Reviews & features: Niki Boyle
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Watch: trailers for the Richard Fleischer retrospective at EIFF 2013
16 Apr 2013
Edinburgh International Film Festival to screen six of the American director's films
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has started releasing the first few snippets of information about its 2013 programme. As well as featuring Karen Gillian romcom Not Another Happy Ending as its closing film (read what Gillan says about it in our…
Luke Benson - Backseat Hero
21 Aug 2012
Deadpan delivery and thin material get lost in the void
Bravely diverging from the ‘genial Geordie’ archetype, Luke Benson (aka Skywalker aka The Bensonator) has a deadpan, monotone delivery that fits well with his tales of urban discontent and gangly outsiderness (he’s 6’ 7”). Unfortunately this nuance is…
Al Pitcher - Tiny Triumphs
21 Aug 2012
A funny if unchallenging appreciation of life’s little amusements
Most people are too busy to stop and appreciate life’s small absurdities, but not Al Pitcher. He spends his days taking photos of things that amuse him, then presents a slideshow of his results at that evening’s performance. It’s a performance style…
John Gordon Sinclair on taking the plunge into crime fiction
19 Aug 2012
Actor discusses debut novel Seventy Times Seven at Edinburgh Book Festival
On approaching your first novel after decades spent working in another industry, it stands to reason that your job will influence the writing. It makes sense then that John Gordon Sinclair’s debut, Seventy Times Seven, has a cinematic quality to it…
Going Green the Wong Way
17 Aug 2012
Joyous but ultimately pointless one-woman eco-show
Joyous but ultimately pointless one-woman eco-show Displaced San Franciscan Katrina Wong is a dedicated environmentalist: her school-age performance poetry about the rape of Mother Earth gave way to her first job canvassing for conservationist…
Dracula: Sex, Sucking and Stardom
17 Aug 2012
A thoroughly camp vamp
Jonathan Harker leaves his fiancée Mina to go to Transylvania, where he has some business to transact with the mysterious Count Dracula. When he gets there, he finds a jazz-handsy vamp obsessed with travelling to England and auditioning for Andrew Lloyd…
Tom Cottle’s These Twisted Folk
13 Aug 2012
Shambolic comedy play where the only laughs are accidental
It’s not an encouraging start when the best thing you can say about a play is that they handled their mishaps well. Unfortunately, that’s about all Tom Cottle’s These Twisted Folk has going for it, and as the act becomes more polished over the course of…
Mark Little: THEbullshitARTIST
13 Aug 2012
Mis-marketed spoken word ramble lacking in structure
Halfway through Mark Little’s rambling, hazily political spoken word show, a surly heckler is ejected. As an usher removes him, Little remarks (somewhat apologetically), ‘I guess you must’ve come to the wrong show, mate.’ From the exit, the punter…
Russell Kane talks pop music, Indian food and bad hair - interview
11 Aug 2012
The comic and author answers our questions ahead of his appearances at Book Festival and Fringe
First record you ever bought ‘I Should Be So Lucky.’ Last extravagant purchase you made My new Prius. First film you saw that really moved you Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Last lie you told It won’t hurt, I promise. First…
Ian D Montfort
9 Aug 2012
Pseudo-psychic satire that has its cake and eats it too
Having effectively retired his hospital radio DJ Ivan Brackenbury, Tom Binns returns to the Fringe with one of his fresher character creations: Sunderland psychic Ian D Montfort. It’s a spot-on satire of the cult of cold-reading, with Montfort’s…
Fringe 2012 Bribe of the Week: Thread
7 Aug 2012
Runners up include Call Me! and Dracula: Sex, Sucking and Stardom
Our Bribe of the Week won its title through a combination of nostalgia, team-building and being the only bribe that came before our print deadline. Thread is a site-specific performance set in a church hall in the midst of a beetle drive, so it makes…
Unbound at the Edinburgh International Book Festival
7 Aug 2012
Night-time strand of off-the-page experimentation featuring Sarah Hall and Jenni Fagan
As wonderful as the Edinburgh International Book Festival is – and believe us, it is wonderful – the leafy confines of Charlotte Square Gardens, the village fete-style white tents and the hordes of latte-sipping Guardianistas can sometimes make the…
