was stabbed in the neck on a night out. The broken bottle missed his carotid artery by millimetres. The wound is still visible, partly covered by an apt tattoo that reads “Lucky”. It was an assault that led Green to re-evaluate his life.

“I like to approach my feelings. I don’t like to just suffer them. I had to back off a little bit and take time to get my head straight.”

While it has been music—along with his occasional flirtations with pop star Pixie Lott—that has kept him in the public view, there is a more sinister side to the attention that comes with his background. His

dad committed suicide two years ago and his widow criticised Green in the press last month for “exploiting” his father’s death to publicise his album. When I asked him about these reports, he was audibly moved.

“I read it and laughed. I didn’t have a great relationship with him growing up because he was in and out of my life but what I did say was that he was always the parent I looked up to and how much it fucking killed me when he died.

“The only thing she can do is try and bring me down and good luck to her because she doesn’t stand a fucking chance in hell.”

Though unwavering in attacking his critics, Green isn’t the cocky lad that comes across in his two hit singles. He admits to being far from perfect and is modest about his increasing success. His gig at the Liquid Room looks set to be one of his last in a comparatively intimate venue. He’s not yet reached the level of rap’s American megastars, but catch him while you can. [Nick Eardley] Liquid Room, 7:00pm, 20 Aug, £10.00

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festmusic Stornoway

HHHHH Almost two years have passed since Victoria Street’s Liquid Room was gutted by fire, so the venue’s role as one of the hubs of this year’s Edge Festival comes by way of its grand return to form. Unfortunately, tonight’s performance suggests that all is not well with the refurbishment, as a shoddy PA setup leaves both acts sounding distinctly lacklustre.

Opener Harper Simon—son of folk legend Paul—makes a valiant attempt to overcome a series of technical malfunctions, but his drawled vocals are reduced to little more than a dull, fuzzy monotone. A cover of the Buzzcocks’ ‘Ever Fallen in Love’ is barely recognisable, and while the crowd are sympathetic to Simon’s efforts, it’s ultimately a painfully uninspiring experience.

Oxford folk quartet Stornoway fare a little better, performing with considerable panache and energy, but they

The Divine Comedy

HHHHH It would be easy for Neil Hannon to become complacent: 20 years of critical and popular acclaim is likely to imbue you with a certain confidence. So it’s lucky that the Northern Irish singer-songwriter still pours himself into his performances.

Tonight is no exception.

Despite the occasional forgotten lyric or technical hiccup—a growing pain at the newlyrefurbished Liquid Room, it seems—Hannon keeps his audience hopelessly in thrall throughout his 90-minute set.

Opening with “Assume The Perpendicular”, from latest album Bang Goes The Knighthood, might have been an ambitious move, running as it does the risk of unfamiliarity.

But the large and increasingly

too fall victim to badly flawed sound engineering. The low end is far too pronounced, with the bass and drum lines allowed to dominate proceedings, often to the point of drowning out Brian Briggs’s beautifully melodic vocals. Quieter tracks like ‘The Coldharbour Road’ and ‘Long Distance Lullaby’ suffer, though more energetic interludes in the form of ‘Zorbing’ and a rousing

rendition of ‘Watching Birds’ give a tempting glimpse of Stornoway’s real capability.

Illuminated by a lively light show, the band look and sound decidely out of place. In fact, so inappropriate is their framing tonight that much of their material’s trademark intimacy evaporates. The crowd are suitably supportive, but it’s only with the encore, and a delightfully tongue-in-cheek

unplugged performance of the banjo-heavy ‘We Are The Battery Human’, that they really pour on the adulation.

Tonight’s festivities show the green shoots of something beautiful, but it seems the Liquid Room’s owners still have some work to do.

[Marcus Kernohan] Liquid Room, 7:00pm, 5 Aug, £10.00

boisterous audience don’t miss a beat.

In fact, tonight’s performance is defined not so much

by Hannon—though his musicianship is admirable—as by the crowd’s ecstatic participation in almost all aspects of the show. When Hannon stumbles on a line the crowd are quick to prompt him, and songs that might have been left lacking in the one-man-and-a-piano format are augmented by the punters’ innate ability to vocalise any guitar solo, bass riff or backing vocal line.

Often comic and entirely heavenly, it’s nights like these that explain why Hannon and his rotating cast of musical companions have been so successful over the years.

