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Edinburgh Festivals

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EIBF 2011: five book-to-screen adaptations

EIBF 2011: five book-to-screen adaptations

Featuring Joe Dunthorne, Val McDermid, Michel Faber, Alan Hollinghurst and Alexander McCall Smith

17 Aug 2011

Joe Dunthorne With his debut, Submarine, the Welsh poet and author captured the peculiar, rainy-day awkwardness of adolescence, and Richard Ayoade’s film, with Dunthorne’s assistance, did a fair old stab at bringing it further to life. 19 Aug…

Edinburgh International Book Fest 2011: 5 poetry picks

Edinburgh International Book Fest 2011: 5 poetry picks

Featuring Michael Longley, Robin Robertson, Czeslaw Milosz, Wendy Cope and John Burnside

17 Aug 2011

Michael Longley One of the most decorated verse-conjurors at this year’s festival, the Belfast-born writer has the TS Eliot Poetry Prize, a Whitbread and the Hawthornden Prize under his belt as well as being the proud recipient of the 2001 Queen’s…

Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs

Unimaginative adaptation of Tarantino’s heist movie

(2 stars)17 Aug 2011

Quentin Tarantino has his fair share of detractors – those who claim his films make up for their lack of originality with profanity and violence. These people should swipe an extra star or two from this review, since Tarantino’s plot and dialogue are…

Sunjeev Sahota

First Writes: Sunjeev Sahota, author of Ours are the Streets

The debut author discusses his first novel, Edinburgh and some of his favourite novels

17 Aug 2011

Give us five words to describe Ours are the Streets? Fathers. Sons. Responsibilities. Belonging. Home. Which author should be more famous than they are now and why? I don’t know how famous or not she is, but I don’t think I hear that much in the UK…

Und

Und

Tough play with the meaning stressed out

(2 stars)17 Aug 2011

Howard Barker is a playwright loved by academics for the challenges thrown down by his knotty ‘theatre of catastrophe’ and by actors for the chance to get their tongues round his muscular language. His writing is tough, poetic and…

Henning Wehn / Otto Kuhnle: Das Very Best Of German Humour

Henning Wehn / Otto Kuhnle: Das Very Best Of German Humour

Tuetonic titters from two of the Fatherland’s finest

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Let’s establish a fact: Germans are overly efficient. Bear in mind that this conceit is central to many of the jokes performed at this comedy double-header – if you find the cliché a little too well worn, this may not be the show for you. Indeed, the…

Auntie Netta And The Trouble With Asian Men

Auntie Netta And The Trouble With Asian Men

Show of two halves from East is East producers

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Playing on the stereotype of hyper-caring Asian mother figure often ridiculed in the likes of Goodness Gracious Me, Auntie Netta is incredibly endearing. Offering around snacks, she explains her outlook on British life from Loose Women to Cameron and…

The Segue Sisters in … Jailbirds

The Segue Sisters in … Jailbirds

Flippant harmonious fun behind bars

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

It’s utterly incidental to the show, but let’s run through the story anyway: the three Segue Sisters have been convicted of song theft and sent down to a prison that’s a cross between Chicago’s sexed-up cell blocks and a Disney dungeon. As the trio of…

Untitled Love Story

Untitled Love Story

Stories of love and loss that fail to catch fire

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Untitled Love Story is the first of David Leddy’s productions for years to be set in a conventional theatre. And, while the Venice-set meditation on lost love contains the lyrical writing and formal innovations that have made his past work so exciting…

Jo Nesbø

Jo Nesbø

Crafty Oslo crime scribe brings us his fiendish ’tec

17 Aug 2011

There are many ways to cause a fatality, and crime writers are renowned for finding the most imaginative route to the grave possible. But Norwegian author Jo Nesbø has really outdone himself in his latest novel The Leopard. His serial killer’s…

Holly Walsh - The Hollycopter

Holly Walsh - The Hollycopter

A brave and bittersweet recollection

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

When her fellow comics were padding about the Fringe in August 2010, Holly Walsh was clowning around on Worthing Pier. Unfortunately, her charity leap into the West Sussex sea resulted in a shocking injury that led to national media coverage for the…

Pete Bennett's Tourette's and Stuff

Pete Bennett's Tourette's and Stuff

Unpolished but candid and funny set from Big Brother winner

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Back in 2006, Pete Bennett spent the summer trapped in a building making people laugh. Now free of the shackles of Big Brother, he presents his one-man show, an autobiographical highlights package of his life with Tourette’s Syndrome. Interestingly…

