What I did on my holidays
Well, I thought I'd break radio silence to give you this summation of the shows I saw on my week in Edinburgh. Overall, I had a superb time, and managed to avoid seeing anything worse than "mildly disappointing", which is quite an achievement considering I took in 25 shows over the week.
Here's what I thought of them all:
Nick Doody: Hypocrite: Engaging stand-up comedian. Nick Doody is blessed with a funny face, a relaxed onstage manner and an ability to switch from observational comedy into more absurd flights of fancy. A thoroughly entertaining way to spend my first hour at the Fringe.
Three stars.
Dickens Unplugged: Ex-Reduced Shakespeare Company members turn their attention to the works of Charles Dickens. We were treated to lengthy musical parodies of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol, with short songs about Great Expectations and Bleak House. Very funny throughout, and skilfully played & sung. The writers clearly had a good knowledge of Dickens, and the portrayals of Dora Spenlow and Barkis in particular were spot-on. Oh, and Tiny Tim, with his crutch-cum-electric guitar ("That kid can really rock") was very funny indeed.
Four stars.
Norman Lovett's Slideshow: The Red Dwarf star presents scenes from his life in suburban London, accompanied by a wry commentary. Funny, though in a very gentle, laid-back way.
Three stars.
Sarah Kendall: My First Kidnapping: Flame-haired Austalian comedienne relates the story of how she was kidnapped by pig farmers. A cross between stand-up, monologue and theatre. A lot of seemingly throwaway jokes recurred throughout the story, giving the whole thing a coherence that prevented it from descending into a shaggy-dog story. Oh, and it was very, very funny.
Five stars.
Mitch Benn's Music Club: Musical stand-up is a genre I have a lot of time for, and Mitch Benn is a master at it. His songs ranged from topical jibes at the Iraq war, to Andrew Lloyd-Webber parodies (something else I have a lot of time for), to, for instance, telling the story of Macbeth in rap (I'll use my skill with words and grammar to/ Kick yo' ass in iambic pentameter). Oh, and his bass player is the most sexually desirable woman on God's green Earth, as well as being Nick Doody's girlfriend. I hate Nick Doody.
Four and a half stars.
Out of the Blue: Alarmingly young group of a capella singers, Out of the Blue perform their own unique versions of Robbie Williams ballads. There were some laughs to be had, and I genuinely enjoyed the first couple of songs, but the gimmick soon wore off. I was reminded of a passage in Zadie Smith's On Beauty in which the main character describes his horror at seeing barbershop groups attempt popular songs, which is never a good thing.
Two stars.
Arcadia: A Tom Stoppard play, impeccably performed by the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Absolutely superb. The cast managed to do justice to the intimidatingly dense script; I felt as if condensed particles of erudition were being fired at me throughout the play.
Five stars.
Guilds: The latest from the Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group. Given EUSOG's stellar productions for the past three years, this was a slight disappointment. The piece was well-sung and competently acted, and the chorus never fell short of spectacular, but the script (about a jester election) lacked sparkle. It was the author's first attempt, and the plot certainly held together, but it didn't have the wit of previous EUSOG shows, and the satire (on unscrupulous elecioneers) was rather overstated. However, the originally composed score was good, and the enthusiatic performances meant there was still many a laugh to be had.
Three stars.
Shakespeare for Breakfast: A Fringe fixture, these riffs upon the Bard's work are always entertaining, and this year was particularly fine. Several Shakespearian characters (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Cleopatra, Puck and Juliet's Nurse) were lost in a forest, each with his or her own agenda. There was a loose "Carry On" theme (the title of the show was "Carry On Up The Avon), which (apart from having the Nurse play her part like a Welsh Barbara Windsor) mainly manifested in the occasional "scene from the film" and, to be honest, didn't make that much sense. The show as a whole was very funny, though, especially the perpetually confused Hamlet ("I'm famous: I invented psychology") and the scene in which Richard I, Richard II and Richard III were holding auditions for Richard IV (they weren't impressed with Nursey, but Macbeth got the gig).
Four stars.