[Marcus Kernohan] Liquid Room, 7:00pm, 6 Aug, £17.50

64 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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FEST IVA L SPE C IA L

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CARRy ON dJS, 18+, £5 entry SAT 14Th 7PM: EdgE FESTIVAL: Mull Historical Society (aka Colin MacIntyre) & Delta Mainline, 18+, £12.50 SAT 14Th 11PM: SOMEThINg WICKEd ThIS WAy COMES, 18+, £6 SAT 14Th 1AM: ThE BANg BANg CLUB with Guest DJ Aidan Moffat, 18+, £6 MON 16Th 7PM: EdgE FESTIVAL: Tom Gray (Gomez), 18+, £12.50 TUE 17Th 7PM: ELECTRIC CIRCUS & EdgE FESTIVAL: Withered Hand & The Last Battle,

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10

SAT 28Th 7PM: EdgE FESTIVAL: Pearl & The Puppets, 18+, £6.50 SAT 28Th 11PM: SOMEThINg WICKEd ThIS WAy COMES, 18+, £6 SAT 28Th 1AM: hIS & hERS, 18+, £5 on the door SUN 29Th 11PM: BIg TOP TACKNO, 18+, £8/7 MON 30Th 7PM: ELECTRIC CIRCUS & EdgE FESTIVAL: Alex Cornish & band, The French Wives, 18+, £6.

TUE 31ST 7PM: EdgE FESTIVAL: General Fiasco, 18+, £7

Please see the website for ticket info: theelectriccircus.biz t: 0131 226 4224 36-39 Market Street, edinburgh EC_Fest.indd 1

6/8/10 10:02:05

Edinburgh Music Theatre Company presents

a tribute to

the MovieMusical” with songs from

HAIRSPRAY, 9 - 5, PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT RENT, FOOTLOOSE AND MANY MORE

Distilled in a revered 200 year old Scottish copper pot still Edinburgh Gin is a small batch, big juniper gin with a particularly Scottish twist …softer, less pungent Scottish juniper, as well as heather, pine and milk thistle.

Musical Director Neil Metcalfe 7:10 pm & 8:40 pm (50 mins) 9 - 12 August 2010 Venue 111, St Andrew’s & St George’s West Church, 13 George Street, Edinburgh

Bottled in Edinburgh 877c at Pantone 43% ABV.

Tickets £10 (£8 Concessions)

from Venue Box Office - 0131 225 3847 www.edinburghtheatre.co.uk Fringe Box Office - 0131 226 0000 www.edfringe.com Tickets also on the door and from company members Scottish Registered Charity SC008131

www.festmag.co.uk

www.spencerfieldspirit.com/EdinburghGin

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 65

festbooks

New Labour's

Old Guard The Labour Party’s longest period in power is over. But was New Labour a success? And what will its legacy be? Nick Eardley speaks to Alistair Darling and Polly Toynbee, two people intimately connected to the party

11

May was the end of an age for New Labour. As Gordon Brown turned away from his lectern on Downing Street, bidding farewell to the country, the weight of the world seemingly lifted from his shoulders, he knew that the next day would be the first for thirteen years that the party he had been at the fore of for almost two decades would awake in opposition.

The Blair-Brown years had been the most rewarding for the party in its history: three successive general election victories, 13 years of uninterrupted government.

Britain has changed almost beyond recognition since Blair’s heroic arrival in Downing Street in 1997 and the days of “Cool Britannia” – an extended NHS, devolution, peace in Northern Ireland, the Human Rights Act. But it has also seen some of its greatest challenges, arguably areas where the most significant failures of New Labour are evident: wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a failure to regulate the banking system so costly it led almost to the collapse of the financial system, the worsening of income inequality. How will the party’s dominance of Westminster politics be remembered?

Sitting in his Edinburgh constituency office, a two-minute walk from Charlotte Square where he will give this year’s Donald Dewar memorial lecture, Alistair Darling explains how the recession was not the government’s fault, and tells me the ways in which his party improved the country. Darling was one of just three ministers to serve throughout Labour’s time in power – along with Gordon Brown (who made him chancellor) and Jack Straw.

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festbooks Perhaps surprisingly for someone still serving in a Labour shadow cabinet, he is prepared to deviate from unwavering praise, conceding that Labour should have done more.

“You can always do things better—there are people in different parts of the country who can quite rightly say you could have done more—but I will not say that everything we did was wrong.

“In terms of economic reform and greater opportunities for people, we have a lot to be rightly proud of that did make a real difference. But obviously at the same time as that you had Iraq, which dominated politics, certainly in the early part of this last decade, which is deeply controversial.”

Darling’s concessions may not quite amount to a denigration of Labour’s time in power, but they hint at the feeling that the party did not go as far as it perhaps would have liked.

The Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee is well versed in assessments of the former government’s triumphs and shortcomings. This autumn will see the publication of her third book on the subject, co-written with her partner David Walker. It will be a full evaluation of New Labour between 1997 and 2010, one that she admits is more “pessimistic” than the pair’s previous analyses.

“I think there is a strong underlying passion for more equality and they are sort of shocked at themselves. They thought they’d tried hard. But even then they hardly managed to stand still in the growth of inequality, and not to reverse it, and I think they are all pretty depressed at themselves about that.”

Toynbee is reluctant to pinpoint exactly how the Brown-Blair years will be remembered; as a Labour cheerleader she believes that as the coalition implement far-reaching cuts as part of their austerity programme, more will look back and say that the relative largesse of the New Labour years was a good thing. Nonetheless she thinks Labour’s achievements came largely in the 1997-2001 term. She talks of the New Deal, the minimum wage, devolution – “the best stuff they did.”

But Iraq left a gaping wound that never properly healed.

“All the most memorable things date back pretty much to the first year; after that is was a sort of continuing disappointment. That would be putting it mildly with the Iraq war, but certainly that was the great error that broke the spirit of

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"I don’t think Blair’s reputation will ever be what it might have been because of Iraq"

the party. It broke them internally, even all those obedient people who voted for it. It left them deadened in a way, and unadventurous about new things.

“They will be blemishes forever, we are never going to forget them. I don’t think Blair’s reputation will ever be what it might have been because of it.”

However destructive Iraq was, Labour won the following election – albeit with a reduced majority in parliament. Darling and Toynbee agree that the fundamental shift in the party that came with the rewording of Clause IV in the mid-nineties saw it appeal to the middle ground in a way it had never done before. This, they contest, will not change.

“There is no way they could go back to that” says Toynbee “or if they do it will be a tiny rump of a party with nobody left in it.”

Darling agrees: “Where the Labour party failed in the seventies and eighties is that it never adapted to the world in which everyone else lived.”

Britain seemed to favour change, as opposed to continuity as represented by Brown when it went to the polls in May. With him on the ropes after the economic crash, after thirteen years of ups and downs, and with internal squabbles moving towards open rebellion, the demise seemed inevitable.

Darling, however, thinks differently.

The party was not destined to return to opposition simply because of the public’s desire for change. It failed to win the argument.

“I think we could have made a stronger argument, but we didn’t. We lost and we have to accept the consequences of that.

Perhaps those at the top of the party were too concerned with the government’s legacy, and how they would be remembered. [Nick Eardley]

Alistair Darling: Charlotte Square, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, 17 Aug, £10.00 Polly Toynbee: Charlotte Square, 3:00pm – 4:00pm, 29 Aug, £10.00

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 67

festbooks

Hot tickets Very few tickets for the book festival remain come August. Every issue, we'll bring you a pick of the tickets that you can still get – if you hurry Dan Cruickshank Charlotte Square, 4:30pm – 5:30pm, 15 Aug, £10.00 The latest book from the historian, well known for his knowledge of buildings in the Georgian era, looks at a murkier side of the period's booms of urbanization. How powerful was the lure of prostitution and how did it influence architecture and culture?

Expect the TV presenter to delve into the history of Edinburgh's New Town and how it compares with other Georgian developments in Britain.

Ian Blair Charlotte Square, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, 16 Aug, £10.00 The former Metropolitan police chief oversaw his fair share of controversy – particularly the investigation over the shooting of Jean Charlese de Menezes. With the police under increased scrutiny after the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G8 protests in 2009, how does Blair believe the Met can win back the public's trust? And just what happened between him and Boris Johnson that led to Blair's resignation in 2008?

Fatima Bhutto

Live from Charlotte Square

This year, Fest is expanding our coverage of the Edinburgh International Book Festival to bring you all the buzz from the best events – wherever you are. We have a team of dedicated bloggers who will be keeping you up-to-date with the latest from Charlotte Square every day. This extremely talented bunch will be posting blogs and tweeting with news and reviews from the top events at this year's Book Festival. Don't forget that our site is mobile-friendly, so you will be able to access it on the move.

www.festmag.co.uk/books

Charlotte Square, 3:00pm – 4:00pm, 15 Aug, £10.00 A member of Pakistan's famously troubled political dynasty, Bhutto is appearing twice in the opening days of this year's festival. In the first event she talks about her family and the future of her home country. The following day she appears with celebrated writer Fay Weldon, with the two discussing the loss of a parent. Check out our website for an interview with Bhutto.

