Issue 700
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- Issue 700
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Fringe 2012 Bribe of the Week: Clinton the Musical
1 Aug 2012
Runners up include kids' poet Joshua Seigal and dance show Leo
Our inaugural 2012 Bribe of the Week was a close call, although the painstakingly-decorated cupcakes and branded pants from Clinton: The Musical eventually won out. Aside from ticking both the tasty and utilitarian boxes, the bribe showed an…
Author Shirley Conran discusses Fifty Shades of Grey
28 Jul 2012
The erotic fiction writer is unimpressed by EL James' contribution to the genre
It was a visit to one of London’s top sexperts that finally convinced Shirley Conran to write Lace. At the beginning of the 1980s, after a successful career as a journalist and non-fiction writer, she was researching an educational tome about sex for…
Meursault, Rob St John and Jill O’Sullivan & Jenny Reeve - Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 7 Jul 2012
28 Jul 2012
Triumphant performance more than delivering on high hopes of hometown crowd
Some album launches can be rather flat affairs – people don’t know the songs, the band are nervous, and it can all feel a bit dutiful. But this packed-out show heralding the arrival of album number three for Meursault couldn’t have been further from…
New 'Spoken Word' category houses some of the finest acts of Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Performers in the new strand include Luke Wright, Mark Grist, Alex Keelan and Claire Mooney
‘People still think it’s going to be “Charge of the Light Brigade” by a bloke in a suit,’ Luke Wright crackles down the phone to me. He’s sitting in the pub where he’s working on a new show with Mark Grist, a teacher turned rap battler and fellow…
Jim Jefferies talks offensiveness and sobriety ahead of 2012 Fringe show Fully Functional
27 Jul 2012
Aussie comedian on bad reviews, Fully Functional and US sitcom Legit
Jim Jefferies used to do a joke about getting a lift from a ‘tiny, hot, young girl’. He couldn’t believe his luck when she offered him a ride back into Los Angeles after they’d just spent the day working on a film-set. Before driving off in her…
Conchords man Rhys Darby courts the apocalypse in 2012 Fringe show
27 Jul 2012
New Zealand comedian's show on how to survive Armageddon
Whatever lies ahead in Rhys Darby’s career, one showbiz stat might continue to haunt him: he may never be as popular as Zippy. Or rather, not Darby himself, but one Murray Hewitt. The feckless Kiwi band manager he played in 22 episodes of Flight of the…
Writer, actor and director Katherine Gibbons on Playing Fate
27 Jul 2012
An adapted version of the comedy-drama is heading back to the Fringe in 2012
In 2010, Katherine Gibbons, an actress and playwright from Newbury near Reading, took on the Fringe with her first ever scripted play, Playing Fate. She was inspired to write the piece after a few years in London and a series of classic out-of-work…
Harry Hill exhibits paintings and sculptures at Edinburgh Art Festival
27 Jul 2012
TV Burp comedian displays other side in My Hobby
The fact that Harry Hill is set to make an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival is not in itself big news. The bald-headed, bespectacled, large-collared comedian has a long association with the world’s largest arts beano, grabbing early raves for his…
Festival Insider: Aussie Fringe regular Brendon Burns loses his inner cynic for Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Comedian brings Home Stretch Baby show to Edinburgh
My first attempt at this article was a bitter rant detailing everything I hate about Edinburgh audiences. And then my wife, a genius in all things Burnsological, pointed out I was behaving like a blind cynic. Once upon a time, to be a cynic meant…
Comedian Tiffany Stevenson praises optimism at the Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Comedian behind Uncomfortably Numb show on 24 box-sets and Requiem For A Dream
An optimistic purchase Stage and screen star Tiffany Stevenson looks on the bright side, as she prepares to bring her latest show to the Fringe I have a friend who is ill in hospital and I had no idea what to buy him. I know the norm in these…
The Fence Collective’s Away Game - Isle of Eigg Fri 20-Sun 22 Jul
27 Jul 2012
Island festival including Meursault, Jon Hopkins and Nathan Fake
I miss the smell of the all-night toilets: like camping and school trips and warm wood and wet clothes. I miss the bagpipes on the pier. The polystyrene cups of tea. The cows and sheep and dogs and cats that milled round our tents and danced in the…
Comedian Barry Ferns explains why he doesn’t do the Fringe by halves
27 Jul 2012
The man behind This Belongs to Lionel Richie is performing on Arthur's Seat in 2012
If you’re not doing something odd or unusual at the Edinburgh Fringe, then why come to a fringe festival? Just go to a festival. It’s the Fringe. I love the possibilities Edinburgh’s Fringe throws up. Audiences want, and enjoy, something different.
