Edinburgh Festivals

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Hurry Up and Wait

Clown show that fails to live up to potential

22 Aug 2011

With a parade due any minute, two friends are forced to wait patiently for its arrival. Their stools sit either side of a giant clock – an ever-present reminder that time is passing just too slowly. In a bid to speed it up, these colourful characters…

David O'Doherty is Looking Up

Immaculate content delivered with furious enthusiasm

19 Aug 2011

David O’Doherty used to work in a German sausage factory. This might sound like a crass comedy set-up, but it is in fact true. His role was to drive a giant Hoover designed to suck up the smashed, sausage-filled jars that tumbled off the conveyer belts.

Bash

Utterly convincing and compelling

19 Aug 2011

With no set, no more than a few props, and only the faint murmur of a soundtrack, this show relies solely on its script and actors' abilities: it's lucky that they're both brilliant. Neil LaBute's three monologues, first shown in 1999, unravel moments…

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik

Poignantly Pixar-esque underwater adventure

19 Aug 2011

Alvin Sputnik’s poster comparison to Wall-E is an apt one, although other Pixar parallels would fit equally well. As in Finding Nemo, this underwater world is vast and filled with danger. As in Up, there are moments of heartbreaking grief. And like…

Fringe Bribes 2011 week three winner: Aaaand now for Something Completely Improvised

Runner-up: La Putyka

19 Aug 2011

Our penultimate Bribe of the Week goes to improv comedy troupe Racing Minds, with their alphabetised listings-defeating Aaaand now for Something Completely Improvised. We were mildly impressed when we opened up their package to discover a tin of…

Interview: Jon Ronson - The Psychopath Test

Author on madness, public appearances and panicking unnecessarily

19 Aug 2011

During his career, he’s met a sports commentator who believes giant lizards rule the world and encountered Christians who donate human kidneys for Jesus. In his new book Jon Ronson learns the skills for spotting psychopaths. Brian Donaldson wonders…

Profile: Sapphire - The Kid

Author set for appearance at 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

19 Aug 2011

Sapphire is the voice of America. She doesn’t write about the glitz of Manhattan, the subtle discontents of suburbia or the gothic claustrophobia of the deep south. Her terrain is one in which the American Dream has not only failed but is a total joke…

3-man comedy sketch unit Wittank on Edinburgh Fringe trends

Umbrellas, 'flyeroo' and mastering the 5-second hello

19 Aug 2011

Umbrellas. I’ve noticed that this year everyone seems to buying the same Umbrella. It’s a red and blue patterned monstrosity from the pound shop (of course they actually cost £1.50) and I reckon over half the city owns one. I’ve a mind to call in the…

Will Self

The author on his upcoming reading of Fleck with Alasdair Gray

19 Aug 2011

I’ve known Alasdair Gray for a long time now, nearly 20 years. We had the same publisher in England and he came to one of my events in Glasgow, probably in about 1982 or ‘83. We did some other events together around that time and struck up a…

Moon Talking - Ben Mezrich Interview

The Social Network author brings new novel to Edinburgh Book Festival

19 Aug 2011

Ben Mezrich is not finding it hard to find subject matter for future books. The American author started as a novelist but is better known for writing a string of bestselling non-fiction books including The Accidental Billionaires about Facebook founder…

James Yorkston

A droll and heartfelt memoir from the Fife bard

19 Aug 2011

Earlier this year, James Yorkston seduced a full-house in Glasgow, clad with a well-thumbed touring diary. It was not the first time, and it won’t be the last. While the Fife-based singer-songwriter and commended Fence Collective affiliate has long…

David Almond

Crossing the divide from children’s books to adult fiction

19 Aug 2011

Since penning his first children’s novel, 1998’s Whitbread Award and Carnegie Medal-winning Skellig, David Almond has been lauded as one of the UK’s greatest authors for younger readers. In 2010, the Skellig prequel, My Name is Mina, had critics falling…

(g)Host City - Virtual festival at Edinburgh Fringe

Behind the scenes at spoken word audio tour project

19 Aug 2011

It’s day one of the Fringe. I’m walking up the steps of the Library but I’m not going to take anything out, i’m going to put something in. My palms are tingling and my hands are shaking a little as I clutch the bag containing my precious quarry. Looking…

May I Have the Pleasure . . . ?