James Fergusson and Jim Frederick Charlotte Square, 10:00am – 11:00am, 16 Aug, £10.00 Foreign policy in the Middle East has been at the fore of political discussion for the past decade. Edinburgh-based Fergusson talks about the prospects of peace with the Taliban while Time reporter Frederick discusses Iraq and the darkest days of the American operation there. [Nick Eardley]

68 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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festbooks

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Box office on site daily from Tues 3rd Aug 9.30am to 9.30pm

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www.festmag.co.uk

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 69

comedylistings

festival

listings When it's this time...

...this show is on...

18:00 ❤ Penny Dreadfuls HHHH Pleasance Courtyard 4-30 Aug, not 17, £5.00

...on these dates...

... at this place...

...for this price (minimum)

Fest is the only place you can pick up daily listings for all of the Comedy and Theatre shows at the Fringe.

The listings are arranged by type - Comedy or Theatre - and then by start time. We've listed the dates that each show is running - remember that it might be on at different times too.

Listings are subject to change, so check with the venue before planning ahead. Listings for other festivals can be found at festmag.co.uk or on the Festival websites.

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comedylistings

‘faultless and engaging drama which kept me captivated for its entirety’ London Festival Fringe

Where the Solitary Eagle Flies

By David Hutchinson

6 - 14 Aug @22:35 Tickets £8.50; 16 - 28 Aug @ 21:05 £6.50 (concs) The Space @ Surgeons Hall Box Office: 0845 508 8515 www.selladoor.com

78 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

Come and meet the neighbours Gilded Balloon Teviot 4 - 30 Aug 2.30pm

Box Office:

0131 622 6552 gildedballoon .co.uk

www.festmag.co.uk

comedylistings

-

www.festmag.co.uk

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cabah00ray “...breathtakingly good.”

“...brilliantly hilarious.”

Australian Stage

The Groggy Squirrel

Laughing Horse @ THE COUNTING HOUSE VENUE 170 - 38 WEST NICOLSON ST 0131 667 7533

BALL ROOM

THE SHOW MUST GO ON!

19 - 29 AUGUST 12.30 - 1.30 NIGHTLY MORE INFO WWW.FREEFESTIVAL.CO.UK

FREE ENTRY!

avatarresources.com.au

80 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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ry a n o i t Sta ss

MADE IN CHINA THEATRE

Exce

A thirty-minute, champagne fuelled electric shock to the system that will scream out to anyone who has loved and UNDERBELLY DELHI BELLY lost.

5-29 AUGUST | 11.15AM | £6-£9

84 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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theatrelistings

“One of the finest shows you’ll see” TIME OUT LONDON CRITICS’ CHOICE

VENUE 272 LAUGHING HORSE @ THE THREE SISTERS MAGGIE’S CHAMBER, 139 COWGATE EH1 1JS AUGUST 5-8, 10-15, 18-19, 21-22, 25-29 8.45PM-9.45PM WWW.FREEFESTIVAL.CO.UK

www.festmag.co.uk A5Issue.indd 1

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PRESENTS

“like no other circus you’ve ever seen” The Times

Venue 155 The Big Top, Shrub Place, Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH7 4PB Dates 4 – 30 Aug Tickets £12 – £18 Concessions & Family Tickets Available

Tickets from

nofitstate.org 0844 245 6666

* nofitstate winners for previous show ImMortal

www.festmag.co.uk

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 89

theatrelistings

Edinburgh Music Theatre Company presents

a tribute to

the MovieMusical” with songs from

HAIRSPRAY, 9 - 5, PRISCILLA QUEEN OF THE DESERT RENT, FOOTLOOSE AND MANY MORE

Musical Director Neil Metcalfe 7:10 pm & 8:40 pm (50 mins) 9 - 12 August 2010 Venue 111, St Andrew’s & St George’s West Church, 13 George Street, Edinburgh

Tickets £10 (£8 Concessions)

from Venue Box Office - 0131 225 3847 www.edinburghtheatre.co.uk Fringe Box Office - 0131 226 0000 www.edfringe.com Tickets also on the door and from company members Scottish Registered Charity SC008131

90 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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theatrelistings

Venue Box Office: 0845 508 8515 Fringe Box Office: 0131 226 0000

//

Livewire Theatre Company Presents:

/ / OLYHU 7ZLVW

oliver twist ad:Layout 1

19/7/10

09:34

20:45 - 6-14 August 2010 The Space@Surgeons Hall (V53)

RACHAEL SAGE 15-30 Aug

www.festmag.co.uk

August 10-12 | edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 91

Pag

theatrelistings

Distilled in a revered 200 year old Scottish copper pot still Edinburgh Gin is a small batch, big juniper gin with a particularly Scottish twist …softer, less pungent Scottish juniper, as well as heather, pine and milk thistle.

