Reviews & features: Fringe
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Mess
12 Aug 2012
Catherine Horton's play about anorexia is a modest, self-conscious three-hander
A play about anorexia nervosa, written and (in part) performed by a young woman who was once very unwell with the eating disorder, might seem like one of those Fringe shows which should be avoided as resolutely as anything involving Les Dennis. However…
Collision
12 Aug 2012
Dance floor mash-up from Lite Fantastic, the company behind Prodigy dance show Prodigious
Promising us a show where ‘styles collide’, London-based dance company Lite Fantastic is as good as its word. In one routine, performed to the Labrinth/Tinie Tempah track ‘Earthquake’, a couple starts off ballroom dancing, moves into breakdancing and…
The Pin
11 Aug 2012
Layered sketch comedy from ex-Footlighters Ben Ashenden, Mark Fiddaman and Alex Owen
The beauty of sketch comedy lies within its potential to bring together the two worlds of theatre and comedy with the aim of creating something far larger and more consuming. With such limitless opportunity though comes great risk: a bombed gag, an…
Lapin Wants Ice Cream
11 Aug 2012
Puppets on the beach à la Française
With a pre-schooler’s brain bearing a remarkable resemblance to a sponge, it’s the perfect time to introduce a foreign language to them. Tania Czajka knows this, and has created a cast of fun characters to deliver the message. Holidaying on the beach…
WitTank
11 Aug 2012
Disappointing show from the recently televised comedy trio
The comedy troupe of three return to the Fringe after a bout at the Beeb with more of their quick and quicker-fire sketch show fare. Occupying the ground between enthusiastic amateurs and reliable professionals, WitTank tick all the boxes with a show…
Jim Jefferies: Fully Functional
10 Aug 2012
Revelatory and raucous stand-up at its most potent
Watching Jim Jefferies at his best is akin to the sensation of wading neck deep into ice cold water and suddenly realising you’ve lost your footing. The sheer audacity of his material and its depths is breathtaking. Given his current personal…
Mr Snot Bottom's Stinky Silly Show
10 Aug 2012
Fifty minutes of fart, bum, booger
The scatological stage is one that all pre-schoolers go through, and Mr Snot Bottom’s hour of fart-bum-eugh gags is cunningly calculated to get as many hot-button words into 50 minutes as is humanly possible. He is a fit Australian chap with a whiff of…
Teach Me
9 Aug 2012
Touching comedy from Edinburgh-based young company
Simon is a naïve 18-year-old, keen as mustard to get his first taste of naughtiness but clueless about how it all works. Emma is ten years older, in a ‘complicated’ relationship with a married man, and now unexpectedly alone with Simon in a bedroom at a…
Belt Up Theatre’s A Little Princess
9 Aug 2012
Unengaging adaptation of a timeworn classic
Young York company Belt Up Theatre have been the toast of the Fringe in recent years for their immersive, intensive renditions of stories new and old, but it feels like things have gone off the boil slightly with this staging of Frances Hodgson…
Tea with the Old Queen
9 Aug 2012
Highly entertaining high-camp treat
Writer-performer Graham Woolnough’s one-man show provides us with a delightfully indiscreet behind-the-scenes look at the lives of Britain’s royal family, as told through the fictional diaries of the Queen Mother’s bitchy old queen of a butler…
Picasso's Nude Woman is there to stay at Edinburgh airport
8 Aug 2012
Edinburgh Airport reinstates Picasso nude after it was covered due to passenger complaints
Several customers in Edinburgh Airport complained about the poster featuring Nude Woman in a Red Armchair, which was advertising Picasso and Modern British Art exhibition in the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art – highlight of the on-going…
The Life and Sort of Death of Eric Argyle
8 Aug 2012
Savvy set design and excellent soundtrack in provoking limbo-land tragicomedy
Eric Argyle died at 11.42am two days ago; yet here he is, heart aching, mind racing in a confusing laboratory-cum-limbo-land. The Life and Sort... is another highly accomplished piece from the team behind last year’s success Minute After Midday. 15th…
I, Tommy
7 Aug 2012
Sex, socialism and sub-standard comedy in this play about the (in)famous Sheridan