Screen Bandita presents Ritualised Frequencies - Church of the Sacred Heart, Edinburgh Sat 21 Jul
27 Jul 2012
Includes Ariadne Xenou, Cut Hands, Daniel Padden and Howie Reeve
Madonna may have been getting sacred and profane with what was by all accounts a limp 'Like A Prayer' routine over at Murrayfield, but it took Saturday night in a Jesuit chapel hall to really come together. The occasion was 16mm film divas Screen…
Crate Digging: Marcel Heese
27 Jul 2012
Tresor resident Marcel Heese shares his favourite tracks with us ahead of his Unseen takeover night
Phase ‘Binary Opposition (Process 1)’ (Token Records) pretty much stands for the typical kind of club techno I love. It’s deep and hypnotic, yet powerful. Great production work and very detailed. I’ve been playing this in every single set for months…
Irish dance company Up & Over It put a fresh spin on the Riverdance template for Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Appeals to both Riverdance lovers and haters
They learned the steps, won the medals, and stood in line with all the other good Riverdance boys and girls. Then one day, Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding decided to break out from that line and do it their way, and Up & Over It was born. Taking an…
Clubbers' Decktionary: EDM
27 Jul 2012
Trouble's DJ Hobbes gives us a guide to the myriad genres of clubbing
EDM aka Electronic Dance Music, proper noun, various strains. The US media’s umbrella term for what we Brits have just been calling ‘dance music’ for the past quarter of a century recently blew up in a very big way, due to some shrewd marketing…
Scamp Theatre bring Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales to life at Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Stage version of hugely successful Julia Donaldson children's book
With so many shows to choose from at the Fringe, it’s always handy when a tried and tested company returns carrying a guarantee of quality. All those who saw Scamp Theatre’s production of Stick Man in 2010 will be pleased to know that the talented…
National Folk Theatre of Ireland to perform What the Folk! at Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
The company merge dance with storytelling in intimate locations
Based in Tralee in County Kerry, the National Folk Theatre of Ireland is keeping traditions alive, by looking to the future. Training performers in music, dance, theatre and song from a young age, it ensures there’s always a new crop of talent rising…
Revisiting: Red Desert
27 Jul 2012
BFI re-release of Michelangelo Antonioni's exquisite 60s film
In 1964 cinematic maestro Michelangelo Antonioni directed his first colour film, the exquisitely expressive, elegantly tortured Red Desert. To mark the 100th anniversary of Antonioni’s birth the BFI are reissuing the film, restored to something of its…
Lola Versus
27 Jul 2012
Floundering rom-com that lacks punch
Despite the combative title, which suggests a film with attitude, Lola Versus is a rom-com so lacking in fizz and confidence it’s virtually apologising for its own existence. Directed and co-written by Daryl Wein (Breaking Upwards) it stars former…
Tall Stories to perform Julia Donaldson's The Snail and the Whale at Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Stage version of hugely successful children's book
Julia Donaldson’s picture books take pride of place on bedroom shelves around the world. But it’s not until somebody picks them up and reads them, that those clever rhymes come alive. Published in 2004, The Snail and the Whale has been one of…
Universal humour: 5 international comedians at the 2012 Fringe
27 Jul 2012
Featuring Naz Osmanoglu, Trevor Noah, Michael Mittermeier and Marcel Lucont
Naz Osmanoglu Given the damp evidence of his debut solo affair last year (he’s also a core member of the WitTank crew), this Turkish prince will provide an energetic sweat-fest like no other. This year, he’s an Ottoman Without an Empire. You getting…
Kipper Tie Theatre return to the Fringe 2012 with kids' show Our Island
27 Jul 2012
Singaporean theatre and slapstick in show tackling xenophobia and religious intolerance
Best known for winning over Fringe audiences with their poo-centred hit show, The Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business, Kipper Tie Theatre are back in Edinburgh with a far more serious subject matter. Set in a mystery location, Our Island…
Anton Adasinsky discusses Faust adaptation Mephisto Waltz, playing at Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Blend of physical storytelling and clowning set to music by Liszt
If you’ve ever seen a performance by Anton Adasinsky you’ll know that Mephistopheles, the seductive demon from the Faust legend, is the role he was born to play. ‘Very often theatre critics were mentioning devilry, the infernal, even Satanism in…
Australian company Casus bring physical performance Knee Deep to Fringe 2012
27 Jul 2012
Festival show takes gymnastics and feats of strength to new level
How do you assemble a circus show when those involved are all busy with projects abroad? Skype’s fine for generating ideas, says Jesse Scott of Casus, but this newly-formed Australian company’s inaugural show, Knee Deep didn’t begin to find its legs…
