Reviews & features: Suzanne Black
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The Wake
23 Aug 2010
A nifty, audience-aware caper
Recreating his father’s wake, impressionist David does his whole family, his wife does them differently, and they both do each other in a bid to find out who ‘did’ Alison. Jonathan Brittain’s award-winning student comedy is a nifty, audience-aware caper…
Paul Sweeney and Tom Webb
23 Aug 2010
An hour of average comedy with a respectable laugh ratio
Tom Webb is 5’5’’ of nervous energy, has four insightful handy hints, two self-effacing stories and one audience survey. Paul Sweeney has one full moustache, four slight comedy songs, lots of good ad-libbing and some lovely tattoos. It adds up to an…
Susan Calman
23 Aug 2010
A vitriolic manual in self-loathing
Glasgow’s pint-sized, squeaky-voiced professional lesbian talks us through her obituary. Written when she was drunk, it’s a vitriolic manual in self-loathing. Calman deftly manages the tricky task of stuffing truth into a comedy-shaped bag tied up with…
Mark Allen
23 Aug 2010
Confident delivery often resulting in pleasing set-ups
In our time-starved, online lives, Mark Allen investigates savouring rather than saving time over 90 languorous minutes. The concept, although not earth-shattering, is admirably adhered to with Allen’s confident delivery often resulting in pleasing…
Tom Allen
20 Aug 2010
Navigating social dilemmas with confidence
People often think their witty pub pal could be a stand-up. They’re often wrong. It takes effort to pull off the role of gay BFF gossiping about recent dramas but Allen succeeds. His show about navigating social dilemmas with confidence is well-crafted…
The Lasses, O
19 Aug 2010
Scots narrative by the Scottish Bard’s women
Janet Paisley re-animates a spectre from the hearts and minds of all those who were raised in Scotland or study its literary history, Robert Burns. Through the testimonies of five women close to him (midwife, storyteller, mother-in-law, smuggler and…
No Child ...
18 Aug 2010
One-woman performance schools the school system
Actress Nilaja Sun plays actress and drama teacher Miss Sun and her class of students as they put on the play Our Country’s Good, which is about convicts putting on a play. The logistics of one woman flitting from grizzled custodian to idealistic…
Atrium
17 Aug 2010
Theatre interrupted
Last year Belt Up caused a stir by blindfolding the audience during The Trial. Even without blindfolds there is a great deal of trust placed in a theatre company: to guide the audience clearly (and safely) to an as-yet unknown destination. When standard…
Creatures
16 Aug 2010
The humour is toe-curlingly awkward
Susan Harrison is a tiny wee ball of ginger energy. Her character sketch show is akin to being at a conference in The Office with the cast of Animaniacs: the humour is toe-curlingly awkward and the characters like twisted fairy tales. It’s better than…
Bang Bang You’re Dead
13 Aug 2010
Update to 1999 version lacks emotional force of original
Writer William Mastrosimone and director Michael Fisher update their 1999 attempt to make sense of student Kip Kinkel’s killing spree at Thurston High School, Springfield, Oregon. This well-respected version lacks the emotional force attributed to the…
Imperial Fizz
12 Aug 2010
Fast-talking 1930s drawing room satire with a twist
Like the spirit of Oscar Wilde (all barbed wit and intricate language) filtered through a dark Lovecraftian sensibility, Imperial Fizz adds an extra ingredient to a classic recipe to delicious effect. Sophie Fletcher directs American Brian Parks…
Decky Does A Bronco
12 Aug 2010
Winning revival of site-specific coming-of-age drama
Reviving its award-winning 2000 production of Douglas Maxwell’s site-specific play Grid Iron set up home in a Canonmills park. In a circular arena focused on a swingset David, a self-confessed ‘pathological reminiscer’, dredges up childhood…
The White Dalmatian
12 Aug 2010
Fairytale musical with a twist
Little Claire gets a special new stuffed toy for her birthday, Dalmatian Polkadot, but one of her old toys, Witch, is jealous. She magics Dalmatian’s spots to Fairyland and all the other toys have to journey there to retrieve them. In this musical…
The Railway Children
12 Aug 2010
A classic revisited
Rather than cater to contemporary children’s experiences, Sell a Door Theatre Company has gone for a faithful rendition of a classic. E. Nesbit’s well-loved tale of Mrs Waterbury and her three children, who are forced to move to the country while her…
Could it Be Forever?