Champagne, slow dancing and loneliness

19 Aug 2011

Adrian Howells is a warm and empathetic character and a captivating speaker. This helps to explain why he’s been picked to be a best man six times. However, in this one-man show he’s facing up to some cold facts. Like how, at 50 years old, he’s still…

Evelyn Evelyn

Adorable freakshow from Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley

19 Aug 2011

Part comedy, part freak show, and part Americana folk, this act from Amanda Palmer (she of Dresden Dolls fame) and Jason Webley presents, as our host Thomas Truax claims, the world’s first conjoined-twin singer-songwriters. Born in 1985, the twins are…

Ruby Wax: Losing It

A fevered and empowering comic monologue

19 Aug 2011

According to a 2009 report, one in ten people in Scotland take daily medication for depression. This demographic are Ruby Wax’s kind of people. Broadened out from a community project that Wax and best friend/musician Judith Owen toured around NHS mental…

Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place

Stand up for the left

19 Aug 2011

Josie Long is ready to rubbish a stock right-wing idea when a heckler interrupts. ‘Hear hear!’ the grumbler shouts back at the suggestion that a cleaner shouldn’t have to pay tax towards funding liberal arts degrees. Long looks shocked, uttering…

Jigsaw

Accomplished but light sketching

19 Aug 2011

There’s no doubting the talent on offer in Jigsaw. The rapid-fire sketch trio comprises stand-ups Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema and thus boasts a triple Perrier nominee, a Times Top Five 2010 winner and a Chortle best nominee…

Viewless

Paranoid Orwellian bureaucracy has comically sinister effect

19 Aug 2011

A paranoid story of Orwellian bureaucracy played for comically sinister effect, this short piece feels unfinished. We’re introduced to two officers from the Witness Protection Programme, going about their daily business in a warehouse; the boredom, the…

Interview: Chad VanGaalen

Illustrator, musician and Sub Pop labelmate of J Mascis

18 Aug 2011

Illustrator and musician Chad VanGaalen’s no frills lo fi approach is winning him fans, including his own grunge idol J.Mascis, finds Claire Sawers ‘Ever since I was about five, I was really into comic books. For years I’d been going to this comic…

Enclosure 99: Humans

Are we human or are we dancer?

18 Aug 2011

The youngest female folds her body into a knot in the corner of the Perspex-fronted cage, slipping her head into the lap of the youngest male. ‘As you can see, this one is particularly flexible,’ explains the zookeeper, wryly. ‘And this one; well, we…

The Boom Jennies: Blowout

An exhilarating and surprising blowout

18 Aug 2011

‘Three ambassadors of fun’, the tannoy voice intones as we await the parting of the curtain. ‘A joy strudel to stuff in your faces!’ The Pleasance’s continuity announcer didn’t lie, and it’s easy to compare these funny, endearing, dynamic girls to Smack…

(g)Host City

Edinburgh audio tours from spoken word performers

18 Aug 2011

First thing in the morning, I’m standing on top of Calton Hill looking out to Arthur’s Seat, Princes Street and the Pentlands. It’s a view I never tire of, but on my headphones Jenny Lindsay is giving a different message. ‘Edinburgh, you old tart,…

Iain Stirling and Sean McLoughlin

The star signing lets down the team

18 Aug 2011

No offence to the jaunty Iain Stirling, but it’s intriguing to wonder what a solo hour with Sean McLoughlin would have turned out like. CBBC’s Scottish presenter Stirling seems billed as the main event here given his status as compere and closing act…

