Reviews & features: Claire Sawers
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Daniel Kitson: As of 1.52 GMT on Friday April 27th 2012 , This Show Has No Title
22 Aug 2012
Stand-up playwright returns with meta-play monologue
A week after this new play from Daniel Kitson opened, The Telegraph ran a two-star review, describing it as ‘a sorry waste of his undoubted talent – and our time’. Kitson knew someone would do that though. At one point in his one-man play – a…
Carl Einar-Hackner: Handluggage
21 Aug 2012
Swede stand-up magic ‘just like that’
Like some sort of bumbling, long-haired, clown-cross between Tommy Cooper and Justin Hawkins from The Darkness, Carl-Einar Häckner wants to wow you with magic. Poured into his white, bejewelled jumpsuit, he’s not quite nailed the tricks yet; so he’d…
La Clique Royale - The Queen’s Selection
19 Aug 2012
A night out with the bawdy and the beautiful
Meet the cast of freaks and uniques who gather nightly inside the wooden walls of the Spiegeltent, bathed in red lamplight, for a cabaret show with a couple of dark twists. There’s Agent Lynch – doing a sort of ‘Heidi does Carry On’ turn involving tiny…
Stewart Lee: Carpet Remnant World
11 Aug 2012
Fringe veteran can still hurt stomachs
Stewart Lee’s 2012 Fringe kicked off in typically provocative vein, when his Guardian article (headlined ‘The Slow Death of the Edinburgh Fringe’) delivered an industry-savvy knee to the groin of corporate comedy promoters. While PRs dealt with the…
How to experience the Edinburgh International Fashion Festival 2012
7 Aug 2012
A few hints and tips about the events on offer at Summerhall
LOOK ... at catwalk shows Over the four nights of the festival, there will be a nightly catwalk show, followed by an after-party. Local legwear and bodysuit designers, Bebaroque, aka Mhairi McNicol and Chloe Patience present a runway show on the first…
All That is Wrong
7 Aug 2012
Restrained, compelling piece from provocative Belgian company
There’s power in simplicity this year, for the Belgian theatre company, Ontroerend Goed. Often tagged as ‘provocative’ or ‘controversial’ because of their knowing messing around with conventions – see their previous, excellent Fringe offerings, The…
Nick Helm: This Means War!
6 Aug 2012
Charming manchild bellows orders at his audience army
Nick Helm was the comedian who won last year’s best joke of the Fringe, for his gag, ‘I needed a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.’ If you saw his show, you’ll also remember he likes to shout a lot, sweat a…
Marcus Brigstocke: The Brig Society
6 Aug 2012
A jolly Big Society satire from the TV panel show regular
At one point in The Brig Society, TV talking-head comedy panelist Marcus Brigstocke hands a man in the front row his mic. ‘Tell us a joke!’, he beams enthusiastically. When the man can’t, Brigstocke acts surprised. ‘But... I’m empowering the…
Justine Picardie presents her book at the Edinburgh Book Festival 2012
2 Aug 2012
Justine Picardie tells The List how Coco Chanel has shaped her own world
‘I wouldn’t say I have an interest in Chanel; it’s more an obsession,’ says Justine Picardie. The former Vogue features editor and journalist wrote 'Coco Chanel, The Legend and the Life' after almost ten years of rigorous research. As she tried to learn…
Detour's Ally McCrae on late-night Festival music series Circa
29 Jul 2012
The gigs will feature performances and DJ sets from Twilight Sad, Lady North, Churches and more
There are many locals who could see the Edinburgh Festival far enough, and don’t need another unicycle with ukelele cabaret act. But many do like the fact that August brings with it extended opening hours. Gigs can go on til 5am if they like, a detail…
Summerhall to host second Scottish Independent Music Fair
29 Jul 2012
The event brings together Scotland's finest independent labels and artists
Local, lovingly reared, carefully selected, packaged with care. Nope, it won’t be organic food being laid out across the stalls in Summerhall’s Dissection Hall. Just quality produce of the musical kind. Stuart Thomas from the Scottish Music Industry…
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…
Interview: NVA's Speed of Light at Edinburgh International Festival 2012
11 Jul 2012
Sport and art combine to cover Arthur’s Seat with light and colour
