Reviews & features: Niki Boyle
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Reservoir Dogs
17 Aug 2011
Unimaginative adaptation of Tarantino’s heist movie
Quentin Tarantino has his fair share of detractors – those who claim his films make up for their lack of originality with profanity and violence. These people should swipe an extra star or two from this review, since Tarantino’s plot and dialogue are…
Henning Wehn / Otto Kuhnle: Das Very Best Of German Humour
17 Aug 2011
Tuetonic titters from two of the Fatherland’s finest
Let’s establish a fact: Germans are overly efficient. Bear in mind that this conceit is central to many of the jokes performed at this comedy double-header – if you find the cliché a little too well worn, this may not be the show for you. Indeed, the…
Bane 1, 2 and 3
16 Aug 2011
Superior noir-influenced multi-character comedy
Bane is the hard-boiled, noir-edged creation of Joe Bone. Together with musician Ben Roe, he creates a universe every night where creeps roam the streets, bad guys talk in suspicious accents and the right kind of anti-hero is always willing to shoot…
Rich Hall’s Hoedown
16 Aug 2011
Country and bluegrass gig from the gravel-voiced comedian
There’s a reason Rich Hall has two shows at the Fringe – let’s get that out of the way first. His stand up show is his outlet for the majority of his jokes; his Hoedown set is an opportunity for him to flex his musical muscles, in the company of friends…
Simon Munnery's La Concepta at 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe
16 Aug 2011
World’s first conceptual restaurant doesn’t involve food
Comedian Simon Munnery is presenting the world’s first conceptual restaurant – a dining experience that doesn’t involve food. Niki Boyle samples the menu Ever wanted to sit down to a nice meal, but can’t really be bothered going through the rigmarole…
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
16 Aug 2011
Enthusiastic but amateurish adaptation of Rushdie’s novel
Top marks for the ambition displayed by the Mid-Pacific Institute School of the Arts in choosing to adapt Salman Rushdie’s allegorical bedtime story. Written while the author’s life was under threat in the wake of the publication of The Satanic Verses…
Milton Jones
16 Aug 2011
There more to the week mocker than one-liners
Tim Vine Syndrome (TVS) is a well known affliction for ‘one-liner’ comedians. It occurs when a comedian has so much material, that not all of it can possibly be good. This is true of all comedians, but especially those who specialise in puns and…
Scottish Sperm
16 Aug 2011
Smartly scripted and well performed despite lack of character sympathy
Smartly scripted and well performed, Scottish Sperm concerns three young Americans and their interweaving relationships. The lightning-fast deadpan delivery keeps things progressing at a steady clip, but the play’s strength is also its major failing…
Tales from Edgar Allan Poe
16 Aug 2011
Ghost stories told with vigour and energy
Those familiar with Poe’s ‘The Raven’ may be amused at Backhand Theatre’s proud boast that Sir Derek Jacobi voices the titular bird, who speaks only two words (albeit repeatedly). ‘The Raven’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart…
Sam Simmons
15 Aug 2011
High-octane comedic bizarrity from Australia
Sam Simmons is quite clearly demented. His show’s title, Meanwhile, refers to the quick transitions he makes between surreal sketch after surreal sketch, some brief and wordless (such as his portrayal of a dying beetle), some longer and coming from a…
Jack Mink
15 Aug 2011
Theatrical improvisation from the absurdist clown
Billed as ‘a dark theatrical comedy’, Mink’s Making Light is painfully bereft of solid laughs. Remove the expectation of comedy from the equation and it’s a weirdly fulfilling theatre piece, as Mink free-associates and travels to very dark places. Due…
Hitch and Mitch – Genisis
14 Aug 2011
Shambolic sketch comedy about comedy
First off, an apology – Richard Hanrahan and Adam Mitchell specifically beseeched reviewers not to include the word ‘shambolic’ in their write-ups of the show. Which is all well and good, fellas, but when you go out of your way to incorporate…
Andrew O’Neill
14 Aug 2011
Alt comedian is slightly amusing but fails to deliver big laughs