Bottled in Edinburgh 877c at Pantone 43% ABV.

Filmhouse & Festival Square 25th - 29th August 2010 Conference • Public screenings Play free games area

www.spencerfieldspirit.com/EdinburghGin

92 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

www.edinburghinteractive.co.uk www.festmag.co.uk

BOOK NOW! AMNESTY’S ANNUAL SELL OUT COMEDY SHOW….

Stand up for

freedom 2010 Adam Hills Dan Antopolski Danielle Ward Fred MacAulay John Bishop Josie Long Mark Watson Michael Mittermeier Tim Key and more to come...

RUNNING S R A E Y 3 1 W O H S SELL OUT 19 AUGUST 10PM, £14

VENUE150 @ EICC, 150 MORRISON STREET, EH3 8EE www.amnesty.org.uk/edfest www.edfringe.com 0131 226 0000 |

www.festmag.co.uk

August 10-12 edinburgh festival guide 2010 fest 93

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6 – 30 August

It’s Show Time!

Browse the Fringe online shop

Visit the Fringe Box Office

shop.edfringe.com,

www.edfringe.com, phone on 0131 226 0000,

visit 180 High Street

in person at 180 High Street

Download the iPhone App The official iPhone App of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Connect with us @edinburghfringe facebook.com/edfringe

Over 2500 shows, More than 250 venues, One Fringe 94 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

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theatrelistings

ASSEMBLY AND A LIST ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTS

“...had the audience in fits with his resonating observations of common experiences” The Scotsman

“

HHHHH the audience was in a state of uncontrollable joy”

The Age

“Get ready to giggle yourself silly” Melbourne Weekly

Search Assembly Festival

5-29 August 20.20

(Not 9,12,16,19,23,26) Tickets £9-£14

www.festmag.co.uk

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96 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12 PlanB(68x46).indd 1

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Local Takeover

How the locals party all year round

Hostage [Nightshifters]

Anarkid [Axis] Bargain Harold & i-Tallah Disco

[Sick Note/This Is Music] Ambient amusements from Gamma Ray’s Freaky Brides and ECA Performance Costume

Wednesday 11th August Assembly @ Princes St Gardens

11.30pm - 3am, £7+bf / £9 on the door Tickets: www.assemblyfestival.com 98 fest edinburgh festival guide 2010 | August 10-12

www.festmag.co.uk

NEW TO DVD THIS AUGUST Birds of a Feather – Complete First & Second Series The two bickering sisters Tracey Stubbs and Sharon Theodopolopodos, and their oversexed neighbour Dorien Green, return to DVD this summer. Starring Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph, the first series of this British Comedy Award winner is now available with the 1989 Christmas Special, and the second series has never before been out on DVD.

Cannon and Ball Complete First Series Cannon and Ball showcase their trademark stand-up routines along with sketches, spectacular variety entertainment and a wealth of guest stars. This first series includes appearances by Irene Handl, June Whitfield, Maureen Lipman, Lisa Goddard and Michael Robbins.

Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club – Complete Second Series The legendary Bernard Manning comperes while fellow stand-up veteran Colin Crompton is ‘Mr Chairman’ at the Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club – the friendliest working men’s club in the North. Available now for the first time on DVD, this release presents the complete second series, which features Roy Orbison, P.J. Proby, Marty Wilde, Russ Conway and Matt Monro.

Benny Hill Annual 1984 & 1985 Known throughout the world for his combination of high-speed farce, risqué jokes and gorgeous ladies, it is these shows that turned Benny Hill into a global household name. The show was nominated for multiple BAFTAs and Emmys, and these annuals are now available for the first time on any format.

www.networkdvd.co.uk Packaging design © 2010 Network

AVAILABLE FROM PRE-ORDER YOURS TODAY

BY

ARRANGEMENT

WITH

L I S A

T H O M A S

M A N A G E M E N T

PRESENT

‘One of the most SPARKLING WITS in the world.’

MONTREAL GAZETTE

‘Subtle, intelligent, perceptive, observant and VERY, VERY FUNNY.’ THE SCOTSMAN

7.30PM 4TH-30TH AUGUST

0131 226 0000 WWW.EDFRINGE.COM FOR FULL TOUR DETAILS GO TO www.dannybhoy.com