Author Topic: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers  (Read 13387 times)

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #50 on: 06 August, 2010, 06:06:16 pm »
Am just heading out to see Adam Hills.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #51 on: 06 August, 2010, 06:13:24 pm »
Am just heading out to see Adam Hills.

Near to Lammermuir Hills?
It is simpler than it looks.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #52 on: 06 August, 2010, 09:20:08 pm »
Adam Hills.

Only about 15 minutes of tonight's show was prepared material. The rest of it was him talking to members of the audience, in a nice interested way, not a scary humiliating way, and making comedy from that. Tonight we had a disaster recovery bloke, a rugby league player from Glasgow who gave a fake name, a "cougar" who was letching at the rugby player, an Aussie who had to go for a piss and a blue and red toy called Honker which is going to be the show's mascot for the duration of the Fringe and feature in a campaign to raise money for the Royal Hospital For Sick Children. Audiences of subsequent shows will have to come up with the campaign. Irn Bru was also featured.

I'd be interested to go back later in the run and see how the campaign has developed.

I like the idea of not preparing stuff and just seeing what comes from the audience. It worked well, but I think he struck lucky with the people he picked. He did end up staging a small game of rugby league between himself and the rugby player, refereed by the disaster recoverer. It looked sore. (It must be 30 years since I was last at a league game).

Funny show. 8/10
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #53 on: 07 August, 2010, 10:55:50 pm »
Jason Byrne tonight, at the Assembly Hall on the Mound. Firstly, and most importantly, don't sit in the front row. Ever.

Mixed bag tonight. Most of his material seemed pretty thin, really. Much of it was basically him talking about sex with his wife and that sex in a long term relationship goes out of the window because women aren't interested in sex and only do it as a way of getting men to do chores around the house. I didn't like it. It wasn't very funny, it was charmless and it came across as unpleasant misogynistic nastiness. Bits of it were funny but a lot of it was just Jason Byrne being manic, shouting and thrusting his crotch about while moaning that women use their vaginas to keep men's stolen souls in. However, in the middle part of the set he used the big screen behind him to display photos of him and his family, when he was a child in the 70s. This bit was wonderful, laughed till I cried. Could have done with a lot more of that. 10/10 for that bit, 5/10 for the rest.

Walked past Danny Bhoy on the way home, overtook him. He is absolutely the prettiest man ever close up, but roughly the size of a half-grown hobbit. I would have said hi but he was with people.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #54 on: 08 August, 2010, 05:05:29 pm »
Hidden Gardens of the Royal Mile. Wow, I loved this. It was a guided walking tour, 90 minutes long, of the gardens in the closes off the Royal Mile. Some of them I'd seen before because the Royal Mile has been part of my catchment area at work for the last 10 years, but we saw several I'd never noticed before. Dunbar's Close in particular has a beautiful peaceful garden funded by the enigmatic Mushroom Trust. Got some great photos which I will upload later. Some of them were community gardens created and maintained by the residents in the tenements around them and you could tell how much pride the residents take in them. Some of them were just flowers, one was a herb garden, some were mainly flowers but with veg growing in the middle - cauli and beetroot and courgettse in the middle of flower beds. And a fig tree!

The tour is run by greenyonder tours: see Edinburgh in a green light and they do other ones too. I'm booked in for By Leaves We Live in a couple of weeks, and I'd love to do the Healing Herbs in the City one in September.

I heartily recommend this for anyone who wants to see a bit of central Edinburgh that isn't well known, and who likes gardens. Not suitable for people with walking difficulties though.

10/10

Photos at Photos
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #55 on: 09 August, 2010, 08:27:33 am »
Great pictures Kirst!  I particularly liked the cauliflowers and zucchini courgettes.
@SandyV1 on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/SandyV1

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #56 on: 09 August, 2010, 09:35:21 am »
Excellent, looking forward to your annual reviews of the Fringe!

+1.

I must say, it makes a pleasant change to find an Edinburgh native who doesn't have a total downer on the whole affair.  ;D

Though it does make me rather envious at missing out on some of these great shows.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #57 on: 09 August, 2010, 09:48:48 am »
I've been to a couple of things this weekend.

