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Edinburgh Festivals

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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…

Meryl O’Rourke - Bad Mother

Meryl O’Rourke - Bad Mother

Some funny and moving material on mixed heritage

(3 stars)16 Aug 2011

O’Rourke won’t be the last Fringe comic to reference the street-riots but it was perhaps unwise to let us hear a better joke on the subject from her spouse. It’s an early off-note that she makes up for with some funny and moving material about her…

Wil Hodgson

Wil Hodgson

Sharp comedy about life as he knows it

(3 stars)16 Aug 2011

Gone is the pink Mohawk of yesteryear, in is some sharp (albeit not of the razor kind) comedy from this year’s ‘Care Bear-loving skinhead’, as our affable host spraffs lyrical about life as he knows it, from his friends down the pub to tits, cider and a…

Isy Suttie

Isy Suttie

Cute, clever music-based comedy from the Peep Show comedian

(3 stars)15 Aug 2011

Best known as geek love interest Dobby from Peep Show, Suttie’s an incredibly likeable comedian. Mixing stand-up and music, her humour has a real warmth and the stuttering love story of Pearl and Dave that runs through the show is instantly engaging and…

Best of the Fest Cabaret

Best of the Fest Cabaret

The Noise Next Door, The Twoks and Briefs offer good package

(3 stars)14 Aug 2011

Any festival ‘Best of’ lives or dies on the collection of acts and, suffice to say, it’s a mixed bag of delights, depending on your luck. And so it is here. Gloria, our host for the evening, struggles, her lacklustre attempts at humour flailing, for the…

Toby - Lucky

Toby - Lucky

Divisive duo spark a riot of tutting and scowling

(3 stars)12 Aug 2011

If this performance of Toby’s Lucky was set in front of a focus group, clear scientific findings would have been concluded. The semi-surreal double act are loved by student blokes in their early 20s and loathed by fortysomething women. At one point…

Eric Lampaert

Eric Lampaert

An engaging but ultimately flat Eric

(2 stars)12 Aug 2011

Bounding onstage with a winning grin and infectious enthusiasm, Eric Lampaert quickly warns the audience that he has a short attention span. He needn’t have bothered with the warning. What seems like a promising show is hopelessly derailed by Lampaert’s…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Tony Law

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs - Tony Law

An Interview with Tony Law, by Tony Law and for Tony Law. From Tony Law

10 Aug 2011

You are not quite sure what a blog is, are you? Don't you mean am I? What? No. Blog is what we are doing right now as in, Intervblog. We are doing an Intervblog. Your show Go! Mr Tony Go! is on at the Stand at noon. It has been said that it…

Dot504: Mah Hunt

Dot504: Mah Hunt

Acclaimed Czech dance company bring duet to 2011 Edinburgh Fringe

10 Aug 2011

DOT504 made its Fringe debut in 2008 with Holdin’ Fast, a woozy, delicate work about desire, with six young dancers tumbling and fondling under showers of glitter and old Persian carpets. The company returned by popular demand in 2009 with the darker…

Five Edinburgh Book Festival guests you'll know from TV

Five Edinburgh Book Festival guests you'll know from TV

Lucy Worsley, Bettany Hughes, Alexei Sayle, Kirsty Wark and Peter Taylor

9 Aug 2011

Lucy Worsley Delving into the intimate history of old homes and buildings is Worsley’s prime passion and her BBC Four series and book If Walls Could Talk pretty much sums it up. During her years of research, she has uncovered the fact that bedrooms…

Julia Donaldson - Simon Puttock, Vivian French and Guy Bass on the new Children’s Laureate

Julia Donaldson - Simon Puttock, Vivian French and Guy Bass on the new Children’s Laureate

Author events set for 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

9 Aug 2011

‘Julia Donaldson is unique in the nicest way,’ says former Book Festival Children’s Writer in Residence Vivian French. ‘She’s passionate about stories, whether in the form of books, songs or plays, and her enthusiasm is infectious.’ French is…

Jenny Erpenbeck set for 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Jenny Erpenbeck set for 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Revisiting Germany’s troubled past

9 Aug 2011

‘An extraordinarily strong book by a major German author, ingeniously translated, produced with love by an idealistic publisher intent on doing something about the shamefully small proportion of foreign literature whose existence our country…

Mike Slott, Eclair Fifi and Machinedrum of Glasgow DIY label LuckyMe - Interview

Interview - Mike Slott, Eclair Fifi and Machinedrum of LuckyMe

Glasgow DIY label set for Edinburgh Festival clubnight

8 Aug 2011

Mike Slott (producer) I met Dom [Flannigan] who runs LuckyMe in Borders Books. He was sneaking flyers into hip hop magazines. We got chatting, we liked similar music and in Glasgow if you’re into a certain kind of music, you bump into the same people…

Catie Wilkins: A Chip Off the Odd Block

Catie Wilkins: A Chip Off the Odd Block

Enthusiastic and wry story about parents

(3 stars)8 Aug 2011

While children can be so cruel, parents are nothing less than a walking embarrassment to their offspring. Especially if they, like the blood-line guardians of Catie Wilkins, are an over-emotional firecracker (mum) and a cold, pedantic robot (dad).