Beowulf – A Thousand Years Of Baggage

Postmodern interaction with a classic

17 Aug 2011

As Beowulf was pitted against the manbeast Grendel in the Old English epic, NY theatre company Banana Bag & Bodice pits Beowulf the man against Beowulf the text in this clever, stylish interaction with a classic. Seemingly set in a jazz club, three…

John Byrne: Moonlight and Music

Major exhibition of works by much-loved Scottish artist

17 Aug 2011

So recent are some of the pieces in this show – timed to coincide with the launch of a biography of the artist by Lund Humphries – that self-portrait ‘Chop Suey’ and Byrne’s children’s book Donald & Benoit: A Story of a Cat and a Boy arrived close to…

Federer Vs Murray

Geopolitics, war and tennis

17 Aug 2011

Any illusion that the tennis match of the title will be at the centre of Gerda Stevenson’s production of her own text is quickly dispelled in this transfer from Oran Mor’s admirable Play, Pie & Pint lunchtime theatre strand. Yet the game plays a…

Richard Demarco and Joseph Beuys

An art world friendship under a Scottish sky

17 Aug 2011

A single rose can make a garden; a single friend can make a world. Writer, artist and philosopher Richard Demarco’s friendship with the humanistic artist Joseph Beuys was something special. These two passionate, occasionally obtuse men were drawn to…

Crunch

Cunning manipulation of attitudes to money

17 Aug 2011

A theatrical performance acutely parodying motivational lectures, or an actual motivational lecture? Gary McNair is playing with his audience, and they’re probably not the type who thought they were susceptible to such things. They probably think…

An Instinct for Kindness

Dignitas tale told with dignity

17 Aug 2011

Last year, Chris Larner accompanied his ex-wife Allyson to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland and watched as she drank a liquid that would swiftly end her life. Here, with just a simple chair as a prop, Larner recounts the days, weeks and years leading…

Mystics or Rationalists?

Elegant conceptual works bend associations of the ordinary

17 Aug 2011

Stealing the show, Susan Hiller’s new levitation works are exemplary of the conceit at the heart of this group exhibition. Having infused conceptual and minimalist strategies with the influence of psychoanalysis and pop culture since the late 1960s…

Futureproof

A fairly unshocking freak show

17 Aug 2011

In the world of the freak show there is, Lynda Radley’s play informs us, a hierarchy. At the top are the ‘reals’ – people like bearded lady Countess Marketa (Irene Macdougall), Siamese twins Lillie and Millie (Ashley Smith and Nicola Roy, mirroring each…

Julie Myerson

The author's apocalyptic novel 'Then' delves into the heart of darkness

17 Aug 2011

‘Oh dear, I’m sorry!’ says Julie Myerson. She’s apologising for giving me nightmares with her latest novel, Then. ‘Well, I’m only half-sorry as I suppose I do want to have that effect.’ The London-based writer has never shirked from disconcerting…

Sarah Millican

Has the Geordie jester lost her bite?

17 Aug 2011

After TV stints on Mock the Week, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and Loose Women, Geordie chatterbox Sarah Millican is a household name to many now, just three short years after her Fringe debut. The steep upswing in her career means she’s relocated…

Interview: Movin’ Melvin Brown

Infectiously enthusiastic performer tells us about his love of dance

17 Aug 2011

What is your favourite dance style and why? Freestyle, which combines a lot of dance styles together like Michael Jackson did. I am lucky enough to have seen the origins of a lot of dances, so I understand the basis of most of them. Dance is the…

Alternative Fringe hubs: The Forest Cafe

Edinburgh's soon-to-be dearly-departed hippy haven

17 Aug 2011

Name: The Forest Café Occupation: Leader of the resistance, home of Edinburgh’s true creative spirit. Resembles: A glorious, shambolic cluster of plants, art, rugs, hippies and graffiti, spread across several rooms. What’s on there, then?