Arthur’s Seat will be a dramatic spectacle of light and colour thanks to NVA. Claire Sawers talks to Angus Farquhar and some of his runners ahead of this ambitious meeting of sport and art
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2012: Music highlights
11 Jul 2012
Steamy samba, sleazy-noir synths and goth-pop to feature at Fringe
Brazil! Brazil! Presents Favela Funk Party. The 2010 success of Brazil! Brazil! brought the steamy sounds and sights of samba to the festival and the same people behind that glory deliver an explosion of favela funk and samba reggae. Among the acts…
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
24 Aug 2011
Haruki Marukami's novel is given multimedia stage adaptation by Stephen Earnhart
Toru Okada is 29 and shares an apartment with his wife, Kumiko and their cat. When both the wife and cat vanish and don’t come back for several days, Toru tries to work out what’s happened to them, with the help of a spiritualist who doubles as a…
Profile: Best Coast
24 Aug 2011
Californian surf-pop duo set for Edinburgh date
That name rings a bell... Refresh my memory? Gladly. It’s a boy/girl duo of Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno, with Ali Koehler on drums. What does their music sound like? A sad look back at a really incredible, life-changing, but ultimately…
The Phoenix: A Failure on a Mision
23 Aug 2011
Natural performer let down by unchallenging material
If Tania Edwards read the phone book aloud, it would probably be a sarcastic and over-animated thing of wonder. She seems born to perform, but would probably thrive on more envelope-pushing material (as opposed to failed loves, lager drinking and her…
Interview: Chad VanGaalen
18 Aug 2011
Illustrator, musician and Sub Pop labelmate of J Mascis
Illustrator and musician Chad VanGaalen’s no frills lo fi approach is winning him fans, including his own grunge idol J.Mascis, finds Claire Sawers ‘Ever since I was about five, I was really into comic books. For years I’d been going to this comic…
Sarah Millican
17 Aug 2011
Has the Geordie jester lost her bite?
After TV stints on Mock the Week, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and Loose Women, Geordie chatterbox Sarah Millican is a household name to many now, just three short years after her Fringe debut. The steep upswing in her career means she’s relocated…
The Phoenix: A Failure on a Mission
16 Aug 2011
Daft sense of humour requires more envelope-pushing material
If Tania Edwards read the phone book aloud, it would probably be a very sarcastic, absurd and over-animated thing of wonder. The 30-year-old seems born to perform, but would probably thrive on more envelope-pushing material (as opposed to everyday…
Matt Kirshen
16 Aug 2011
Embarrassing moments humour slightly wooden
A geeky schoolboy turned awkward adult, Kirshen mixes tales about embarrassing moments (like that time he dictated an ‘I love you’ note to the Interflora man), with observations on politics. Kirshen tries to incorporate a fixed grin into his schtick…
Henry Paker
15 Aug 2011
Original, whimsical stand-up
Imagining we’re stuck up Kilimanjaro, waiting to be rescued, with enthusiastic thespy type, Paker (he likes exclaiming things like ‘extraordinary!’) keeping morale up with his arsenal of dinner party skills. These include impressions of emoticons…
McNeil and Pamphilon
15 Aug 2011
Enjoyable sketch comedy from two chaps who should know better
Steve and Sam open with a knowingly sheepish confession: they are ‘two middle-aged, white thirtysomethings who won’t give up the dream’. Thankfully they bring something fresh to that already over-cluttered table. A seductive Wham dance, McNeil’s ability…
Armageddapocalypse
14 Aug 2011
Loving pastiche of action movies from Footlights crew
One for action movie fans, this Cambridge-based theatre group gleefully ransacks the genre, and all its drug-dealing, wire-wearing, daughter-kidnapping clichés. Written by Footlights veterans, the hammy nonsense is enhanced with parkour shadow puppets…
Daniel Sloss - The Joker
12 Aug 2011
Ridiculously talented young comedy buck
Daniel Sloss – a charming, elongated Macaulay Culkin doppelganger, and protégé of Frankie Boyle – begins by listing the reasons why people might not like his show. ‘I smile, I swear, I’m happy and I can jump. The ones who won’t like me, they’re the old…
