Reviews & features: Edinburgh Festival Fringe
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Strong Arm
16 Aug 2012
Thought-provoking look at transformation and self-betterment
At the age of 13, Roland Poland weighs 20 stone. In his early 20s, he’s a muscle god, pumped up on four-hour gym sessions, hourly protein shakes and arcane shark’s fin supplements. But in breaking himself so that he can grow even stronger, has he lost…
Simple Matters
16 Aug 2012
Clowning around becomes a comedy of errors despite clear talent
This international troop of clowns present mime and physical comedy and, though skilled, grossly misread the audience to a less than comedic effect. Relying on 'volunteers', interaction that could work with a boozy, up-for-it Saturday night crowd comes…
David Whitney – Struggling to Evolve
15 Aug 2012
Ill-conceived, unhappy show featuring cheap gags and little intelligence
Blasting his way onto the expectant stage with a hefty set of bagpipes, you could probably cite this loud start as the highlight of Whitney’s set. The tired-looking comedian immediately conceded (unnecessarily) that the bagpipes were a gimmick – before…
FNT Live presents … The Jingling Lane Family Singers
15 Aug 2012
Funny bits few and far between in ill-executed sketch comedy
At the start of this doomed sketch affair, there are more people on stage than in the crowd. Given that FNT Live features ten members, that’s not as cringeworthy as it might sound. The opening features an American family of fundamentalist Christian…
Fred MacAulay
15 Aug 2012
Persistently strong material and natural affability from Fringe institution
Now a firm Fringe institution, Fred MacAulay could coast by on easy charm alone. But that would never do, and even when he tackles well-trodden topics like air travel there's always the safe feeling that he'll have put in the graft for a proper big…
The Three Englishmen: Squares
15 Aug 2012
Gently amusing sketches could do with more pep to fulfil likeable lads' potential
The Three Englishmen – there’s four of them actually – aren’t blazing a new sketch comedy trail in in this show. But it’s a gently amusing hour with some stand out moments of hilarity, thanks primarily to their musical skills. The boys welcome us…
My Elevator Days
15 Aug 2012
Gentle play about old age and identity never loses sight of harsh reality
What do we leave behind in an ever-changing world? The old man in front of us will never get the 19 million Google results of Grace Kelly, with whom he shares a birthday, nor the blue plaque of the artist that goaded him as a child. Given his borderline…
Hand Over Fist
15 Aug 2012
Beautifully textured monologue about lost love and Alzheimer’s
Joanna Bending is devastatingly effective as Emily, an eerily child-like pensioner struggling to recount the events of her past as her memory of it slips away from her. In this one-woman show, Emily tells the story of a fateful night in the 1950s…
And the Girls in Their Sunday Dresses
15 Aug 2012
This post-Apartheid era Zakes Mda adaptation has universal resonance
With its absurdist humour and metaphorical meaning, this clever, funny, political play is like a South African version of Waiting for Godot. As with Beckett’s luckless protagonists, two women (brilliantly played by South African comedians Hlengiwe…
Bruce Hammers' Bananapocalypse
15 Aug 2012
Gloriously chaotic hour that tumbles through fictitious film legend's career
Relative newcomer Mat Ewins 'stars' as Bruce Hammers, 1980's film legend best known for his seminal work the 1982 film Bananapocalypse. That's about as much as you get that's sensical about this show, it's a gloriously chaotic hour that tumbles through…
Poe’s Last Night
15 Aug 2012
Recitation of great works is strictly for Poe-heads
A self-professed work in progress, this one-man show is still not ready for public consumption. But isn't this sort of experimentation exactly what the Free Fringe should be doing? Dawn of the Dead actor David Crawford is not at his best as a rather…
Call Me!