First, a confession. Like Tommy Sheridan, I, too, have frequented... socialist meetings. However, contrary to media myth, left-wingers in Scotland don’t divide neatly into Tommy’s cheerleaders and those who stick pins in his effigy before they go to…
Hi-kick
7 Aug 2012
Thrilling fusion of football, dance and slapstick
Virtuoso soccer skills have become a staple of telly variety shows like Britain’s Got Talent. But when was the last time you witnessed a five-a-side football match recreated on stage, with multiple balls flying in every direction? While this show from…
Nick Page: My Glorious Hypothetical Life as a Eunuch
7 Aug 2012
Well-delivered catalogue of misanthropy and bad behaviour
It's lucky for us and a consolation for Page that he has such a history of being an asshole from which to draw for his stand up material. With a dry, defeated demeanour he tells us that, even after academic failure, three broken marriages and seven…
Petya and the Wolf
7 Aug 2012
Childlike in chaotic naiivety but enough depth to entertain all
Two Russian actors present this idiosyncratic physical retelling of the familiar tale of how Peter outsmarts the hungry wolf, soundtracked by a recording of the Prokofiev score with English narration. Although the story is simple enough for all ages to…
Chris McCausland: Not Blind Enough
7 Aug 2012
Thought-provoking, impassioned show from formerly benign McCausland
Previous Fringe shows have seen Chris McCausland bumble around the benign landscapes of budget airlines, cryptic crosswords and moths. But a comment at a party last year – ‘You’re not blind enough’ – struck home. Coupled with a bout of post…
Charlie Baker: Freshly Baked
7 Aug 2012
Flashes of wit do not save show short on good material
Exploding out of the blocks like Michael Mcintyre after a parma violet binge, 'Charlie Baker Freshly Baked' causes the audience members emotions to flitter between moments of slight irritation to sustained periods of downright annoyance. Whilst an…
Rock
7 Aug 2012
Rabid account of US punk movement from one man and a cellist
Long before Kurt Cobain moved to Seattle, sold his ass and lost his soul, the clouds of the American punk rock movement were gathering, rumbling and occasionally transcending. From the poetic beat riffs of Gregory Corso through to the narcotic and…
The Barwell Prophecy
7 Aug 2012
Insidiously effective late-night horror with talented young cast
Pennsylvania’s Slippery Rock Theatre delivers that rarest of things: a genuinely creepy late-night horror show. They follow 2010’s historical shocker Deepchurch Hollow with something bang up to date, set in a shadowy Homeland Security monitoring office…
Will Marsh's Ruination
7 Aug 2012
Flawed but fearless dissection of the absurd
Britain is in a right old pickle and Will Marsh’s duty is to remind us how just bad things have got. For instance, there’s the problem with men being a bit dim and wholly unfaithful, what to do with having an awful regional accent (Marsh is an…
Danny Buckler: The Phantom
7 Aug 2012
Magician-cum-comedian comes to Fringe in charming new guise
Having performed as a magician in previous years, Danny Buckler returns to Edinburgh in a very different guise. Born and raised in Woking, Buckler details the trials of growing up in a town that is less than welcoming to anyone pursuing a life as a…
Chris Dugdale: 2 Faced Deception
7 Aug 2012
Overly slick presentation with rehashed tricks
If you haven’t caught a whiff of Chris Dugdale’s act before, his opening gambit may well blow you away. Unfortunately, if you have seen it, you’re in for a tedious introductory ten minutes, as he rehashes his most famous work over again (and then…
The Trench
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6 Aug 2012
Pitch-perfect evocation of the theatre of war
Les Enfants Terribles have built a formidable reputation for playfully macabre tales mixing drama, music and inventive staging to create gothic fantasies reminiscent of Tim Burton’s oeuvre. The latest from the company’s writer Oliver Lansley draws on…
Shit-Faced Shakespeare
6 Aug 2012
A gut-busting hour of rowdy theatre with the odd moment of discomfort
Don’t worry, overseas visitors, the actors in Shit-Faced Shakespeare don’t have actual excrement smeared over their faces. Although it’s possible that, before the end of this run, that might actually happen. Instead, a different cast member turns up…