Tom Deacon

Tom Deacon

Slow-burning quasi hard-hitting hour

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Recognised more these days for his Sunday night slot at Radio 1 than his stand-up comedy, Tom Deacon puts a face to a familiar voice in his performance with his show Can I Be Honest? Starting slowly, Deacon improves as the hour progresses with him…

Emergence

Emergence

Death becomes the Pachamamas

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

It’s always tricky to deal with grief on stage. By its nature, it is an emotion that comes after the fact, making an audience feel it has missed out on the main event. It cannot be resolved in the way any other dramatic conflict is resolved. This…

Dust

Dust

Mining a rich seam of anger among Thatcher and coal industry

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

It’s 2011 and (you might need party hats and a few crates of beer at the ready) Margaret Thatcher has died. Such is the lovely dream (er, I mean ‘fictional scenario’, of course) at the heart of Ade Morris’s Dust, a play set largely in Arthur Scargill’s…

Medea's Children

Medea's Children

A cautionary tale for divorcing parents

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Lung Ha’s Theatre Company is known for its use of performers with learning difficulties. Teaming up with Swedish company Unga Klara they bring us an exploration of the psychic trauma felt by children affected by divorce. The script, originally…

The Translator's Dilemma

The Translator's Dilemma

Dark, taut work about industrial negligence

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

Plays designed to educate the audience about a particular issue often just come off as lectures, so it was clever of new playwright Jessica Philippi, who also takes on most of the burden of performing, to actually set her piece about the appalling…

The Time Out

The Time Out

Interactive theatre with a motivational aspect

(3 stars)17 Aug 2011

An interactive piece for 12 players who get to don swimming caps (with headphones inside) and become a water polo team. If this fills you with trepidation, it’s meant to. The focus shifts between Ken, the cliché-spouting coach with motivational tidbits…

Haircuts in t-shirts

Haircuts in t-shirts

aka The Russell Howard Effect

17 Aug 2011

Maybe it's a sign of getting older but aren't the comedians looking young this year? We're not the only ones to notice the phenomena. Every second Fringe poster seems to be a picture of a 20-something in skinny jeans, t-shirt and a BBC Three…

Jus’ Like That!

Jus’ Like That!

Recreates Tommy Cooper's final performance

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

Eschewing a biographical narrative, this show about stage magician and comedian Tommy Cooper simply recreates his final performance in all its balmy, cheeky glory. It’s a crowd-pleasing celebration of the utterly unique variety show talent, and Clive…

Paul Sinha: Looking at the Stars

Paul Sinha: Looking at the Stars

Perfectly-judged swipe at celebrities, politicians and Twitter twats

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

Despite the assertion that he’s tired of being asked about current affairs, Paul Sinha has plenty on his mind. He reckons he’ll never be part of the A-list and so delivers a perfectly-judged swipe at celebrities, politicians and Twitter twats. There is…

Translunar Paradise

Translunar Paradise

Moving portrayal of the pain of bereavement in dance, accordion and voice

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

Backed by accordion and voice, two dancers play out a relationship using only actions and mime, covering courtship, pregnancy, miscarriage and the after effects of war. A moving and evocative portrayal of the pain of bereavement, highlighting how…

Bane 1, 2 and 3

Bane 1, 2 and 3

Superior noir-influenced multi-character comedy

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

Bane is the hard-boiled, noir-edged creation of Joe Bone. Together with musician Ben Roe, he creates a universe every night where creeps roam the streets, bad guys talk in suspicious accents and the right kind of anti-hero is always willing to shoot…

The Three Englishmen: Optimists

The Three Englishmen: Optimists

Straightforward and inspired hour of sketches

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

In keeping with its title, Optimists is fun and cheerful, with some crackingly original ideas behind the pacy mix of wordplay, gentle pop culture ribbing, off-the-wall surrealism and well-executed musical comedy. The four (yup, four) play to their…

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD

Funny and heart-wrenching show on Disney films and painful break-ups

(4 stars)16 Aug 2011

There are two themes in Tuck’s show: straight to DVD Disney films and severely painful break-ups. The connection isn’t immediately apparent, but Tuck’s brave finale combines both strands with some genuinely dark humour, while simultaneously his stage…

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