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

Unimaginative adaptation of Tarantino’s heist movie

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…

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

Tough play with the meaning stressed out

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

Tuetonic titters from two of the Fatherland’s finest

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

Show of two halves from East is East producers

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

Flippant harmonious fun behind bars

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

Stories of love and loss that fail to catch fire

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

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…

Pete Bennett's Tourette's and Stuff

Unpolished but candid and funny set from Big Brother winner

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

Slow-burning quasi hard-hitting hour

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

Death becomes the Pachamamas

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…

Medea's Children

A cautionary tale for divorcing parents

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

Dark, taut work about industrial negligence

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

Interactive theatre with a motivational aspect

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

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…

Paul Sinha: Looking at the Stars

Perfectly-judged swipe at celebrities, politicians and Twitter twats

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…

Bane 1, 2 and 3

Superior noir-influenced multi-character comedy

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

Straightforward and inspired hour of sketches

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…

Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

Programme of Messiaen, Tchaikovsky and Unsuk Chin

16 Aug 2011

When it comes to Edinburgh’s festivals, most Koreans have an upside-down view. Thanks to enormous hit shows from Korea such as the Matrix-style circus spectacle Jump! and last year’s Chef!, the Fringe has a huge profile back in South Korea. What goes on…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs: The Suitcase Royale

Edinburgh is easy. Getting to Edinburgh is difficult.

16 Aug 2011

We booked a private cab to pick us up from Battersea Arts Centre, where we’ve been staying, and take us to Luton Airport for our 6:15pm flight to Edinburgh. Being old hands, now, at touring, we thought it wise to leave three hours to get to the airport.

First word: Bob Servant

Hero of Dundee (and creation of Neil Forsyth) on Jesus, Brian Cox and Broughty Ferry

16 Aug 2011

Bob Servant, Hero of Dundee (and creation of Neil Forsyth) talks to The List about Jesus, Brian Cox and Broughty Ferry First record you ever bought The theme tune to Puff the Magic Dragon. I have never heard anything sum up life’s challenges better…

Festival Insider: Iain Heggie

Festival veteran and multi-award winner takes a step back in Fringe time

16 Aug 2011

Back in the dark days of 1988 when people were still being disgusted, and before they had taken up being offended, a well known city councillor, after seeing my play Wholly Healthy Glasgow, was so disgusted she had to go home and have a bath. The play…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs: Yianni

Periodic Table of Edinburgh

16 Aug 2011

Ah Edinburgh. Back again so soon? Anyone who has spent an August at the Fringe knows it contains freakish space and time bending properties. Any event which takes place outside its borders exists outside of space and time and is – in essence…

Interview: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Renowned photographer on his EAF exhibition

16 Aug 2011

Is this your first visit to Edinburgh? I did pass through here once in the late 90s. I was shooting seascapes around the Scottish coast. Which wasn’t so successful: mostly, I saw many oil towers, so I couldn’t get clear seascapes. I thought it was a…

Darren Shan, Barry Hutchison and Alexander Gordon Smith talk horror

Creating terrifying tales for teenage readers at the EIBF

16 Aug 2011

As far as groundings in the horror business go, young adult writer Barry Hutchison knew exactly what fear was from an early age. ‘I lived in a perpetual state of terror when I was a kid,’ says the Fort William-based creator of the Invisible Fiends…

Horror Stories for Kids at 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Darren Shan, Barry Hutchison & Alexander Gordon Smith talk horror

16 Aug 2011

Chris Goode - The Adventures of Wound Man and Shirley

Performer on Edinburgh Fringe is like having a sexy dentist

16 Aug 2011

I’m getting ready for my 14th Fringe in 17 years and I’m thinking about what it might be like to have a sexy dentist. A dentist who makes you think twice about brushing after meals because you quite like having an excuse to visit. You gaze up into…

