Monday, December 23

Author: Greg Holstead

Blueswater Presents – Live at The Jazz Bar
Scotland

Blueswater Presents – Live at The Jazz Bar

Recently having celebrated their 10th anniversary, this is a serious five-piece blues band with long-standing Fringe credentials, with over 750 Fringe shows and in excess of 20,000 attendees in the bag already and ready to defend their (self-awarded) title as the hardest working band at the Edinburgh Fringe. And if this performance was anything to go by in a packed Jazz Bar, I think it is a fair description. Sweaty, loud and proud. A really enjoyable and raucous ninety minutes of musical mayhem. Expect, Baby Please Don’t Go, Who Do You Love, Blue Suede Shoes and Gloria, to name just a few of their extensive set list. If you are looking for a good time, dancing and singing along to some rhythm and blues standards, you can’t really go wrong here. Don’t expect high art or quiet contemplati...
Hello Kitty Must Die – Pleasance Courtyard, Pleasance 2
Scotland

Hello Kitty Must Die – Pleasance Courtyard, Pleasance 2

Following the global phenomenon that was ‘Six’, hatched right here at the fringe six years ago, the same Tony-winning production team are doubling down on this Musical, a mash-up of Asian Feminism with a killer’s touch. Unfortunately, this looks more like a show in development rather than the finished article. Not only is the action slow and dull, the acting and singing are not much better. Starting like a modernised version of Six with five American performers of East Asian origin, standing in formation, clad all in black, it aims, it claims, to demystify the Western myth of the ‘Hello Kitty’ trope. Erm, okay… I am already bored, and we are not even through the opening number. The show proceeds to tell the story of Fiona Yu (Sami Ma) a 30-year-old American Lawyer, and virgin....
Thrown – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Scotland

Thrown – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Set against the backdrop of the obscure art of Backhold wrestling, Glasgow writer Nat McClearly teams up with director and performer Johnny McKnight to create this none-too-subtle play about racism in Scotland today. Backhold wrestling, a bit like Sumo in a kilt, still thrives at Highland games around Scotland, and as Scotland wrestles with it’s own national identity, this play questions if we really are ready to welcome in outsiders or are we still a colloquial, backward-looking and fundamentally racist nation. Each of the five characters in this play has their own motivations and stories to tell and demons to deal with: Coach Pamela is military in her instruction, ‘validation comes from within’ yet her own identity fears are just barely hidden and ready to burst out. Imogen, a ...
Spring Awakening – Greenside @ Riddles Court
Scotland

Spring Awakening – Greenside @ Riddles Court

Dynamic Theatre presents the story of the sexual awakening amongst a group of teenagers at a strict religious school in Germany in the late 19th Century. As you might imagine, this requires a delicate directorial touch and sensitive staging approach, all of which Dynamic passed with flying colours. This production also includes scenes of a sexual nature as well as teen suicide, which perhaps could have been better advised by the theatre staff. The singing quality in this production is really excellent as evidenced from the first opening number, Mama Who Bore Me, with some beautiful harmonies. The acting is also particularly strong given the challenging environment that the teenagers find themselves in, repressed and abused by the adults at seemingly every turn. If that all sounds rat...
Crizards: This Means War – Pleasance Dome
Scotland

Crizards: This Means War – Pleasance Dome

This was – The funniest show I’ve seen at the Fringe this year! They say you are your own worst enemy… well not during wartime. The UKs lowest energy double act, as they like to call themselves, are back. After a very successful Fringe in 2022 as Cowboys, Will Rowland and Eddy Hare take on the much sillier subject of war. Guitars in hand they strum their way into explaining that whether or not any of this is a good idea, they are going to do it anyway. The classic double act sees the serious Hare try, with mounting frustration to tell the true story (allegedly) of his granddad and the important role he played in winning the war. A fine example of the genre, deadpan Hare and mischievous Rowland, eyes shining, replete with dimpled cheeks and wide grin thinks up ways to parado...
Jon Culshaw: Imposter Syndrome – Debating Hall, Teviot Row House
Scotland