15 Aug 2012
Accurate and amusing portrait of dating in the modern world
The interweaving lives and loves of three single girls and one new couple come together to create a scarily accurate portrait of dating in the modern world. Essentially split into two sections, there’s a interesting distinction between the early section…
Funk Rocket 5000
15 Aug 2012
Rachel Lancaster is brilliant in this off-kilter mental health comedy
The lights in the venue have blown – again – and the stage is cast in the sickly green glow of the emergency back-up. It couldn’t be better for this brilliantly bleak, bone-dry mental health comedy, which suggests the boundaries between patient and…
Tenderpits
15 Aug 2012
Uncomfortable and alienating autobiographical show
A man dressed in a Where's Wally-style hat and a huge, dirty nappy serves dinner to two teddy bears. Surprisingly, this is the most accessible scene in Anthony Johnston's willfully obscure one-man show. Tenderpits is ostensibly autobiographical but…
Unhappy Birthday
15 Aug 2012
Less a show than a mad Dadaist happening
‘It’s a party-slash-show-slash party!’ Such is Amy Lamé’s breathless refrain, which she repeats manically, with the excitement of an eight-year-old hopped up on Party Ring e-numbers. In fact, Unhappy Birthday is less a show than a mad Dadaist happening…
Peter Straker’s Brel
15 Aug 2012
Belgian chanteur Brel’s life explored in song, costumes and storytelling
Jamaican born Peter Straker has been involved in British TV, music, and theatre for decades – he’s been in Doctor Who, collaborated with Freddie Mercury and starred in Hair and Phantom of the Opera amongst other things. In this latest show however, he…
Tania Edwards - Killer Instinct
15 Aug 2012
Funny Women finalist in career regression
Straight off the bat, the eminently likeable Tania Edwards insists that this is going to be her year. It’s ‘break or breakdown’ time. Unfortunately, several things could be conspiring against her as she moves ahead with her grand plans (which may have…
I Am, I Am
15 Aug 2012
Highly entertaining slapstick minstrelry from promising troubadour comedy duo
For ones so young it's obscene how much confidence these duelling acoustic troubadours from Cambridge have. With their genre shifting ditties and punning rhymes I Am, I Am are most obviously comparable to The Flight of the Conchords but their very…
Caesarian Section – Essays on Suicide
14 Aug 2012
Polish company grapples with deeply human emotion elegantly and sensitively
With a title like Caesarian Section – Essays on Suicide, this production by Wroclaw-based company Theatre ZAR was never going to be a light undertaking. Yet despite it’s heavy subject matter – it is described as being about ‘suicidal compulsion and the…
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012: Comedy highlights so far
14 Aug 2012
Dr Brown, Shit-Faced Shakespeare, Alfie Brown, Jim Jefferies and more
Dr Brown Mr Phil Burgers gets stuck into some quality hushed clowning work for his adult crowd with surprisingly tender results. See review at list.co.uk/festival. Underbelly, Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, until 26 Aug (not 20), 9.05pm, £10.50--£11.50…
Educating Ronnie
14 Aug 2012
Compelling true-life fable engagingly told
Joe Douglas’ day job may be that of professional theatre director, but his one-man show is based on a strand of his own life that’s far richer than anything he could have made up. The story dates back ten years to his gap year in Uganda. Alongside…
Ford & Akram
14 Aug 2012
Warm, charismatic show from the bumbling comedy duo
Female duo Yasmine Akram and Louise Ford sit side by side in silence. As the former beams a radiant smile, the latter glares glumly in to the front row. Embarking on a voyage to fulfill an elderly relatives last request the show consists of a…
I Shall be Remembered – The Story of Madame de Pompadour
14 Aug 2012
All that glitters is not gold in one-dimensional take on a fascinating figure
The stage at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre has been dipped in gold. Glittering trinkets lie on gold-rimmed furniture and gold-framed paintings line the walls. This is the 18th century court of King Louis XV and the domain of his savvy…
Detention
14 Aug 2012
Mr Bean meets Olympic gymnastics: physical comedy, Hong Kong style
Hong Kong show Detention is a highly accomplished example of a form of physical comedy that is extremely popular in east Asia. If you haven’t encountered this kind of work on the Edinburgh Fringe in the past, think Mr Bean crossed with Olympic…
Mr Braithwaite Has a New Boy
14 Aug 2012
Decent performances can’t redeem predictable Aussie farce
With this new comedy by Steven Dawson (who also directs and designs it), Melbourne’s LGBT-focused theatre company Out Cast Theatre plays lazily to the crowd, favouring lashings of none-too-subtle and none-too-imaginative cheap smut and broadly-drawn…