The Table

The Table

Puppet show silliness backed up by serious skill

(4 stars)8 Aug 2011

Blind Summit are a company of puppetry geeks, with the triptych of pieces that make up The Table, they’ve made a show that lovingly reflects that. They’re also a company with a great sense of fun, and happily this hour-and-a-bit more than embodies that…

Korean Drum: Journey of a Soul

Korean Drum: Journey of a Soul

Dance to the rhythm of life

(4 stars)8 Aug 2011

Sometimes words are not required. Sometimes a single performer beating a frenetic rhythm on a drum suspended from an ornate frame is enough to raise the hairs on your arm. For those who love a bit of variety in their Fringe life, though, this showcase…

John Peel’s Shed

John Peel’s Shed

Intimate musings on the joy of radio

(3 stars)8 Aug 2011

In 2002 author John Osborne won a competition to write the best two-sentence description of John Peel’s radio show and win a box of the DJ’s records. ‘Songs you want to hear. Played by a man who wants you to hear them.’ earned Osborne the prize, and he…

Roisin Conaty

Roisin Conaty

‘Dickhead’ on a mission to achieve zen

(2 stars)8 Aug 2011

This 32-year-old from Camden Market is on a mission ‘to get zenned out, and be more functioning’. With four and a half years of singledom playing on her mind, plus an appalling sense of direction (not good when trying to storm off after an argument, she…

The Oh Fuck Moment

The Oh Fuck Moment

Uneasily entertaining afternoon of reflection on human frailty

(4 stars)8 Aug 2011

We’re ushered into a boardroom where two performers join us in discussing horrifying human errors, from the embarrassingly rude, through the sexually ill-fated, and on to the physically terminal. This is an uneasily entertaining afternoon of reflection…

Mr Benn brings 1970s TV classic to Edinburgh Festival stage

Mr Benn brings 1970s TV classic to Edinburgh Festival stage

Kids show from makers of The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom

29 Jul 2011

Anyone who has seen The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom or any of the other wonderful shows Tall Stories has staged over the years, will know that the company is no stranger to adaptation. This time, however, they’ve moved away from children’s picture books…

Dr Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown

Surrealism and stupidity of Dr Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown kids show

Absurdist comic Phil Burgers a refreshing antidote to corporate Fringe

29 Jul 2011

Anyone who saw last year’s late-night Fringe anarchy from Dr Brown may raise an eyebrow to learn that he’s now doing a kids’ show, as well as another full-on physically comedic adult hour. To the man behind the mask, absurdist American comic Phil…

Soy de Cuba brings Havana dance, music and song

Soy de Cuba brings Havana dance, music and song

The sound of contemporary Cuba visits 2011 Edinburgh Festival

28 Jul 2011

With influences from South America, Spain and Africa dating back centuries, it’s fair to say Cuba is a melting pot of styles. So it stands to reason that the latest music and dance sensation to come out of the Caribbean island is equally diverse.

Zinnie Harris returns to Edinburgh 2011 with The Wheel

Zinnie Harris returns to Edinburgh 2011 with The Wheel

Vicky Featherstone directs play exploring change, place and conflict

27 Jul 2011

‘I had this idea of a woman that walks right round the world and comes back to the beginning and then gets the opportunity to play her life again. That was my opening premise. If we were able to go back to the moment where you have a fork in the path…

Interview - Michael Winslow

Police Academy's human sound effect set for Edinburgh - Michael Winslow interview

2011 Fringe debut from actor best-known for iconic 80s comedies

26 Jul 2011

It’s been 27 years since the first film, yet Michael Winslow is still roundly known as ‘that guy who made the noises in Police Academy.’ Though Police Academy 8 is mooted for next year, he’s unperturbed by the enduring connection to the movie series.

Dürer’s Fame

Dürer’s Fame

Tribute to the German woodcut and engravings master Albrecht Durer

(4 stars)21 Jul 2011

German handball star Pascal Hens gazes out from a black-and-white poster, his torso naked, gaze serious, his pose one of self-deification. This is enhanced further by a tattoo on his stomach of two disembodied hands clasped together as if in prayer.

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