REVIEWS Archives - Page 17 of 623

Dan Rath: Help Me Please – Monkey Barrel Comedy

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Dan Rath: Help Me Please – Monkey Barrel Comedy

I descended a labyrinth of stairs into the sub-basement of Cabaret Voltaire to find Dan Rath. Red and blue LEDs light the way through a grungy, stone-arched room, while great lengths of aluminium ventilation snake overhead. It is a fascinating venue, dark, subterranean and atmospheric. No windows here, folks. And, on this occasion, not really much of a window into Dan Rath either. I had been looking forward to this. Rath’s I’m Not Doing Well, Folks is hilarious, a gloriously peculiar, rapid-fire excursion through a mind that seems permanently several steps ahead of its owner. Help Me Please, however, feels surprisingly tired. Perhaps that is simply Rath’s demeanour, but tonight the delivery seems slower, the jokes flatter and the whole thing rather scattergun. There...

Sexy Circus Sideshow 3.0 – Piccolo Assembly George Square

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Sexy Circus Sideshow 3.0 – Piccolo Assembly George Square

Having been rather underwhelmed by my previous excursion into burlesque at this year's Fringe, I am pleased to report that Sexy Circus Sideshow 3.0 is a considerable improvement. Perhaps the clue is in the title. This is less a burlesque show with circus attached than a late night circus and variety show which happens to have rather fewer clothes than usual. And that distinction matters. The International Fringe Burlesque Festival is new to Edinburgh this year, bringing more than 100 international artists together across five daily shows. Sexy Circus Sideshow 3.0, playing at the Piccolo tent in George Square Gardens, is its most ambitious offering, and certainly the most entertaining I have encountered so far. What works is that the entertainment comes first....

Kahi: The Inner Us (Explore The Soul) – Studio at Alba Flamenca

15Aug

By Saira KunjuvalappilNo Comments

Scotland

Kahi: The Inner Us (Explore The Soul) – Studio at Alba Flamenca

The Inner Us is a beautiful and deeply expressive piece of storytelling brought to life through the graceful and powerful language of Kathak, the North Indian classical dance form known for its intricate footwork, rhythmic patterns, expressive gestures, and mesmerising spins. More than just a dance performance, Kahi feels like an intimate journey through memory, relationships, artistic devotion, and the different stages of a woman’s life. At the heart of the production is Kahi, whose story unfolds through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The audience is taken through her memories and her evolving relationship with her mother and with dance. Beneath this personal story lies a deeper exploration of an artist’s relationship with her own soul—the dedication, discipline, and surrender ...

Detective Blank: A One-Man Noir – Temple at C ARTS, C aquila

15Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

Detective Blank: A One-Man Noir – Temple at C ARTS, C aquila

A dark and dingy detective’s office, on a dark and dingy street, in a dark and dingy city, you know the type. This one-man noir show has everything you’d expect from the classic detective noir story: a far too relaxed and sharp detective, an untrustworthy femme fatale and a whole load of dodgy crooks. One may assume from the title of the show that this is going to be a multi rolling piece; one man throwing on mustaches and hats, adapting accents galore, but this show takes a much cleverer approach. Our main man (unfortunately I was unable to find the actor’s name) plays the title role of Detective Blank, using lighting and prerecorded voice overs to play the other roles, voice recordings made by the same actor and all very impressively different. The actor’s talented performan...

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Dreamgirl – Zoo Southside

Of the 30-odd shows I've had the pleasure of seeing so far this Fringe, Dreamgirl is certainly the sweetest. To look into the eyes of Norwegian clown and theatre-maker Karen Houge is to look upon someone searching, perhaps even pleading, for a safer, more open and friendlier world. Right now, that particular voice sometimes seems in danger of disappearing into the void. Houge originally intended to make a clown-burlesque show, and indeed first appears in the feathers and glitter of the costume intended for it. I'm rather glad she changed direction. Instead, Dreamgirl grew from her experiences during the 2015 refugee crisis, when she travelled alongside Syrian refugees making their way through Europe. What follows isn't really a play and certainly isn't a le...

