Issue 637

Glasgow Roller Disco

13 Aug 2009

Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll Dig out your skates (they’re also available to hire on the night) as roller disco mayhem descends on Glasgow, recreating the New York sounds of disco with a modern twist. DJ sets come from Jackmaster, Rustie (pictured), DJ…

Warren & Hanbury: All to Bare

Comedy sketch show in the flesh

13 Aug 2009

These two small-town girls are a funny and smart comedy duo from Wales and Canada respectively, silly and sassy in perfect quantities and indeed willing to bare all (in the name of good humour, of course). They bring to Edinburgh sketches about lonely…

Still Breathing

Impressive but joyless contemporary dance

18 Aug 2009

There’s plenty to admire in this new show by all-male company 2FaCeD DaNcE, not least the virtuosity of UK breakdancing champion, Robby Graham. Plus some incredibly tight ensemble routines, which fuse street dance with contemporary to explore the…

The Grind Show

Carnival slapstick and profound questioning from the TBA Collaborative

19 Aug 2009

A mix of slick physical theatre and naturalistic dialogue, The Grind Show follows wide-eyed ‘Boy’ through a surreal circus. Underworld characters, including the double-bodied Miss Von Ambourg (whose act involves splitting apart to throw daggers at her…

The Muffia

Uncomfortable, unplanned and best avoided

19 Aug 2009

Tight Women is a baffling little number, telling the tale of two market traders fantasising about their own telly show. However, the action is overshadowed by the awkward silence of an audience desperately trying to like and understand the two stars…

Puppet show round-up from the Edinburgh Festival

Rounding up the best acts made of socks, sponges and foam

16 Aug 2009

Puppetry acts are the black sheep of the performing arts family: indulged but not held in serious regard. Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre Company’s Oh! What a Shitty War (●●) recounts the history of warfare with hand puppets. Mistaking the charmingly…

Brendan Benson - My Old, Familiar Friend

16 Aug 2009

(Echo) After a four-year sojourn as right-hand man to pal Jack White in The Raconteurs, Detroit singer-songwriter Brendan Benson here returns to the day job, creating pristine and boisterous guitar pop influenced by The Cars and The Kinks. This fourth…

Nigel Peake: Making Ends Meet

14 Aug 2009

Schop, the new gallery initiative from Oliver Chapman architects, which exhibits artists steeped in architecture and the built environment, showcases the work of Irish-born artist Nigel Peake for its first EAF exhibition. Peake’s drawings and prints…

Kim Noble: King of Pain

The former Perrier winner is far from a happy chappy

13 Aug 2009

When Kim Noble last appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe, there was something strangely prophetic about one of the sequences he performed alongside his comedy partner in crime, Stuart Silver. At various moments during their 2004 show, A Man, both would be…

5 Questions: Kristen Schaal & Kurt Braunohler

13 Aug 2009

What five words best describe your show? Encore performance of last year. Can you name a comic who should be more famous than they are now? Stewart Lee should be so famous and so in demand that he is no longer able to make personal appearances.

Wolfboy

Unintentionally funny, with unmemorable songs

21 Aug 2009

This musical adaptation of Brad Fraser’s play feels like someone’s titillating soft-core fantasy, in which two troubled boyband-pretty teens with hard bodies and perky nipples come very close to kissing but can only cope with bashfully simulating…

Where Eagles Dare/The Bridge of Remagen

19 Aug 2009

Fans of great war movies shouldn’t miss this great Sunday double bill which has been programmed to coincide with the release of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (see review). Brian G Hutton’s familiar but still brilliant 1968 men-on-a-mission epic…

The Brothers Lionheart

Heavy tale of death and doom

18 Aug 2009

Jonathan and his little brother, Rusky set off an adventure that changes their lives forever. It’s a tale of dragons and monsters, and the mighty Tengil who has the villagers of Nangilaya living in fear. The boys must man-up and fight back against…

The Magnets - Gobsmacked

Take it to the Fringe

16 Aug 2009

A multi-talented ‘six-pack’ ensemble from England, The Magnets breath fresh air into a cappella singing, while adding their cheeky confidence, dancing and interplay theatrics. With both combination singing and each individual taking a turn under the…

Orphans

Rivetting exploration of urban fear

14 Aug 2009

Dennis Kelly’s Orphans opens with a tableau that might have been culled from a conventional TV thriller. An ordinary couple, Helen and Danny, about to eat dinner, sit staring up at a man drenched in blood standing in their doorway. The man, it turns…

The Mulgray Twins

Gentle crime from unique pairing

14 Aug 2009

If you’re walking around Charlotte Square Gardens and need a double take towards a pair of 70-year-old women who look almost exactly the same, strong chances are it’s Helen and Morna Mulgray. The former teachers who have never been married but have…

Amanda Palmer

14 Aug 2009

A singular talent who refuses to play the predictable game whether it’s on record, in print or on stage, Amanda Palmer has been turning heads since forever as one half of the Dresden Dolls, where she throws together Weimar cabaret and punk scree in…

Andrew Lawrence: Soul Crushing Vicissitudes of Fortune!

A show about how luck can change our lives

13 Aug 2009

Returning to the Fringe for the fourth year in a row, Andrew Lawrence muses and mulls over the role that luck plays in our lives from the cynical stance of a young comedian. On the butt end of his jokes this time around, among others, are Ainsley…

The World's Wife

Poetry in motion

13 Aug 2009

There are some things in life that even a suspicious Fringe audience can trust in, and Linda Marlowe interpreting the poems of Carol Ann Duffy’s best-known collection is a double gold-star guarantee of quality. Marlowe is a phenomenal performer, and…

The Last Witch - Rona Munro

12 Aug 2009

Outside of panto season, it’s difficult to find a dramatist these days who’s keen to write about witches. While the idea of witchcraft might bring a certain primal frisson to some, and a sociological fascination to others, the contemporary theatre has…

First Word: Supergran

12 Aug 2009

First record you ever bought I have never bought a record. Last time you were chatted up The chance would be a fine thing! First film that really moved you I have not a clue. Last lie you told I’m too goody-goody. First movie you…

The Rap Guide to Evolution

Combining Chuck D and Charles Darwin

21 Aug 2009

Part gig, part stand up, part lecture, Baba Brinkman, the man who brought you The Rap Canterbury Tales, tackles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Instantly accessible, destroying creationism through the music of The Notorious BIG, Dead Prez, Mobb Deep and…

Christopher Brookmyre - Pandaemonium

18 Aug 2009

It had to happen sometime. Over the course of 12 books, Christopher Brookmyre has maintained his ability to engage, amuse, appal (in a good way) and keep us guessing to the last line. But, unless great swathes of expositional prose about the laws of…

Actions Speak Louder than Birds

Spends too much time apologising for his limitations

18 Aug 2009

Last August ‘motivational speaker’ Marc Hogan bet a colleague £1 that he could perform a successful show at this year’s Fringe. A PowerPoint presentation takes us through his agenda and this slavish adherence to his day job is his undoing. Rather than…

Andrew O’Neill

Fast-talking, endlessly informative and inventive

18 Aug 2009

Had Russell Howard spent his upbringing around a ouija board, he may have turned out a lot like Andrew O’Neill. The fast-talking, endlessly informative and inventive Occult Comedian is in fine form delivering reams of spot-on material about his beliefs…