Sunday, October 13

Author: Natalie Lewis

The Failure Cabaret – Underbelly, Cowgate
Scotland

The Failure Cabaret – Underbelly, Cowgate

Stephanie Dodd and Justin Badger’s ‘Failure Cabaret’ was a misguided attempt at comedy which indulged in the standard of American humour with a non-American audience.  The pair discuss their life together from meeting in New York to accidentally moving to a middle-class white haven to somewhat turbulent and abusive fights they’ve been having (unclear whether this is said in jest or in sincerity). The music was lively and well written. Their voices: very pleasant to listen to, making it certainly a feel-good show and very easily listening. However, this was subverted by the inelegant humor surrounding abusive within the relationship of the characters, ultimately put down to bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, ultimately leading to deep depressive episodes ap...
Bareback: Horseplay – Underbelly, Cowgate
Scotland

Bareback: Horseplay – Underbelly, Cowgate

PBJ’s ‘Bareback: Horseplay” was a torrent and a torment of absurdity lacking any semblance of grounding or substance which would facilitate such an outlandish production, resulting in an unmelodic raucous of a sketch show and wasting the extraordinary talent of the actors involved. The premise itself is turbulent: sketch comedy show bouncing from social satire to philosophical inanity, resulting in an audience exhaustingly attempting to keep up with a fast moving, unexplained (unexplainable?) parade of celebrity caricatures, genitalia, aged talk show hosts, homosexual Irish children and slam poetry. The duo were dressed in nude bodysuits which did facilitate fast movements from one character to the next, impressively taking on the roles. The actors’ ranges of accents and characte...