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Fringe

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Sebadoh

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…

Bert Jansch

Bert Jansch set for 2011 Edinburgh Festival date

Returning folk hero, pal of Neil Young and Devendra Banhart

16 Aug 2011

One of the great acoustic guitarists, Bert Jansch comes to Edinburgh fresh from an American tour with Neil Young and a London show with folk-jazz supergroup The Pentangle. Jansch has been doing an annual Festival show since the mid-90s, touching base…

Humphrey Ker

Humphrey Ker is Dymock Watson: Nazi Smasher!

Swashbuckling success story

(4 stars)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

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Enthusiastic but amateurish adaptation of Rushdie’s novel

(2 stars)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…

Milton Jones

Milton Jones

There more to the week mocker than one-liners

(3 stars)16 Aug 2011

Tim Vine Syndrome (TVS) is a well known affliction for ‘one-liner’ comedians. It occurs when a comedian has so much material, that not all of it can possibly be good. This is true of all comedians, but especially those who specialise in puns and…

Henry Rollins

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

Olver: Portrait of a Serial Killer

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

(3 stars)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

Music Box

Mash-up improv troupe never hit a true stride

(2 stars)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

Vikki Stone & The Flashbacks: Big Neon Letters

Comedy songs in band format

(3 stars)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

The Tour Guide

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

(2 stars)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

The Wright Brothers

Conquest of flight given lively treatment

(3 stars)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

Terry Alderton

Hour of clever nonsense with surreal twist

(4 stars)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

Two Johnnies Live Upstairs

Eccentric characters each nook and cranny of French family home

(3 stars)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

Stephen Carlin: Guilty Bystander

Unsettlingly funny with flashes of greatness

(3 stars)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

Paper Tom

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

(3 stars)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

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

Warm and engaging stress management seminar from Glaswegian

(3 stars)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

Young Pretender

Bonny Prince Charlie tale let down by performance

(2 stars)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

Shane and Eddie: Picking up the Pieces

50-minute avant-garde nightmare beyond redemption

(1 star)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

No Pants Thursday

Massively underwhelming with air of painful youth theatre production

(1 star)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

Rose

Oblique drama on father daughter relationship partly successful

(3 stars)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

Scottish Sperm

Smartly scripted and well performed despite lack of character sympathy

(3 stars)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

Tonight Sandy Grierson Will Lecture, Dance and Box

Cultural and political history piece leaves deep impression

(3 stars)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

Tea with Queenie

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

(3 stars)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

The Noise Next Door – Their Finest Hour

A delightfully unpredictable hour with some knock-about funsters

(3 stars)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

Sarah Archer - Bumfluff and Brimstone

Occasional insightful jagged barb amid stale material and easy punchlines

(2 stars)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…

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