Piff the Magic Dragon in . . . Jurassic Bark
7 Aug 2012
Deadpan laughs in shabby show which works an understated magic
Here’s the thing about Piff the Magic Dragon: if it wasn’t for his deadpan delivery, the show would fall flat. Many of the tricks can be identified as shop-bought gadgets, and it’s usually plainly obvious how larger set pieces are being carried out. And…
Obsession - A Life with Magic
7 Aug 2012
Winning performance Ian Kendall, whose obsession with magic stems from Asperger’s Syndrome
Ian Kendall sits front and centre as the audience files in, greeting everyone in turn and encouraging people to fill up the front rows. He throws in a few neat tricks while people are still entering; it’s this casual attitude to performing a set is what…
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 Magical Adventures of Pete Heat
7 Aug 2012
Genuinely funny anti-magic mixed in with the odd spot of ‘mind-reading’
There are several moments in Pete Heat’s set – the substitution of sliced bread for cards, the cheeky moments where he purposefully betrays the audience’s trust – where you suspect he doesn’t actually like performing magic tricks. Not that he needs to…
Doug Segal: How to Read Minds and Influence People
7 Aug 2012
Refreshingly open and honest take on the Derren Brown formula
Doug Segal does not beat around the bush – from the off, he tells us that his ability to ‘read minds’ is in fact an elaborate system for planting information in people’s heads, drawn from his past experiences in the fields of psychology and advertising.
Alan Hudson’s Not So Secret World of Magic
7 Aug 2012
A look back at a life in magic is packed with warm reminiscence, if light on tricks
More of a biography-with-tricks than an out-and-out magic show, Alan Hudson’s show is a must-see for any novice magician. Tracing a career from schoolyard sleight-of-hand through kids parties, cruises, weddings and comedy clubs, nice guy Hudson throws…
Pete Firman: Hoodwinker
7 Aug 2012
Hilarious and polished performance from high profile magician
There’s a scene in superlative US sitcom Arrested Development where a magician talks disdainfully about the ‘howdy-do-dats’ – the gullible punters who stare on slack-jawed when a trick is successfully pulled off. Pete Firman is one magician who can not…
Panga
6 Aug 2012
Well-acted comedy lacking in subtlety and originality
Lucy’s life is in a rut: she drinks too much, her flat is a state and her dull, grey-suited boyfriend Gordon no longer shares her fun-loving, hedonistic attitude. The strain on their relationship intensifies with the arrival of Panga – a drinking…
Serve Cold
5 Aug 2012
A nasty dramatic thriller with a patchy script
Joy (Elaine McKergow) stands on a bridge, contemplating the river below and swigging a bottle of red wine. Grace (Nicola Clark) is an on-duty prostitute, who walks by to make sure Joy isn’t thinking of jumping in. After paying for Grace’s services for…
Nothing is Really Difficult
4 Aug 2012
None-more-Fringe physical theatre performance
Inside a purpose-built plywood cube on George Square, three grown men run around, striking poses and indulging in slapstick behaviour, with the odd flash of profundity and occasionally sinister undertones. None of them utters a word, and at one point…
Neil Forsyth: Bringing Dundee to the masses
2 Aug 2012
Forsyth presents his new book at the Edinburgh Book Festival
You’d be forgiven for thinking that Neil Forsyth has a vendetta against con men. Among his published works are a biography of teenage scam artist Elliot Castro, an exposé on fraudulent psychics and Delete This at Your Peril, a collection of email…
Some of the stranger places to watch a show this Festival
2 Aug 2012
Unexpected venues to enjoy Edinburgh Festival 2012
Vine Trust Barge This floaty boat docked off Ocean Drive in Leith is home to an exhibition of contemporary Scottish painting.
Fringe 2012 Bribe of the Week: Clinton the Musical
1 Aug 2012
Runners up include kids' poet Joshua Seigal and dance show Leo
Our inaugural 2012 Bribe of the Week was a close call, although the painstakingly-decorated cupcakes and branded pants from Clinton: The Musical eventually won out. Aside from ticking both the tasty and utilitarian boxes, the bribe showed an…