Lunchbox Live: A lunchtime comedy smorgasboard. Four comedians from around the Fringe performed a short excerpt from each of their acts. First up were Toulson & Harvey, of whom more later. Next was Mark Watson, with a serious monologue about his time in prison. This was interesting, but wrong-footed the audience somewhat as we were expecting a comedic piece. Markus Birdman performed an amusing, but not earth-shattering set, and the show finished with Christian Riley, a very funny comedian and musician. The show was compered by Jarred Christmas, whose humour, energy and charisma lifted the whole into more than the sum of its parts. Whilst a show such as this is necessarily rather "bitty", the quality of the compere and the strong opening act made it a fun way to spend an hour.
Three stars.
Toulson & Harvey: Quick-fire character comedy. Toulson and Harvey told the long and extremely convoluted story of how they met through a series of sketches, from a couple of Spanish singers to a Polish public information broadcast (warning of English asylum seekers). The highlight was a montage of Toulson training Harvey to be a comedian ("Knock knock" "Who's there?" "The interrupting cow." "The interrupting... *pause*... cow who?" "Moo. I don't get it."). Wonderful.
Five stars.
Josie Long: Trying is Good: Delightfully sweet indie kid, with a show all about trying hard in pointless endeavours. She gave out oranges to audience members who laughed especially hard. Delicious. She was plugged in the Guardian the Saturday before we went up, and definitely lived up to the hype.
Five stars.
Four on the Floor: A selection of stand-up comedians, compered by Luke Toulson of Toulson & Harvey. The first comedian (a disabled woman) was rather sub-par, as most of her material revolved around being disabled, and not being afraid to laugh at it. The next two comedians were very funny, mainly due to being constantly heckled by a guy named Mark on the front row who, I'm informed, was probably suffering mild brain damage. They bore it well, and managed to handle him without malice. A particular highlight was a joke about paedophilia, which ran thus:
Comedian: "A paedophile tried to abduct me when I was six. The joke was on him though: I beat the shit out of him. He didn't realise I was born on a leap yer."
Mark: "How did you know he was a paedophile?"
Me (interjecting): "The paedophile was in prison, and you were visiting him."
Mark again: "But why were you visiting him?"
Jess: "Because he was your dad?"
I never thought I'd see the day... The final act was a comedy magician, who was kinda mediocre, but who gained points for trying to cut Carl's head off.
All in all, Four stars, mainly due to the heckling.
Aeneas Faversham Returns: Aeneas Faversham, a Victorian-themed sketch show, was one of my favourite parts of last year's Fringe experience, and this year they've managed to make lightning strike again. The sketches ranged from the recruitment of a carnival frek, to the strangely touching tale of a young man saying goodbye to his childhood imaginary friend. The biggest laugh was had during the Invisible Man sketch, in which we were informed that Specimen 626 had escaped, leaving his clothes in his cell, whilst a naked man danced around the stage, unnoticed by the other two actors. Marginally less funny than last year, but I suspect that's just the effect of familiarity.
Four and a half stars.
Love In 3 Parts: Pleasant little play about the rise, fall and rise again of a love affair between two charming mild neurotics. Funny and touching, with an enjoyable live guitar accompaniment.
Three stars.
Slight Tilt To The Universe: I walked into this with no expectations at all, and was very, very pleasantly surprised. A comedy about a clerical error in the administrative department of Heaven that leads to a woman becoming pregnant with evil sextuplets, this contained elements of farce, supernatural comedy, philosophical musings and social comment. The performances of the student cast ranged from excellent (Helena the dizzy secretary who made the mistake) to passable (the mother-to-be of the evil children), and there were some very nice directorial touches (such as the Visitor badges worn by the bureaucratic "angels" when they visited our world).
Four and a half stars.
Arnab & Greg: Two stand-up comedians. Greg was first up and was, to be frank, a washout. Whilst he seemed a pleasant enough chap, his act contained very few jokes and didn't seem to go anywhere. Arnab was considerably better, though he loses a lot of points for musing the incrediby hackneyed "Isn't it funny how the things in the Alanis Morrissette song "Ironic" aren't actually ironic?" routine. A few good jokes weren't enough to lift a lot of dead air.
Two stars.