Jon Culshaw: Imposter Syndrome – Debating Hall, Teviot Row House

This was – A tour de force by an expert impressionist! Jon Culshaw twice in one day, I am getting spoiled! Earlier on I had the pleasure of reviewing Lena (****) at Assembly, George Square, in which Jon takes the starring role as Hugh Green. And it goes without saying that he was brilliant. They say it takes 10,000 hours to accomplish ‘expert’ status in your chosen field. Jon’s 30+ years as one of the UK’s top impressionists certainly puts him in the expert category, and he shows no sign of slowing down. This brand new show was sure evidence that he is still current, still growing and right at the top of his game. Treating a packed house to a show that spotlights his vast impression library and phenomenal memory for tone and intonation and timing. This may have been expected, what wa...
Lena – Assembly George Square
Scotland

Lena – Assembly George Square

This was – Brilliantly conceived and delivered – and I mean that most sincerely folks! As someone raised on Opportunity Knocks (think Britain’s Got Talent) this certainly hit some deep and emotional triggers! Via the power of Jon Culshaw’s brilliant embodiment of Hugh Green, I am transported back to 1974, as 10-year-old singing sensation Lena Zavaroni, from the wee Isle of Bute, rockets to stardom on Opportunity Knocks, ITV's top talent show. At the start of the play, we see Lena in a wheelchair being led into an operating theatre for experimental neurosurgery. The story of her rise and fall, from her very humble beginnings on Bute, her neurotic mum and musical dad and the chance encounter that set her on her path, all presented in a series of flash backs. Erin Armstrong is ab...
Edges – Assembly Rooms, Music Hall
Scotland

Edges – Assembly Rooms, Music Hall

This was – Some very fine singing, but ultimately indecipherable and unrelatable! A production from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Edges, the blurb reads: a Musical from the creators of The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen, Edges is a contemporary song-cycle which explores universal issues such as love, commitment, identity, and meaning. Well, great! As a big fan of all of those production, this sounds perfect, I was looking forward to this one. What a let down! This is maybe sounding and looking great and making perfect sense if you are a 20-something angst-ridden American female living in New York City. And I am probably sounding very old and very male now. A bright young thing launches into, Am I fulfilled. Do I care? A production that, on paper...
Cecile McLorin Salvant – Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Scotland

Cecile McLorin Salvant – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

That was – Emotional! What a voice. The power and attack of Salvant’s vocal is what strikes you the most. Controlled and yet, something else, hard to explain, at first soaring, vast balloon-like and then at other times like a bird; small, fragile, vulnerable. Miami-born, Salvant at the age of 33 is right at the top of her game, full of the confidence that a library of prestigious awards and accolades brings, and jazz flair that has made her a sell-out draw around the world. Her current album Melusine draws on her Haitian and French heritage, and sung partly in French, whilst her previous highly acclaimed 2022 album Ghost Song features interpretations of tracks by Kate Bush and Sting. In a recent interview with The List, she promised that this concert would be, ‘crazy and sponta...
Ed Byrne – Assembly Rooms Music Hall
Scotland

Ed Byrne – Assembly Rooms Music Hall

That was – An unexpected rollercoaster of emotions, with joyous high points. An absolute master of observational comedy who is not scared to get down in the mud with his audience and let them in on the tough stuff as well as the funny stuff. Oh!…. Very funny indeed! Despite stiff competition from 2020 and 2021, 2022 was a total evil b*stard for Byrne. Pause, Pause, Stop! But 2023 is shaping up now, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and you can be sure that Ed is always going to come out swinging, this guy ain’t going down without a fight! Men want information, women want emotion. Men want information, women want emotion. Remember that Ed. The mirror that is severely cracked but still intact and still reflecting. You can be sure that Byrne micro-managed that right down to ...