Suzanne Black

Circus Oz: 30th Birthday Bash

Acrobatics with an Aussie accent

7 Aug 2008

Characters in colourful costumes exchange banter with the audience, the live band plays a constant stream of Gogol Bordello-like polka and one act involves a dramatic take on Frankenstein's monster. This isn't your average circus. Far more theatrical…

Lucy Hawking

19 Jul 2007

What do you do when your father is one of the world’s most respected theoretical physicists, author of the bestseller A Brief History of Time and you want to be a writer? The answer was obvious to Lucy Hawking, daughter of Stephen: write a book…

IAMX

24 Apr 2008

ELECTRO-GOTHIC POP King Tut’s, Glasgow, Mon 31 Mar ‘Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome!’ The Deutsch kitsch musical number from Cabaret is the perfect aural backdrop for IAMX (the demonic brainchild of ex-Sneaker Pimp Chris Corner) to take to the stage.

Frisky and Mannish

Pop song parodies and mash-ups from anachronistic vocal duo

24 Jul 2009

Popular music is a serious matter, with the risk of ridicule for those who don’t know the Sugababes from the Sugarcubes, and Flo Rida from Tinchy Stryder. Luckily, singing duo Felicity Fitz-Frisky (Laura Corcoran) and Hansel Amadeus Mannish (Matthew…

Doon MacKichan - Primadoona

Turning tragedy into comedy

8 Aug 2010

Life has heaped a lot of lemons on Doon MacKichan: death, divorce, illness, a career in voiceovers. It’s given her some treats as well, to be fair: children, two Emmys, the ability to Flamenco dance. The accomplished comedy writer and performer turns…

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…

The Xcerts

24 Apr 2008

INDIE Barfly, Glasgow, Tue 6 May Indie rock is the musical opiate of the masses. Recapture that first hit ecstasy with The Xcerts, a fresh-faced three-piece from Aberdeen and Exeter. Get Cape Wear Cape Fly liked their fully-formed, captivatingly…

London Gay Men’s Chorus

21 May 2007

CHORAL EXTRAVAGANZA One of the best moments from the now defunct TV show Will & Grace was when Jack and guest star Matt Damon tried to ‘out-camp’ each other to prove their gayness and thus win a spot in the Manhattan Gay Men’s Chorus. There is no…

Priscilla, Queen Of Glasgow

Profile

23 Apr 2007

What’s this all about? In the very best Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert tradition, Glasgow’s bonniest lassies (well ten of them and don’t check their birth certificates) will go breast-to-fake-breast to duke it out for the title of…

Rufus Wainwright - Out of the Game

Mark Ronson-produced album's expanded instrumentation feels misplaced

23 Mar 2012

(Polydor) Releasing career retrospective House of Rufus last year and now drafting in ubiquitous producer Mark Ronson, all signs point to reinvention for Wainwright. Never one to shy away from the idiosyncratic in his operatic and multi-genre-infused…

Bon Iver - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Oct 2011

Justin Vernon's large ensemble fails to capture the albums' spare beauty

16 Nov 2011

To a long since sold-out crowd of ardent devotees, Justin Vernon takes the stage – after the audience impatiently chats through support act Kathleen Edwards’ countrified indie folk. (Vernon helped out with production and instrumental duties on Edwards…

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…

Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams

Aussie puppeteers pull our strings

20 Aug 2009

The spirit of the Fringe is innovation rather than returning with a proven successful show. But since Heath McIvor's Randy's Postcards From Purgatory and Sammy J (Sammy J: 1999) are also performing their own new shows, we'll forgive the pair behind…

Russell Kane

Caustic and hilarious self-flagellation

17 Aug 2011

It’s hard to judge Russell Kane’s show because he’s already done it. For the ‘difficult’ follow-up to his Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning 2010 show Kane performs Manscaping as himself, offers up heckles, anticipates critic and audience responses and even…

The Dark Philosophers

Dark Welsh classic given a postmodern twist

17 Aug 2011

Death is no impairment to being on stage (as being a goat is no impairment to being a stagehand) in this darkly comic delight from National Theatre Wales and Told by an Idiot. Weaving together two novellas from Welsh English-language writer Gwyn Thomas…

Lee Camp Is: Yet Another American Mistake

Rabble-rousing American gets mad at current affairs

12 Aug 2011

Lee Camp aims his freewheeling cannon at all the aspects of American (and Western) culture that are easy to criticise: childhood obesity, people who believe in aliens, sweatshops, war as big business, the moon landings, the death penalty, multinational…

Anton's Uncles

Chekhov remixed as a highly entertaining divertissement

11 Aug 2011

Four dapperly dressed men cavort with the stage dressings, dance with each other and utter one-liners with a Wildean frivolity. The members of LA’s Theatre Movement Bazaar are so diverting with their antics that this play’s relation to Anton Chekhov’s…

Barry and Stuart

Showing and telling their magical mysteries

8 Aug 2011

Be-suited Aberdonian purveyors of macabre magical comedy, Barry Jones and Stuart MacLeod have struck upon one hell of a gimmick. First comes The Show, filled with their favoured brand of slightly gory trickery and presented by the twosome with their…

Storm Large - Crazy Enough

A musical memoir with bawdy tales

9 Aug 2010

Storm Large is absolutely gorgeous, what with her mile-long legs, blonde locks and cherubic face. But I think she expects us to be shocked with all her talk about fisting. The American rock chick will learn that Fringe audiences have a high capacity for…

Rich Hall

Cynicism in his well-loved irascible, undermining way

20 Aug 2009

The story of one man and his fly, or rather one fly and his stand-up comedian. Rich Hall, the Montana miserablist best known for his splenetic ranting and copious appearances on UK TV panel shows was beset by an insect (possibly a fly) for the duration…

Nun the Wiser

Triona Adams picks up a new habit

13 Aug 2009

Shows, TV programmes and novels about personal journeys are ten-a-penny at the moment (is there anywhere Dawn Porter hasn’t been?). Triona Adams leaving a media career to spend a year training to be a Benedictine nun because of a genuine spiritual…

Jack Daniel's JD Set, Lynchburg, Tennessee

11 Nov 2008

The most surprising thing about Jack Daniel's isn't that it is distilled in the town of Lynchburg, Tennessee, in a dry state where the law decrees that alcohol can neither be bought nor sold. It isn't that it's the world's biggest selling single brand…

Jonny Woo: International Woman of Mr ‘E’

Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show

7 Aug 2008

Moving and darkly comic one-(wo)man show. Jonny Woo, drag queen darling of the London alt.queer scene appears onstage beneath sequined butterfly make-up and various costumes. He knows that the act of wearing a mask is designed to reveal rather than…

Plain White T's

17 Jan 2008

ALT.ROCK Barrowland, Glasgow, Fri 25 Jan Dave Tirio is asleep. Fifteen minutes after the interview is scheduled to start he’s probably dreaming about number ones and sell-out tours. But these things are fast becoming more than dreams for the…

Hotel Methuselah

Stunning and inventive multimedia production

23 Aug 2011

In a war-time hotel night porter Harry delves into his memories in this tense, mysterious multimedia work from Imitating the Dog. A frame around the stage offers limited views of the actors who work in tandem with pre-filmed dialogue and supplementary…