On Saturday we went to a free show called Everything you ever wanted to know about Greece but were afraid to ask. We didn't have high expectations, to be honest! But Corvine's an Australian Greek and we went with another 'Scozzie' couple, just to see.

He had some good material, and some funny takes on Greece and its current situation - but that was countered by some pretty offensive material about suicide bombers, jews (sparked by finding there was an Israeli woman in the audience), and some tasteless clitoris stuff...

I'm not that easily offended and a lot of the topics can be done well by other people - but this was more like your pal's crazy old dad telling crappy jokes.

The last night I went to Alba Flamenca, a flamenco show. The music was just incredible, really worth going to. Flamenco dancing leaves me a bit cold: it's fine, I can see the skill, but I don't love it. But it's worth going for the music - really quite something.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #58 on: 09 August, 2010, 11:21:23 pm »
Busting Out, and Arj Barker - neither of these were my choices, both were late invites from people who found themselves with spare tickets - Scum of the Road and Mrs Scum of the Road, and Mercury Kev.

Busting Out is possibly the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in my life. Kind of like Puppetry of the Penis but with middle aged women contorting their breasts. Now, I did see Puppetry of the Penis a few years ago and laughed my way through it but I was very very drunk and there was only about half an hour of it, and having seen it once, I never want to see it again. Busting Out was over an hour and I'd had one glass of Pinot Noir (very quaffable). There was about 10 or 15 minutes of funny material stretched out to cover 70 minutes and it really wasn't good. Some of it was unfunny songs about various aspects of bosoms, some of it was contorting their breasts into funny/gruesome/slightly worrying shapes, there was some very funny shadow puppetry which did work really well, there was an odd bit where they got a man out of the audience and made him wear a bra. And there was a bit where they picked three women out of the audience, made them race to see who was quickest in removing their bra from under their clothes (ladies, it's quicker if you undo the back first, and better for the straps, I just did mine in about four seconds), and then got them all to stand in a row and lift their tops up to flash their tits to the audience. Two of them did, one of them didn't. Now, I know at any Fringe show there's a chance there will be audience participation, but I think asking women to flash their tits to the crowd is a step too far. Really.

I have no objection to nudity. It doesn't bother me or offend me - or amuse me - and in the course of my work I have probably seen several hundred naked people. I'm not uncomfortable seeing naked flesh. But I think that selecting women from the audience and putting them into a situation where they are expected to show their breasts or be seen as a bad sport is unfair.
 
If they cut this show down to half an hour, concentrated on the contortionism and shadow pictures (who knew two pairs of breasts could be shadow made to look like the bat signal?) and cut out the crap characters and unfunny songs, it might be an amusing novelty act for the very drunk, in the same way that Puppetry of the Penis is. But I don't think this show is empowering particularly, or the great feminist statement the blurb seems to think it is. It's good that middle aged women who don't have perky tits are showing that not every woman has youthful firm flesh and that certain changes are inevitable with age, but this was not the Vagina Monologues with jugs. It was just 10 minutes of funny material stretched out to a pendulous hour for no good reason. 3/10. But I do appreciate the offer of the ticket and it was nice to see Mr and Mrs Scum of the Road.  :-[ *not ungrateful, really*

Arj Barker I've never heard of, but Mercury Kev's wife had to work so he had a spare ticket, so I went along, thanks Kev. Some of the stuff was really good, started off as what seemed to be your basic bog standard stand-up but then he would twist it or make it that bit quirkier or just have a slightly different take on it which made it more interesting. Good Star Wars joke from a boring build up about black box material and planes. No real belly laughs or crying with laughter moments, but consistent giggles all the way through, no nudity and no audience participation, fine by me! 6/10
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #59 on: 10 August, 2010, 12:11:54 am »
Just back from seeing the Boy with Tape on His Face

The Boy with Tape on his Face

One of the best shows I have ever seen. Hard to describe - just go see it if you ever get the chance. He gets people from the audience up - and when they don't catch on and do things right the expressions are priceless.
10:30 at the Gilded Balloon, and not a pair of breasts in sight.