Dear Evan Hansen – Assembly Rooms Ballroom

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Dear Evan Hansen – Assembly Rooms Ballroom

What a contrast. Barely had The Love-Hungry Farmer packed away his lonely Irish farmhouse before Captivate Theatre arrived in the same Assembly Rooms Ballroom and filled it with the sound, energy and emotional punch of Dear Evan Hansen. This was my first time seeing the musical. I knew several of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul's songs independently but seeing them finally placed within Steven Levenson's story was something of a revelation. At its centre is Evan Hansen, played here by Shlok Ramakrishnan, an isolated, socially anxious teenager whose therapeutic exercise of writing letters to himself becomes disastrously entangled with the death of fellow student Connor Murphy. A misunderstanding becomes a lie, the lie gives a grieving family something desperately needed ...

Vibhinna Ramdev: Why English? – Assembly George Square

14Aug

By Ella BeckleyNo Comments

Scotland

Vibhinna Ramdev: Why English? – Assembly George Square

Vibhinna Ramdev is an entrancing actor, pulling audiences into her life as she toils with questions of identity, belonging and connection to community. Having toured versions of the show at Adelaide and Stockholm Fringe, she graces the stage of Edinburgh Fringe this year. Ramdev explores her constantly evolving relationship with language. Her upper-middle class upbringing in India gave her the privilege of fluent English, but at what cost? She unpacks her persistent feeling of not belonging in her own country, and disconnection from the cultures she was born into. &...

The Love Hungry Farmer – Assembly Rooms Ballroom

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Love Hungry Farmer – Assembly Rooms Ballroom

There is something slightly curious about watching a consummate storyteller who, for the first ten minutes or so, appears not quite to trust his own voice. Seamus O’Rourke arrives in the vast 360-seat Ballroom at the Assembly Rooms with perhaps only 60 or 70 of us occupying its front quarter, and initially he is simply too loud. This is intimate storytelling and there is nobody sitting 50 metres away who needs to hear it. O’Rourke virtually shouts at us. For an actor of his experience, it feels oddly uncontrolled. Thankfully, he settles. The Love-Hungry Farmer, adapted by Des Keogh from John B. Keane’s Letters of a Love-Hungry Farmer, introduces us to John Bosco McLaine, a bachelor farmer living in glorious isolation in the south of Ireland. He has his farm, his home and ...

Unexplained Live – theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Unexplained Live – theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

I interviewed Richard MacLean Smith earlier in the Fringe and was intrigued by the trajectory of a man who started the Unexplained podcast in 2016 and has since turned our fascination with things we cannot quite explain into something of a phenomenon, including a book based on the series. I was particularly interested in whether Unexplained Live might represent another step along that trajectory. Danny Robins has travelled similar paranormal territory, ultimately taking 2:22 A Ghost Story onto major stages around the world. Could MacLean Smith eventually follow him? On the evidence here, he may well. For his first Fringe incarnation of Unexplained, MacLean Smith takes us to the remote Flannan Isles in December 1900. Three lighthouse keepers a...

Around the World in 80 Days – St Paul’s Church Covent Garden

14Aug

By Zain RussellNo Comments

London

Around the World in 80 Days – St Paul’s Church Covent Garden

Around the World in 80 Days is a new production inspired by Jules Verne’s classic tale. This summer, it is being performed at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, with the grounds outside the church transformed into a secret open-air theatre tucked away between the surrounding buildings. With benches for seating, bunting decorating the space and fairy lights glistening along the path, it is a beautiful setting for an evening performance. The rustic wooden stage and outdoor atmosphere help transport you to another time period and make the setting feel particularly charming. The production itself, however, felt somewhat too ambitious for the space and format. With a small cast playing multiple characters, constantly switching between roles, breaking the fourth wall and occasionally stepping...