Fringe 2011 comedy blogs: Pokermen

Late night poker event which has featured Ed Byrne, Glenn Wool and Hardeep Singh Kohli

16 Aug 2011

I’m a big fan of late-night comedian talk shows at the Fringe. To me it feels like we’re eavesdropping backstage at the end of a Festival day - unwinding, listening to comics gossip and bitch about their world. Sometimes, the eagerness to shine and be…

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, with live score by Minima

Expressionist horror flick with live soundtrack performance

16 Aug 2011

‘It’s a truly, truly amazing film,’ is the simple reason given by guitarist Alex Hogg as to why his band Minima chose to create a live score for Robert Wiene’s classic 1919 German expressionist silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. ‘Even more…

Edinburgh show Rachael’s Cafe keeps it in the family

Three generations of family working on Fringe show

16 Aug 2011

Lucy Danser (24), writer and director of Rachael’s Cafe, is at the Fringe this year with her mum (the show’s producer), her dad and sister (flyering and stage hands) and her grandmother, who at 86 has found herself publicist of the show. Here they…

Simon Munnery's La Concepta at 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

World’s first conceptual restaurant doesn’t involve food

16 Aug 2011

Comedian Simon Munnery is presenting the world’s first conceptual restaurant – a dining experience that doesn’t involve food. Niki Boyle samples the menu Ever wanted to sit down to a nice meal, but can’t really be bothered going through the rigmarole…

Josh Howie: I am a Dick

Patchy quest with dodgy material

16 Aug 2011

Somewhere along the way, the idea that a sniggering comedian telling a badly-timed rape gag is the vanguard of free speech has become entrenched. It’s not: it’s just lazy. There’s nothing ‘edgy’ about Josh Howie’s material in I am a Dick; he’s not…

Gordon Ferris - The Hanging Shed

Evoking the dark side of 1950s Scotland

16 Aug 2011

For an author whose subject matters might be referred to as solidly traditional – a compelling combination of post-war historical drama and ripping crime thriller – Gordon Ferris is at the leading edge of a publishing revolution. The first two novels in…

Sound installation the Ethometric Museum set for Edinburgh Festival

A world of sound, where science meets music

16 Aug 2011

Enter Ray Lee’s Ethometric Museum and be transported to a science fiction world of cosmic tones and esoteric technology. ‘Ethometric instruments represent the pinnacle of the little known – and some would say questionable – science of Ethometric…

Grant Morrison - Supergods at 2011 Edinburgh Book Festival

Tracing the flashy history of superheroes

16 Aug 2011

If anyone knows what makes a great superhero, it’s Grant Morrison. Having written for both Marvel and DC, the Glaswegian has made valuable contributions to the popular mythology of Batman, Superman and Fantastic Four. In Supergods, he traces his own…

Sebadoh set for UK tour

London, Manchester and Edinburgh dates for alt-rock pioneers

16 Aug 2011

When Lou Barlow was kicked out of serial noisemongers Dinosaur Jr. in the late 80s he was hardly going to sit idly by as they milked the burgeoning alt-rock cash cow without him. No, instead, Barlow, along with friends Eric Gaffney and Jason…

Bella Bathurst - The Bicycle Book

New literary vehicle for Lighthouse Stevensons author

16 Aug 2011

Bella Bathurst’s The Bicycle Book navigates the past and present of two-wheeled travel. From the suffragettes who recognised it as a ‘freedom machine’ to the huge rise in cycling’s popularity in Britain since the millennium, it features a cast of…

Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Swashbuckling success story

16 Aug 2011

As part of Fringe staple trio and Radio 4 stars The Penny Dreadfuls, Humphrey Ker offered audiences something of a theatrical comedy masterclass. Here, he flies solo in swashbuckling style. It’s 1943 and war’s most unlikely hero, Dymock Watson, has been…

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Enthusiastic but amateurish adaptation of Rushdie’s novel

16 Aug 2011

Top marks for the ambition displayed by the Mid-Pacific Institute School of the Arts in choosing to adapt Salman Rushdie’s allegorical bedtime story. Written while the author’s life was under threat in the wake of the publication of The Satanic Verses…

Interview: Henry Rollins on his eating habits

Rollins set for Edinburgh Festival Fringe spoken word show

16 Aug 2011

What time is breakfast? Even though I am not hungry when I get up, I try to eat to get me ready for the day. Within an hour of getting up. Tea or coffee? Both. Usually tea in the morning, coffee after that. Smoking or non-smoking? Non.