The alternative comedian ticks many boxes - vegan, transvestite, metalhead - but unfortunately doesn’t generate enough big laughs to check off ‘funny’. Random bursts of surrealism rely on their suddenness rather than content for humour, and while his…
Orkestra del Sol's Top Trumps
12 Aug 2011
Balkan, gypsy and polka sounds in a musical face-off
Orkestra del Sol’s Top Trumps show is an inspired concept for a live music performance. Flyers bearing each band member’s vital statistics are handed out prior to the gig, so that audience members can pick a favourite from the nine musicians. The…
James Galea: I Hate Rabbits
12 Aug 2011
High on production values, low on magic
Before the titular magician arrives on stage, there are a few mockumentary video clips of traditional rabbit-loving magicians explaining how much they hate James Galea for insulting their profession. This is followed by a showreel of his greatest…
The Room
11 Aug 2011
Gloriously awful Rocky Horror-style particapatory film screening
The midnight movies phenomenon is well documented – starting in the 1970s at fleapit cinemas, movies that were too bizarre, too violent or too extreme for the mainstream were shown to cult film-loving audiences in the dead of night. The Rocky Horror…
Belleville Rendez-vous
11 Aug 2011
Inventive adaptation of Gallic animated classic
The main difference between FellSwoop’s adaptation of Belleville Rendez-vous and Sylvain Chomet’s animated original is the setting: while Chomet jumped right into the life of a pint-sized grandmother and her recently-orphaned bicycle-loving grandson…
Mark Twain Abroad
11 Aug 2011
Dramatic recreation of a lecture by the famous author lacks panache
Purportedly embarking on a round-the-world lecturing tour in order to pay off his ‘considerable debts’, Mark Twain (Todd Wronski) discards the original speech he had prepared in favour of an hour-long discourse on the benefits of travelling. In it, he…
Caught in the act - Fringe performers getting creative with their reviews
10 Aug 2011
Exposed: Harmon Leon, Sophie Gatacre and James Sherwood
Every year, upon opening the Fringe programme, the staff at List HQ ask themselves, ‘Eh? Did we really give that show five stars?’ With so many quotes and suspicious-looking star ratings cropping up, we’ve decided to investigate and expose some of the…
Lord of the Flies
10 Aug 2011
William Golding’s classic novel slightly adjusted for modern times
The words ‘contemporary adaptation’ can send shivers down a reviewer’s spine, especially when the source material is one of the 20th century’s finest literary works. Thankfully, Big Spirit Youth Theatre’s reworking of William Golding’s 1954 novel…
My Name is Hannibal: The Hannibal Montanabal Experience
8 Aug 2011
Intelligent dissections of comedy and life
Hannibal Buress is halfway through explaining that yes, that’s his real name, when a heckler pipes up and questions him on it anyway. ‘Why you gonna do that, man?’ Buress responds. ‘Why you gonna repeat back to me what I just said? What do you get out…
Alice in Wonderland and Other Adventures With Lewis Carroll
8 Aug 2011
Badly sung songs, ill-fitting costumes and stilted delivery
Actor Richard Smithies looks ‘surprisingly like’ Lewis Carroll says the Fringe catalogue – unfortunately, this is where the positives end. The songs are badly sung to midi backing tracks, the costume ill-fitting, the delivery stilted and crucial…
The Magical Faraway Tree
8 Aug 2011
Multi-character comedy not really based on Enid Blyton tale
If you’re looking for a family-friendly rendering of an Enid Blyton tale, beware – this isn’t it. Instead, the supremely silly boys of Sleeping Trees Theatre have concocted a multi-character comedy with only the slenderest of roots lodged in Blytonian…
Belt Up’s The Boy James
8 Aug 2011
Well-executed drama based on JM Barrie's childhood
The Boy James, loosely based on the childhood of JM Barrie, begins with childish enthusiasm but gradually moves into more sinister ground, and ends with no firm resolution. Although the acting and script occasionally falter, the overall effect is one of…
Remembering Annabel
8 Aug 2011
Edgar Allan Poe adaptation feels messy despite flashes of humour
Riding high on the critical success of their 2010 show Pale Moon, the young members of Cathartic Connections chose to adapt Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee as their follow-up. While there are clever flashes of humour, much of the plotting feels messy and…
