Roger Jacobs, Author at North West End UK

Before The Drugs Kick In – The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall

9Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Before The Drugs Kick In – The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall

‘Three months ago I cut my wrists in front of my two children.’ No, this wasn’t an easy watch. Maria DeCotis plays 62-year-old Lynn T Walsh, a woman deemed a danger to those around her, isolated from her family for 20 years in a mental asylum in America. She’s given very little help but lots of ‘medicine’. Pretty much treated as a criminal, she points out the ridiculous double-standards at work given the behaviour of certain well-known film and TV people. Her ‘crime’; an almost subconscious emotional reaction to the stresses associated with bringing up a family more or less singlehandedly in a suburban setting where the simple act of going out for a walk attracts the wrong sort of comments. Incarcerated she may be but in her mind she becomes a 28-year-old stand-up and humorous...

Abigail Paul: Involuntary Momslaughter – Greenside Riddles Court

8Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Abigail Paul: Involuntary Momslaughter – Greenside Riddles Court

That’s ‘Mom’ with an ‘O’, not a ‘U’. Despite Orange-bloke (and the 70 million people that voted for him in the last election) I’m constantly at pains to tell my kids there are actually lots of really great people from America and Abigail Paul didn’t disappoint. Although she resides in Germany nowadays. Went, she claims, ‘for the schnitzel, and stayed for the human rights’. Smart, bright and snappy, she seemed almost delighted, despite the gravitas of the subject matter, to tell us her story; born in Panama to an American woman and a Chilean father (who promptly disappeared) she endured an understandably ‘different’ upbringing, the two most affecting issues being; raised (a) in Florida by (b) a mother exhibiting all the classic traits of someone with NPD, in layman’s terms, Narcissistic ...

Alexis Dubus 3 Star Show – Edinburgh La Belle Angele

7Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Alexis Dubus 3 Star Show – Edinburgh La Belle Angele

What a pleasure. What a lovely hour. But it’ll only garner three stars. ‘Be under no illusion,’ began Alexis, ‘this will not be five-star. Despite how good the beginning’s been…’ This show refreshingly addressed the elephant(s) in the room; reviews and reviewers. Currently it’s estimated anyone who’s lodged an e-mither address (I do confess) with the Fringe as a reviewer has well over 150 offers of free tickets in return for roughly 300 words and a star rating. The maxim ‘don’t read your press, weigh it,’ has never been more appropriate. And which reviewer’s going to murder a show by anyone who, however bad, has still put in a massive amount of time and effort to attend the Fringe, will depart with a small mountain of debt, showbiz ambitions in tatters? The fact that many of these reviews ...

Tourist – Edinburgh Zoo Southside (Main Hall)

6Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Tourist – Edinburgh Zoo Southside (Main Hall)

The queue was taking an age to move long after we’d had the infernal QR codes checked on our phones. It proved to be perfect preparation for the theme of the first half of this show; the relentless discomfort of the modern air travel experience. Corralled onto the stage by means of those stretchy elastic barriers we’re allowed to proceed one by one through the ‘security check’ to our seats. Just don’t dare bring a bag. It was an amusing start and once safely back to our role as the audience we were free to observe an artful, accurate representation of airport hell. On a screen behind was displayed an American Airlines poster from the days when airports were exciting, giddy spaces and planes and their staff glamorous and amenable. They probably still are if you have a truckload of cash b...

Los Guardiola, The Comedy Of Tango – Edinburgh Space Triplex

6Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Los Guardiola, The Comedy Of Tango – Edinburgh Space Triplex

If an aficionado of dance, movement and mime this is a must-see, but otherwise? The flyer for this production claimed the performers had drawn on their expertise in Commedia Dell’arte, mime and Argentine Tango but there were strong elements of Marionette/puppetry, and Kabuki present too. It was skilfully and cleverly performed by Marcelo Guardiola and Giorgia Marchiori, both clearly possessing years of dance ‘chops’. Structured in seven parts, the first (‘Barrel Organ’) dealt with the origin of the dance along the banks of the River Plate and the second (‘Emigrant’) with its spread to Europe, where it initially took hold in Paris. Important to its development in the late 19th century was the role of the barrel organ, combined no doubt with rhythms that had migrated there via slavery. ...

5Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Ants – The Space On The Mile

If you’re a fan of The Apprentice you’ll love this. If you hate The Apprentice, you’ll love this. Three jargon-peddling suit-types, straight from Alan Sugar central casting, within a faceless company where no-one seems to know what it does, makes or sells are given the task, sorry, ‘brief’ of maximising profits over the next year. In a matter of hours. In a typically febrile atmosphere recognizable to anyone who’s ever worked for a large corporation, the threat of job losses and cost-cutting hovers. We’ve a statuesque terribly well-spoken HR officer, a diligent, meticulous worker from the Research department and an earthy, frequently insensitive Accounts personality direct from the locker room, trying to mansplain his way through their dilemma. They all talk a lot. They all talk even more ...

Mull Historical Society – Edinburgh Summerhall Dissection Room

5Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Mull Historical Society – Edinburgh Summerhall Dissection Room

In a record company promotions office, London town, late 2000 or early 2001, a track came on provoking one of those joyous ‘what’s this?’ moments. The song was ‘Barcode Bypass’. Mull Historical Society’s debut album ‘Loss’ appeared in October 2001 and eight albums later (two released under Colin MacIntyre’s own name) there’s ‘In My Mind There’s A Room’. It’s available via the usual modern channels but for those who care, also on double pink vinyl. A stellar literary cast too long to mention here assisted in its creation including locals Ian Rankin, Jackie Kay and Alan Warner. It’s an emotional listen. More so when one discovers it was recorded in a studio… apologies, a room… in Tobermory, once inhabited by his Grandfather Angus, none too shabby a poet himself. So it is that folks beat a...

You Win Again, Celebrating The Music Of The Bee Gees – Edinburgh Queen’s Hall

12Jun

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

You Win Again, Celebrating The Music Of The Bee Gees – Edinburgh Queen’s Hall

This wasn’t billed as a comedy but of laughs there were plenty. The first occurred when collecting tickets, the box office charge d’affaires keeping a completely straight face while informing us it was a ‘fully seated show’. Two prospective walk-ups turned on their heels, which was a shame as the audience clearly had different ideas. Two hours later, as the band finished everyone off with a stomping version of ‘Tragedy’, the venerable hall was literally bouncing. It was, in truth, a gig, albeit with a theatre-style interval; from a mighty song-writing canon, underlined by a second half medley of songs written for icons such as Diana Ross and Dolly Parton. A pedestrian start threatened to turn cringe-worthy with some of the between-song patter but it was difficult to take ones’ eyes off ...

Love The Sinner – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

18May

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Love The Sinner – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The Seven Deadly Sins are sometimes known as capital vices and it’s appropriate that writer and performer Imogen Stirling chooses a fever dreamscape of Glasgow as a backdrop. She says it’s ‘Glasgow-but-not-quite’ but two key components of the play are a big river and an awful lot of rain. It’s a landscape reminiscent of Alasdair Grey’s Lanark, each sinner - it might be said - redolent of the characters in David Keenan’s ‘This Is Memorial Device’ set just down the road in Coatbridge and Airdrie. Officially North Lanark. They each employ their own strategies to deal with life’s perceived flaws, but the stars of Stirling’s second book of poetry, Sloth, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Pride, Lust and Wrath, share something in common in that they are all, apparently, isolated. It’s no surprise to learn ...

31Mar

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

How Not To Drown – Traverse Theatre

This might not be the best production one sees this calendar year but it’s a shining example of why theatre itself, companies like ThickSkin and venues like The Traverse are so important. Having said that, the village and/or town halls of middle England might benefit from a tour, the front five rows reserved for Daily Mail readers. It’d be nice to think this ninety minutes would prove more nourishing than the three-word-slogan diet they’ve been addicted to for the last seven years. For amongst the complexities of what constitutes home or how essential the family is, the key message here is that conditions and circumstances exist in some countries of which plenty have no concept. It explains, at the very end, why Dritan’s father took the shocking decision to send his 11-year-old son on a ha...