Faustus: The latest production from the company that produced the superlative Pierglass last year. In this new version of the classic tale, a music student sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for 24 years of genius. Like the Pierglass, this production is blessed with very capable young actors and sumptuous costumes, and the extremely clever use of lights, props and space drenches the story in atmosphere. Sadly, the script was not up to the high standards set by last year; the story lacked any real sense of tragedy, and didn't seem to have anything to say about the nature of evil or of genius, a sad shortcoming given the rich source material. Still, the acting and direction, combined with a haunting original score, made this a memorable production.
Three and a half stars.
Best Laid Marketing Plans: An hour of curiously old-fashioned stand-up, ostensibly with a marketing theme. The comedian's day job was in marketing and, perhaps unsurprisingly, all of his best jokes were marketing-related. Unfortunately, he put a lot of rather weak material in the middle that didn't have very much to do with marketing. This reached its nadir when he made a series of jokes about "Otis Spunkmeyer" having the word "Spunk" in it. The show was saved, however, by an entertaining piece of audience participation at the end, where we had to come up with a marketing campaign for a burning chair, and by the comedian's engaging onstage persona.
Two and a half stars.
Dan Clark & Friends: An evening of musical comedy. We attended because this was Priorite a Gauche's only Edinburgh performance, and were very, very amused. Dan Clark, the compere, latched onto my enthusiasm and loud laugh immediately, and proceeded to mock me in song and in prose throughout the evening. And I loved every minute of it. The acts were God's Pottery (enthusiastic pseudo-Christian character comedians- sample song (about chastity): The Pants Come Off When the Ring Goes On), a black guy whose name I can't remember (but who did a very, very funny parody of gangsta rap: Put the shit on the fuck and the fuck on the shit, ya got a fuck shit stack, a fuck shit stack), Ginger & Black (two strangely deadpan folk singers) and, of course, Priorite a Gauche. The whole thing overran by over an hour, and I can honestly say that I wished it was longer.
Five stars.
Touch: Funny , heart-warming play about a maladjusted loner who, against his better judgement, saves a girl from drowning, and the havoc she wreaks upon his life. Well-acted, well-written, well-directed. Superb.
Five stars.
Under Milk Wood: Extremely strange piece of physical theatre, in which six students read the whole of Dylan Thomas's poem whilst doing odd things with chalkboards. I spent the first ten minutes in a state of dumb incomprehension, but, as I was drawn into the language and the world, grew to appreciate it more. All- in all, it was well done (though teetered perilously close to self-parody), though I feel I would have got more from it had I read the poem first.
Three stars.
Twinss: Very funny and good-natured romp from the pen of Ali Blackwell, current president of New Theatre. New Theatre "comedies" can often be poorly thought-out excuses for being silly; this is far from the case with Twinss, which is a very well-thought out excuse for being silly. The sprightly farce revolves around two twins who find themselves on opposite sides during the Second World War, with hilarious consequences. Highlights include the coup de theatre of casting identical twins as the two twins, rather than using one person to play both parts, and the outrageously funny portrayal of Fritz, the gay double agent. Allo Allo meets Jeeves and Wooster.
Five stars.
Marry Me A Little: Enjoyable slice of musical theatre; the show is basically a melange of Sondheim songs that didn't make it into any of his performed shows, put together into the story of a couple's relationship from beginning to end. Very well sung and acted, with an excellent pianist and two likeable leads. The plot wass a little thin, but one expects this from revue shows like this, and the performances were more than strong enough to compensate.
Four stars.
The Late Show: Another Edinburgh tradition, this was compered by the ever-enthusiastic Jarred Christmas, who proved every bit as entertaining as he did when he compered Lunchbox Live. And he only repeated one joke. The first act was Marcus Brigstock, who was on blistering form. I particularly enjoyed his observations on "why everyone who lives in London is a cunt" and on white stretch limousines ("'Who's in that?' I'd think. 'Is it a celebrity? Is it a foreign dignitary?' No, it's some slags."), though his piece on religion struck me as somewhat unoriginal. Next up was a man whose name I forget, but who railed entertainingly against various aspects of the modern world, such as our addiction to fast food and our attitude to drugs. Finally, Reginald D Hunter topped the bill, and was rather disappointing. He was clearly drunk, and lost the audience's attention at a point when it was far too late to win it back. Ah well. Three out of four ain't bad, and it was a fine end to a week in Edinburgh.