Oh, and on the way out Mrs Scum almost ran over Stifler's Mom.
It is not often you get to say that.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #60 on: 10 August, 2010, 12:18:01 am »
, and not a pair of breasts in sight.

That's not the way to sell a show to this lot!
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #61 on: 10 August, 2010, 12:30:01 am »
Another review - again without naughty bits.

Paul Zerdin: Sponge Fest Revisited - 2010 Edinburgh Fringe - British Comedy Guide

Paul Zardin's Sponge Fest is a ventriloquism act, but it is just so superbly done. At one point he swaps voice with the puppet - ie he takes on the puppets voice as his lips move and vice versa. I can imagine that must be so, so difficult.
Would recommend this show to anyone.

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #62 on: 11 August, 2010, 08:52:56 pm »
Tonight I did something I've never done before. I left a play at the interval and came home.  :-\

It was Theatre Alba's production of The Seagull by Chekhov. I don't know the play and by half time I didn't really care. I couldn't give a stuff about any of the characters and had no interest in staying to find out. I might have stayed despite my lack of interest, out of politeness, but it was outside and I was being attacked by midgies - I was even removing them from my eyelashes. I've seen Theatre Alba productions before and sat shivering in the pouring rain for two hours and enjoyed the play despite the weather, and there was one memorable year when the midgies ate my whole head and I was just left with a bleeding stump for a neck, and I enjoyed the play despite that, so I think this year it was mainly that the play bored me and the characters irritated me.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
  • Custard Wallah
    • Mr Larrington's Automatic Diary
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #63 on: 12 August, 2010, 11:27:38 am »
(click to show/hide)
External Transparent Wall Inspection Operative & Mayor of Mortagne-au-Perche
Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #64 on: 12 August, 2010, 11:55:41 am »
Better him than me.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


clarion

  • Tyke
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #65 on: 12 August, 2010, 12:17:05 pm »
Seagull & Cherry Orchard are very much 'actors' plays'.  They love them, and feel they are wonderful nuanced pieces which show off their 'serious' acting skills to the full.

Shame is that they are stultifyingly boring for everyone else.  You can't do anything interesting with the design, lighting or FX unless the director is prepared to go completely overboard (they rarely are).  So the entire crew and audience (what there is - Chekhov's never a great Box Office Name) are trying hard to stay awake while the luvvies chunter on and act their period socks off.

It's such a shame, because Chekhov's short stories are pithy, funny and really sharply observed.

</long-simmering rant>
Getting there...

Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #66 on: 12 August, 2010, 12:21:25 pm »
quick plug - a very thespy old schoolfriend of mine is doing a one-woman show up there this year - 'sometimes I laugh like my sister', about her sister who was killed in somalia while working for the BBC. 

It's getting quite good reviews if anyone in embra has time to go see it............

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #67 on: 12 August, 2010, 08:17:18 pm »
Food festival

Anyone want to come with me on Saturday?
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #68 on: 13 August, 2010, 09:19:16 am »
Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
Voted the hit of the Fringe by Mrs Scum. I wasn't at all sure Mrs Scum would understand this - her not being Scottish. We got last minute tickets, and disappeared into a small room in the Gilded Balloon. An hour of hilarity.
For the finale, the Socks asked the audience for the name of a famous singer, so they could improv a final song.
Mrs Scum, in all innocence,  - "Nat King Cole"
Well - once they had brought the oxygen on after the Socks couldn't breathe for laughing (*) they had to point out this wasn't an audience plant. Then had to ask Mrs Scum about the life of Nat King Cole she couldn't respond for laughing.


(*) For those South of the Border it is worth explaining that in Glasgow rhyming slang "getting your Nat King" mean getting yout hole.

Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #69 on: 13 August, 2010, 09:41:34 am »
Re the Food Festival we are leaving - but would be happy to come along if you could make it early.

We are in the Pleasance Courtyard this afternoon if anyone fancies a YACF meetup.