Olver: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Stand-up show/theatre experience has potential to be brilliant

16 Aug 2011

It’s difficult to tell how much Mark Olver would ordinarily diverge from his script as on this performance there were a series of hitches which he handled with admirable good humour. But should he tighten up this stand-up show/theatre experience it has…

Music Box

Mash-up improv troupe never hit a true stride

16 Aug 2011

Maybe it was a lack of imagination on the audience’s part (a musical called Fish set in a chip shop doesn’t seem to be in keeping with the mash-up improv spirit), but this troupe never hit a true stride, going round in circles when they chance upon a…

Vikki Stone & The Flashbacks: Big Neon Letters

Comedy songs in band format

16 Aug 2011

Effervescent musical comic Stone is desperate to be on TV. She’s been there before on embarrassing adverts and Blue Peter, but she craves the studio lights, if only to get close to her teenage crush Phillip Schofield. In a bruising encounter she emits…

The Tour Guide

A tour guide going off the rails on real Edinburgh tour bus

16 Aug 2011

A real Edinburgh tour bus, a real leaflet with a route map and all the sights, a real MacTours uniform, and an actor playing a tour guide who’s going off the rails. But the ripe potential of having an audience who are literally captive – not to mention…

The Wright Brothers

Conquest of flight given lively treatment

16 Aug 2011

An interesting subject is given lively treatment in this show about American bicycle manufacturers-turned-amateur aviators Wilbur and Orville Wright’s conquest of the skies. The story of their protracted attempts to construct a powered flying machine…

Terry Alderton

Hour of clever nonsense with surreal twist

16 Aug 2011

Taking many of the conventions of old-school stand-up – observational comedy, sound effects, impressions – Alderton gives them a surreal twist before cramming them all together. Some punchlines get lost in the chaos of songs, dancing and vocal mimicry…

Two Johnnies Live Upstairs

Eccentric characters each nook and cranny of French family home

16 Aug 2011

What starts out as an innocuous tour of the family home with a charming French guide slowly descends into a look at an increasingly bizarre world. Encounter a different bunch of eccentric characters in each nook and cranny as reality and madness are…

Stephen Carlin: Guilty Bystander

Unsettlingly funny with flashes of greatness

16 Aug 2011

Performing in front of a photofit of his own Yorkshire Ripperish face, Stephen ‘not obsessed with snooker’ Carlin’s Guilty Bystander is unsettlingly funny. Best when he’s being bitter – railing against cheating women or family Christmases – or riffing…

Paper Tom

Effective piece of issue-based theatre dealing with UK treatment of soldiers

16 Aug 2011

From the trenches of the First World War to the conflict in Afghanistan, Paper Tom (which moves back-and-forth between the two) asks how far British society has come in its treatment of soldiers when they return home scarred psychologically by battle.