Four stars, mainly for Marcus Brigstock and the compere.
Here's what I thought of them all:
Nick Doody: Hypocrite: Engaging stand-up comedian. Nick Doody is blessed with a funny face, a relaxed onstage manner and an ability to switch from observational comedy into more absurd flights of fancy. A thoroughly entertaining way to spend my first hour at the Fringe.
Three stars.
Dickens Unplugged: Ex-Reduced Shakespeare Company members turn their attention to the works of Charles Dickens. We were treated to lengthy musical parodies of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol, with short songs about Great Expectations and Bleak House. Very funny throughout, and skilfully played & sung. The writers clearly had a good knowledge of Dickens, and the portrayals of Dora Spenlow and Barkis in particular were spot-on. Oh, and Tiny Tim, with his crutch-cum-electric guitar ("That kid can really rock") was very funny indeed.
Four stars.
Norman Lovett's Slideshow: The Red Dwarf star presents scenes from his life in suburban London, accompanied by a wry commentary. Funny, though in a very gentle, laid-back way.
Three stars.
Sarah Kendall: My First Kidnapping: Flame-haired Austalian comedienne relates the story of how she was kidnapped by pig farmers. A cross between stand-up, monologue and theatre. A lot of seemingly throwaway jokes recurred throughout the story, giving the whole thing a coherence that prevented it from descending into a shaggy-dog story. Oh, and it was very, very funny.
Five stars.
Mitch Benn's Music Club: Musical stand-up is a genre I have a lot of time for, and Mitch Benn is a master at it. His songs ranged from topical jibes at the Iraq war, to Andrew Lloyd-Webber parodies (something else I have a lot of time for), to, for instance, telling the story of Macbeth in rap (I'll use my skill with words and grammar to/ Kick yo' ass in iambic pentameter). Oh, and his bass player is the most sexually desirable woman on God's green Earth, as well as being Nick Doody's girlfriend. I hate Nick Doody.
Four and a half stars.
Out of the Blue: Alarmingly young group of a capella singers, Out of the Blue perform their own unique versions of Robbie Williams ballads. There were some laughs to be had, and I genuinely enjoyed the first couple of songs, but the gimmick soon wore off. I was reminded of a passage in Zadie Smith's On Beauty in which the main character describes his horror at seeing barbershop groups attempt popular songs, which is never a good thing.
Two stars.
Arcadia: A Tom Stoppard play, impeccably performed by the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Absolutely superb. The cast managed to do justice to the intimidatingly dense script; I felt as if condensed particles of erudition were being fired at me throughout the play.
Five stars.
Guilds: The latest from the Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group. Given EUSOG's stellar productions for the past three years, this was a slight disappointment. The piece was well-sung and competently acted, and the chorus never fell short of spectacular, but the script (about a jester election) lacked sparkle. It was the author's first attempt, and the plot certainly held together, but it didn't have the wit of previous EUSOG shows, and the satire (on unscrupulous elecioneers) was rather overstated. However, the originally composed score was good, and the enthusiatic performances meant there was still many a laugh to be had.
Three stars.
Shakespeare for Breakfast: A Fringe fixture, these riffs upon the Bard's work are always entertaining, and this year was particularly fine. Several Shakespearian characters (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Cleopatra, Puck and Juliet's Nurse) were lost in a forest, each with his or her own agenda. There was a loose "Carry On" theme (the title of the show was "Carry On Up The Avon), which (apart from having the Nurse play her part like a Welsh Barbara Windsor) mainly manifested in the occasional "scene from the film" and, to be honest, didn't make that much sense. The show as a whole was very funny, though, especially the perpetually confused Hamlet ("I'm famous: I invented psychology") and the scene in which Richard I, Richard II and Richard III were holding auditions for Richard IV (they weren't impressed with Nursey, but Macbeth got the gig).
Four stars.