1pm - hope to make Sometimes I Lauged Like My Sister as recommeded by Mike

2pm - Memories of a Biscuit Tin

4pm - Gyles Brandreth

Any YACFers fancy a cabaret type show in the evening?

Wascally Weasel

  • Slayer of Dragons and killer of threads.
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #70 on: 13 August, 2010, 04:39:25 pm »
Anyone seen/planning to see Kevin Eldon’s show?

groucho

  • Humph!!
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #71 on: 16 August, 2010, 03:32:30 pm »
Flying up from Cardiff for the day on Wednesday with Mrs g to watch our niece and friends in a 'review'.

Arr 10:00

Dep 18:05

and in between meet little brother, have lunch, watch review at 15:00, meet cast......dash to airport. 8)
Faith, hope and gluttony.........

Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #72 on: 16 August, 2010, 05:02:05 pm »
Jeanette Winterson at the Book Festival today - very cultured.

It's 25 years since Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit was published so a special anniversary edition has just been released. For those who haven't read it, it's a mainly autobiographical book, with some characters and events who/that didn't actually exist/take place. Jeanette was adopted by Mr and Mrs Winterson when she was very young. Mr Winterson is almost a non-character in the book. Mrs Winterson is a fundamentalist Christian evangelist, Pentecostal. Page one of the book says

Quote
There were friends and there were enemies.

Enemies were:
The Devil (in his many forms)
Next Door
Sex (in its many forms)
Slugs

Friends were:
God
Our dog
Auntie Madge
The Novels of Charlotte Bronte
Slug pellets

and me, at first.

The book goes on to talk about Jeanette's childhood in a grim Pennine mill town - the wrong side of the Pennines, at that, and what it was like growing up with a fundamentalist mother, for example being taught to read from the Book of Deuteronomy. And then what happens when Jeanette began to realise she was gay - she's thrown out of her home by her mother.

The book is wonderful. It's intelligent and feminist and funny and sad and thought-provoking, and it's very very northern. For me, it's overwhelmingly, essentially northern. Perhaps because I also had a northern upbringing, although mine was on the right side of the Pennines, but for me this book couldn't be set, these people couldn't have existed anywhere else.

Today Jeanette spoke intelligently and humorously about her life, her family, her thoughts about the world. She talked about art and the importance of it and how it's viewed as a luxury, and how the predicted end of books and replacement with digital media is undemocratic and will lead to inequality. I would have liked to ask some questions but couldn't think of any till several hours afterwards, and I couldn't stay for the book signing as I was meeting someone for lunch. (Café Rouge - mediocre food, terrible service, pricey).

If you haven't read Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, you should, it's great. And I really enjoyed this session. 10/10
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Eccentrica Gallumbits

  • Rock 'n' roll and brew, rock 'n' roll and brew...
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #73 on: 17 August, 2010, 05:44:01 pm »
More book festival today. Today was a discussion session with Natasha Walter, promoting her new book Living Dolls the Return of Sexism, and Kat Banyard with her new book The Equality Illusion. Fantastic discussion about the resurgence of sexism and misogyny, debate about porn, lapdancing, stripping, lads mags, work life balance, empowerment. I was pleased to have it confirmed that I'm not the only woman who doesn't see stripping, glamour modelling and lapdancing as empowering, but degrading, demeaning and exploitative. Bought both books, had them signed, and started reading Living Dolls on the way home.

Paid a stupid amount of money for a not very satisfying lunch from the book festival café - won't be making that mistake again, then went for a sports massage to see if that would help my sore back. It's still sore, but I'm moving more easily now. Then went to Mellis's for cheeeeeeeese and got Grimbister and Mimolette. Cheeeeeeeeeese.
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Fringe show review thread - reviews may contain spoilers
« Reply #74 on: 17 August, 2010, 05:58:04 pm »
Not actually in Embra myself, but I've been enjoying listening to the Collings & Herrin podcasts, recorded live at the GRV. Most amusing. I was almost wetting myself on the train this morning. Don't know if it's still possible to get tickets for the remaining shows though.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."