Raymond Mearns: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Stress But Were Afraid to Ask

Warm and engaging stress management seminar from Glaswegian

16 Aug 2011

Mearns’ stress management seminar, although somewhat faltering in places, is engaging and warmly delivered. His personal anecdotes guide us through a masterclass in the signs and solutions to stress. Are these wet and busy Edinburgh streets getting too…

Young Pretender

Bonny Prince Charlie tale let down by performance

16 Aug 2011

Nabokov Theatre’s Young Pretender starts off in excellent form with witty dialogue and a fast-paced breathless delivery, portraying a naïve Bonny Prince Charlie holding on to idealism while on the cusp of failure. Even with well-written material and a…

Shane and Eddie: Picking up the Pieces

50-minute avant-garde nightmare beyond redemption

16 Aug 2011

This avant-garde performance possibly follows an obnoxious couple’s attempts to live like plebs. However, it’s difficult to be sure and impossible to care. It must be scripted because the duo have a great knack of not speaking over each other, though…

No Pants Thursday

Massively underwhelming with air of painful youth theatre production

16 Aug 2011

Sketches that go nowhere, no punchlines, lame scenarios. And all in their underwear. No Pants Thursday’s sketch show massively underwhelms with a misplaced enthusiasm bringing to mind a meticulously rehearsed but ultimately painful youth theatre…

Rose

Oblique drama on father daughter relationship partly successful

16 Aug 2011

As a vehicle for Art Malik’s powerful and practised acting skills, this oblique drama about a father and daughter’s troubled relationship is strongly successful. His daughter Keira, however, is quite shrill when playing a child. But the play’s theme of…

Scottish Sperm

Smartly scripted and well performed despite lack of character sympathy

16 Aug 2011

Smartly scripted and well performed, Scottish Sperm concerns three young Americans and their interweaving relationships. The lightning-fast deadpan delivery keeps things progressing at a steady clip, but the play’s strength is also its major failing…

Tonight Sandy Grierson Will Lecture, Dance and Box

Cultural and political history piece leaves deep impression

16 Aug 2011

Genealogy combines with a cultural and political history of the modern world and some benign audience participation in this charmingly imperfect play. From a drum and bass club in Lisbon in 2010, it traces the

Tea with Queenie

Very moving tragic-comic piece for three people, including tea and cake

16 Aug 2011

This tiny-audienced show (Queenie can take a maximum of three for tea) takes you right into the messy home and mindset of an old lady who lives by herself. There’s no getting away, no matter how uncomfortable she makes you. Although it could benefit…

The Noise Next Door – Their Finest Hour

A delightfully unpredictable hour with some knock-about funsters

16 Aug 2011

The Noise boys give form to their skeleton show with masses of audience contributions. Riffing off each others’ energy, they keep the shows momentum up through seemingly endless suggestions of ‘Harry Potter’ and deliver fast-paced improvised scenes and…

Sarah Archer - Bumfluff and Brimstone

Occasional insightful jagged barb amid stale material and easy punchlines

16 Aug 2011

Scatty and slightly shambolic, Archer delivers old-fashioned stand-up that’s likeable, but missing a vital spark. Taking a look at turning 40, there’s the occasional insightful jagged barb and caustic glance at the human condition, but on the whole the…

The Star Child

Sweet piece of storytelling theatre

16 Aug 2011

Fairytale fun and a cautionary but light tale about the dangers of vanity from nimble young ensemble Tell Tale Theatre, who have created a sweet piece of storytelling theatre, marred only by the odd bit of stilted delivery. In a small space they…

Lol

Touching humour in suburban comedy, but no new ground broken

16 Aug 2011

A middle-aged housewife, lonely spinster and posh man-eater find they are romantically involved with the first woman’s husband via a dating site. Rosalind Adler gives a lively performance as all three from her own text, with some touching humour in this…

Markus Birdman: Dreaming

Acutely funny observations on our dreams of living happily ever after

16 Aug 2011

Birdman takes us through his ponderings on our dreams of living happily ever after, and all that lies between. There are some acutely funny observations on parenting, growing up and caring less, with Birdman only occasionally losing momentum by…

Michael Workman - Humans Are Beautiful

Surreal, meditative show from philosophical, esoteric intellect

16 Aug 2011

In this surreal, meditative show Workman spins an impressively sustained yarn about his journey through a warzone accompanied by a talking dog and his grave-digging love interest. His philosophical, esoteric intellect is tangible beneath the surface of…

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