Lunchbox Live: A lunchtime comedy smorgasboard. Four comedians from around the Fringe performed a short excerpt from each of their acts. First up were Toulson & Harvey, of whom more later. Next was Mark Watson, with a serious monologue about his time in prison. This was interesting, but wrong-footed the audience somewhat as we were expecting a comedic piece. Markus Birdman performed an amusing, but not earth-shattering set, and the show finished with Christian Riley, a very funny comedian and musician. The show was compered by Jarred Christmas, whose humour, energy and charisma lifted the whole into more than the sum of its parts. Whilst a show such as this is necessarily rather "bitty", the quality of the compere and the strong opening act made it a fun way to spend an hour.
Three stars.
Toulson & Harvey: Quick-fire character comedy. Toulson and Harvey told the long and extremely convoluted story of how they met through a series of sketches, from a couple of Spanish singers to a Polish public information broadcast (warning of English asylum seekers). The highlight was a montage of Toulson training Harvey to be a comedian ("Knock knock" "Who's there?" "The interrupting cow." "The interrupting... *pause*... cow who?" "Moo. I don't get it."). Wonderful.
Five stars.
Josie Long: Trying is Good: Delightfully sweet indie kid, with a show all about trying hard in pointless endeavours. She gave out oranges to audience members who laughed especially hard. Delicious. She was plugged in the Guardian the Saturday before we went up, and definitely lived up to the hype.
Five stars.
Four on the Floor: A selection of stand-up comedians, compered by Luke Toulson of Toulson & Harvey. The first comedian (a disabled woman) was rather sub-par, as most of her material revolved around being disabled, and not being afraid to laugh at it. The next two comedians were very funny, mainly due to being constantly heckled by a guy named Mark on the front row who, I'm informed, was probably suffering mild brain damage. They bore it well, and managed to handle him without malice. A particular highlight was a joke about paedophilia, which ran thus:
Comedian: "A paedophile tried to abduct me when I was six. The joke was on him though: I beat the shit out of him. He didn't realise I was born on a leap yer."
Mark: "How did you know he was a paedophile?"
Me (interjecting): "The paedophile was in prison, and you were visiting him."
Mark again: "But why were you visiting him?"
Jess: "Because he was your dad?"
I never thought I'd see the day... The final act was a comedy magician, who was kinda mediocre, but who gained points for trying to cut Carl's head off.
All in all, Four stars, mainly due to the heckling.
Aeneas Faversham Returns: Aeneas Faversham, a Victorian-themed sketch show, was one of my favourite parts of last year's Fringe experience, and this year they've managed to make lightning strike again. The sketches ranged from the recruitment of a carnival frek, to the strangely touching tale of a young man saying goodbye to his childhood imaginary friend. The biggest laugh was had during the Invisible Man sketch, in which we were informed that Specimen 626 had escaped, leaving his clothes in his cell, whilst a naked man danced around the stage, unnoticed by the other two actors. Marginally less funny than last year, but I suspect that's just the effect of familiarity.
Four and a half stars.
Love In 3 Parts: Pleasant little play about the rise, fall and rise again of a love affair between two charming mild neurotics. Funny and touching, with an enjoyable live guitar accompaniment.
Three stars.
Slight Tilt To The Universe: I walked into this with no expectations at all, and was very, very pleasantly surprised. A comedy about a clerical error in the administrative department of Heaven that leads to a woman becoming pregnant with evil sextuplets, this contained elements of farce, supernatural comedy, philosophical musings and social comment. The performances of the student cast ranged from excellent (Helena the dizzy secretary who made the mistake) to passable (the mother-to-be of the evil children), and there were some very nice directorial touches (such as the Visitor badges worn by the bureaucratic "angels" when they visited our world).
Four and a half stars.
Arnab & Greg: Two stand-up comedians. Greg was first up and was, to be frank, a washout. Whilst he seemed a pleasant enough chap, his act contained very few jokes and didn't seem to go anywhere. Arnab was considerably better, though he loses a lot of points for musing the incrediby hackneyed "Isn't it funny how the things in the Alanis Morrissette song "Ironic" aren't actually ironic?" routine. A few good jokes weren't enough to lift a lot of dead air.
Two stars.
Faustus: The latest production from the company that produced the superlative Pierglass last year. In this new version of the classic tale, a music student sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for 24 years of genius. Like the Pierglass, this production is blessed with very capable young actors and sumptuous costumes, and the extremely clever use of lights, props and space drenches the story in atmosphere. Sadly, the script was not up to the high standards set by last year; the story lacked any real sense of tragedy, and didn't seem to have anything to say about the nature of evil or of genius, a sad shortcoming given the rich source material. Still, the acting and direction, combined with a haunting original score, made this a memorable production.