12 Aug 2010
A bittersweet comedy will have you recall youthful emotion
Six schoolfriends reunite after 37 years to remember an eventful week during which they were in thrall to David Cassidy in this bittersweet comedy about first loves, friendships and the unexpected course of life. Whether you were a pop picker in 1973 or…
Ray Bradbury’s 2116
12 Aug 2010
A dreamy fairytale about the perils of creating perfection
Creepy. Macabre. Childish. Puppets are dangerously captivating. In this new musical by speculative fiction guru Ray Bradbury Mr Marionette leads a dreamy gothic fairytale about the perils of creating perfection. The production, masterminded by…
Suspicious Package
11 Aug 2010
Immersive fun on the streets of Edinburgh
If you’re in a shop in the Grassmarket or on Victoria Street and see some people in daft hats having a stilted conversation read from iPods you’ve probably stumbled across a ‘performance’ of this interactive promenade piece. After being greeted by…
Jason Cook
11 Aug 2010
Well-crafted, life-affirming stuff
It’s a cliché that comedians just want to be loved, but Jason Cook tries awfully hard to endear himself. Welcoming the audience into The End (Part 1), he lightly teases a few individuals, joshes with a reviewer he recognises and seeks advice and…
Arj Barker
11 Aug 2010
Disappointing gaggery from much-hyped actor
At the top of the show, Arj Barker promises fresh material, points out the contemporary fashion for honesty and vulnerability in comedy, and (whether fairly or not) has drawn a sell-out crowd due to being Dave from Flight of the Conchords. Sounds good…
The Blue Lady Sings
11 Aug 2010
A free cabaret-style show full of humour and skill
Tricity Vogue is blue. Not depressed, literally painted blue. She sings the blues and other lyrically relevant songs. She is also a painting, although slightly unhinged and occasionally escaping her frame. Romping through a series of cabaret-style skits…
New Art Club
11 Aug 2010
Original, charming and very funny
A best-of compilation from the comedy dance duo (who can actually dance) in which Tom Roden and Pete Shenton replay their best bits. Loyal fans and Johnny-come-latelys get to see minimalist experimental pieces, clever wordy numbers and downright silly…
Rob Rouse
11 Aug 2010
Spinning the mundane into the finest yarn
So, what have you been up to? A half-decent comedian should be able to cobble together an entertaining answer to this simple premise and Rouse doesn’t disappoint. Without high concept, gimmick or whimsy, he relates incidents from his recent move to the…
Memory Cells
10 Aug 2010
Exploring the machinations of power
Louise Welsh excels at excavating the dark and depraved aspects of the human psyche, eking out secret desires and fears. In this dialogue between a beautiful captive girl and her love-deluded jailer, not much else is given away by the brutal staging…
Storm Large - Crazy Enough
9 Aug 2010
A musical memoir with bawdy tales
Storm Large is absolutely gorgeous, what with her mile-long legs, blonde locks and cherubic face. But I think she expects us to be shocked with all her talk about fisting. The American rock chick will learn that Fringe audiences have a high capacity for…
Jungle Book: The Next Chapter
9 Aug 2010
Monkeying around with Kipling’s classic
Rudyard Kipling’s fables are part of the collective national psyche, so this follow-up from Glenn Elston and the Australian Shakespeare Company has a lot to live up to. The story picks up when Mowgli, now grown, returns to the jungle to visit Baloo.
