Greg Holstead, Author at North West End UK

Ania Magliano: Forgive Me Father – Pleasance Courtyard

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Ania Magliano: Forgive Me Father – Pleasance Courtyard

Magliano is moving up the roster at the Pleasance, last year she was in a container, today she is in a proper raked auditorium with 3x the capacity, and it is full. I see a real progression, a maturity, in her material, and her delivery. Last year she braided a lightweight tale about getting a haircut. This year she has knitted a gorgeous monologue, about life, forgiveness and moving on, as fine as the olive green waistcoat she wears: perhaps a bit baggy and saggy in places, but quirky, stylish and unique. Magliano’s fresh face and natural colour choices, down to her russet cords, have led some to assume she is a Vegan, but as she explains, she left that dietary choice behind 12 years ago when she came out as bi-sexual. She is not a fussy eater anymore! Magliano’s ‘nice girl’ who...

Lorna Rose Treen: Skin Pigeon – Pleasance Dome

7Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Lorna Rose Treen: Skin Pigeon – Pleasance Dome

Surreally great!! I have a theory that environment can create comedy, that some spaces are just inherently funnier than others. So here, upstairs at Pleasance Dome, where the equally brilliant Crizards stood last Fringe, rising star Lorna Rose Treen rises from the mound. It is a small space, hot ‘intimate’, as they say, and, unsurprisingly, it is full. Treen, emerges from a pile of laundry, reminiscent of a student’s bedroom. The ‘mound’ plays a central role for quick clothes changes, prop retrieval and another brilliant use, which will have you creased up - but no spoilers here!. Almost Pythonesque in her humour, she plays many characters in this quick-fire sketch show, but chief among them is the tough talking nine-year-old brownie, who appears several times, surely a cypher...

Patti Harrison: My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE – Pleasance Courtyard

7Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Patti Harrison: My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE – Pleasance Courtyard

I really wasn’t ready for this. I thought this was just another comedian. How wrong I was, and how old this made me feel! In the packed 250-seater, all are welcome Patti tells us as she races frantically up and down the aisles, bi, trans, binary and those with allegations. America’s most famous trans comedian, the 33-years old Ohioan veers between a school teacherly persona with a Mall girl drawl to a self-obsessed and terrifying monster involved in a bizarre sexual relationship with children’s character, Stuart Little. Yes, you heard that right! Whilst also giving us a sneaky peek of her ‘in progress’ side hustles, her theatrical masterpiece-in-the-making about growing up biracial, complete with thrash metal song, or her ‘Emily In Paris’ remake that is nothing like the origin...

7Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Shantify! – Assembly Rooms

Fishy fun never sounded so good! The six likely lads that make up Shantify are off to a winning start. The sold out tent does not lie! Six because they get to call themselves a sextet, which is way cooler than a quartet or a quintet! Anyway, it’s all blue jeans and brown leather boots, stripy tops and Fairisle sweaters (looks hot!) and neckerchiefs as they drop anchor (well, they started it!) in George Street, Edinburgh for the duration of the fringe. Folks are going to be clambering for tickets for this one. Seriously though, like all great ideas, this one is so simple, but is so well executed! Combining six of the West End’s leading men creates some dreamy harmonies, as a selection of popular songs from stage and chart are turned into sea shanties. First up for the Shanty...

Isobel Rogers: How To Be Content – Pleasance Courtyard

7Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Isobel Rogers: How To Be Content – Pleasance Courtyard

Former Camden Roundhouse resident artist, writer, composer and comedian Isobel Rogers makes her much anticipated Edinburgh Fringe debut, with her existential musical comedy show How To Be Content. I’m Not Really That Intense, she jokes at one point, when of course she actually is. Mini powerhouse, Rogers, in deep-soled open-sided sensible shoes, rattles through a musical Odyssey rolling from Weddings to Polygamy, To living with my mum, (with my boyfriend!) and on to To baby or not to baby. With guitar in hand and a head full of condensed clever lyrics the delivery is safely professional, but hardly ground-breaking. Maybe if you are a thirty-something woman with your eggs on a timer this will strike just about the right chord. However, in reality this is a music show with some ...

6Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Arturo Brachetti: SOLO – EICC

Being a reviewer has its pluses. When promoters, The Pleasance, provided an extra ticket especially so that my daughter could accompany me to this one, they created a beautiful father/daughter moment which will outlast me! A magical hour of entertainment, by one of the true masters. Italian national treasure, Arturo Brachetti, is in town with several truck loads, a circus-full if you will, of props, costumes and surprises, the sheer scale of which will take your breath away. Regarded by many as the greatest, The Guinness Book of World Records lists Brachetti as the world’s fastest and most prolific quick change artist, having achieved a staggering 250,000 costume changes throughout his career. Some of the props are a bit ragged at the edges, but then so is Arturo. It kinda add...

6Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

St. Matthew’s Passion – Usher Hall

The second Passion of the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival, following on immediately from the opening night Concert, Osvaldo Gilijov’s extraordinaryLa Pasio Segun San Marcos,a reinterpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion from 2000. However, tonight too is a reworking of Bach’s original masterpiece. The young Felix Mendelssohn transformed Johann Sebastian Bach’s majestic St Matthew Passion for modern orchestra. We hear his (rarely performed) groundbreaking arrangement from Leipzig 1841. Arguably this changed the course of music history, and without it the great Bach revival of the 19th Century might never have happened. There would surely have been an argument to host a third Passion, the original, using baroque instruments, which would sound very different again. A...

5Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Austentatious – McEwan Hall, Edinburgh

The eleventh year of Austentatious at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in what has become their regular slot; 13:30 at the glorious 1100-seater McEwan Hall. Full, on the day I attended, and with limited tickets for the remainder of this short run, tells you plenty. The Uber talented troupe presents a completely improvised play daily, in the style of Jane Austen, with each show a previously untold (and never to be told again!) novel. The audience are asked to shout out potential titles until a ‘suitable’ one is reached. Todays unearthed gem was, The Unbearable Hotness of Being. Never has needlework been so hot in Hampshire! When a recently orphaned brother and sister arrive in the county by hot air balloon they become the talk of the manor. The handsome brother is soon s...

Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

5Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Edinburgh International Festival Opening Concert – Usher Hall, Edinburgh

The opening of the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival by Nicola Benedetti marks the beginning of an exhilarating 24 day, 160 event celebration of opera, dance, music and theatre in the Scottish Capital. Following last years’ tentative, ‘Where do we go from here?’, we start this year with the more upbeat, ‘Rituals that unite us. And the opening concert tonight could hardly be a better example of the statement. Spaniard, Osvaldo Gilijov’s extraordinary reinterpretation of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion was commissioned in 2000 to mark the composer’s 250th anniversary. Now, almost a quarter of a Century old and having been performed around the globe, it (finally!) has its first Scottish outing. But this is no Solemn biblical narrative, no, this is a shock of rhythm and colour, in mult...

I Sell Windows – Assembly @ George Square

4Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

I Sell Windows – Assembly @ George Square

A tricky review to write, and only a three-star rating. Whilst most shows at the Fringe this year will be some good, some bad, this show is certainly at the extreme end, it is both very good and the very bad. Let me explain. First, the very good. Two-time NAACP (US based National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) award winner Kacie Rogers provides an acting masterclass. A one-woman monologue extraordinaire. She does not put a single step wrong in this dense script, playing multiple characters to a tee. It is an authentic, emotionally charged performance. The story is a coming-of-age tale which follows a young aspiring American actress as she tries to make her way through the acting maze, whilst trying to handle her personal relationships and put money in the ban...