Three and a half stars.
Best Laid Marketing Plans: An hour of curiously old-fashioned stand-up, ostensibly with a marketing theme. The comedian's day job was in marketing and, perhaps unsurprisingly, all of his best jokes were marketing-related. Unfortunately, he put a lot of rather weak material in the middle that didn't have very much to do with marketing. This reached its nadir when he made a series of jokes about "Otis Spunkmeyer" having the word "Spunk" in it. The show was saved, however, by an entertaining piece of audience participation at the end, where we had to come up with a marketing campaign for a burning chair, and by the comedian's engaging onstage persona.
Two and a half stars.
Dan Clark & Friends: An evening of musical comedy. We attended because this was Priorite a Gauche's only Edinburgh performance, and were very, very amused. Dan Clark, the compere, latched onto my enthusiasm and loud laugh immediately, and proceeded to mock me in song and in prose throughout the evening. And I loved every minute of it. The acts were God's Pottery (enthusiastic pseudo-Christian character comedians- sample song (about chastity): The Pants Come Off When the Ring Goes On), a black guy whose name I can't remember (but who did a very, very funny parody of gangsta rap: Put the shit on the fuck and the fuck on the shit, ya got a fuck shit stack, a fuck shit stack), Ginger & Black (two strangely deadpan folk singers) and, of course, Priorite a Gauche. The whole thing overran by over an hour, and I can honestly say that I wished it was longer.
Five stars.
Touch: Funny , heart-warming play about a maladjusted loner who, against his better judgement, saves a girl from drowning, and the havoc she wreaks upon his life. Well-acted, well-written, well-directed. Superb.
Five stars.
Under Milk Wood: Extremely strange piece of physical theatre, in which six students read the whole of Dylan Thomas's poem whilst doing odd things with chalkboards. I spent the first ten minutes in a state of dumb incomprehension, but, as I was drawn into the language and the world, grew to appreciate it more. All- in all, it was well done (though teetered perilously close to self-parody), though I feel I would have got more from it had I read the poem first.
Three stars.
Twinss: Very funny and good-natured romp from the pen of Ali Blackwell, current president of New Theatre. New Theatre "comedies" can often be poorly thought-out excuses for being silly; this is far from the case with Twinss, which is a very well-thought out excuse for being silly. The sprightly farce revolves around two twins who find themselves on opposite sides during the Second World War, with hilarious consequences. Highlights include the coup de theatre of casting identical twins as the two twins, rather than using one person to play both parts, and the outrageously funny portrayal of Fritz, the gay double agent. Allo Allo meets Jeeves and Wooster.
Five stars.
Marry Me A Little: Enjoyable slice of musical theatre; the show is basically a melange of Sondheim songs that didn't make it into any of his performed shows, put together into the story of a couple's relationship from beginning to end. Very well sung and acted, with an excellent pianist and two likeable leads. The plot wass a little thin, but one expects this from revue shows like this, and the performances were more than strong enough to compensate.
Four stars.
The Late Show: Another Edinburgh tradition, this was compered by the ever-enthusiastic Jarred Christmas, who proved every bit as entertaining as he did when he compered Lunchbox Live. And he only repeated one joke. The first act was Marcus Brigstock, who was on blistering form. I particularly enjoyed his observations on "why everyone who lives in London is a cunt" and on white stretch limousines ("'Who's in that?' I'd think. 'Is it a celebrity? Is it a foreign dignitary?' No, it's some slags."), though his piece on religion struck me as somewhat unoriginal. Next up was a man whose name I forget, but who railed entertainingly against various aspects of the modern world, such as our addiction to fast food and our attitude to drugs. Finally, Reginald D Hunter topped the bill, and was rather disappointing. He was clearly drunk, and lost the audience's attention at a point when it was far too late to win it back. Ah well. Three out of four ain't bad, and it was a fine end to a week in Edinburgh.
Four stars, mainly for Marcus Brigstock and the compere.