REVIEWS Archives - Page 37 of 406

The Ultimate Classic Rock Show – Floral Pavilion

3Aug

By Carole BaldockNo Comments

North West

The Ultimate Classic Rock Show – Floral Pavilion

Can’t hope to please all of the people all of the time, but you can have a damn good go; it’s not too difficult with a huge amount of remarkable material to draw upon. And I like the way they’ve juxtaposed Ultimate and Classic when basically either would do, but that suggests it doesn’t get better than this. They may well be right. Only a couple of my personal favourites tonight, however, the packed audience was thrilled to bits, and dancing in the aisles. Well, I say dancing - too energetic a term for the kind of ubiquitous left shoe/right shoe shuffle people of a certain age indulge in. The good humoured atmosphere was because of the band’s badinage, with the audience and with each other. And each member had their place in the sun, even just to deliver a line or a riff. Lead singer an...

The State of Grace – Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh

3Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The State of Grace – Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh

Aussie, Michaela Burger (A Migrant’s Son) is at her core a consummate storyteller, and no stranger to the Edinburgh Fringe. Through the mediums of video, music, song, prose and acting she returns to Edinburgh Fringe for the 4th time, supported by House of Oz to tell the story, the legacy, of fellow Adelaidian, Pippa O’Sulliven. Pippa, AKA ‘Grace Bellavue’ a sex worker, rose to meteoric fame and notoriety on social media before her untimely suicide at just 28, in 2015. Michaela has clearly researched hard, into the archive of Pip, talked to her parents and friends and traced the considerable digital footprint that Grace left. Pippa’s dream, to ‘Build the Grace Business’, learn Physics, savour food and make love did not turn out quite the way she planned, but from this evidence she had qu...

Sell Me: I Am from North Korea – Pleasance Courtyard (Below)

3Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Sell Me: I Am from North Korea – Pleasance Courtyard (Below)

Jisun is poor. She sells apples at a market in North Korea. Sometimes she even kills squirrels to eat. But she needs more money. Her mother is dying and can’t afford medication to ease her pain. So, on her 15th birthday Jisun decides to sell herself. A broker says he will help her escape to China. She’ll be sold to a man and will have to look after him. Her duties will include washing his dirty underwear, cutting his toe nails and “making babies with him”. That’s the explosive starting point to this remarkable play, written and performed by Sora Baek. And if you think it sounds implausible, you should know that Baek’s grandparents and her father, then aged 4, were refugees from North to South Korea. Baek has also been inspired by true stories of women defectors from the most authoritari...

1 Hour Of Insane Magic: After Dark – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose: Big Yin

3Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

1 Hour Of Insane Magic: After Dark – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose: Big Yin

Insane Productions brings a brand new show to the Edinburgh Fringe this year and this time it’s a little naughty, after all it’s taking place “after dark”. The adult nature of this show has definitely been embraced, with suggestive emojis lighting the back walls in neon lights, drinking games and even the flashing of a phallus and balls. It’s the magic element that the show seems to be lacking in. Headlining the show we have 3 energetic and charming magicians who work together incredibly well. Their chemistry is electric and if this was purely a comedy show it would be on its way to a five star review however other than an impressive entrance trick (I shall not spoil it for you), the real magic of the show is done by their guest acts. What is promised to be a magic show bec...

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare North Playhouse

2Aug

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

The Merry Wives of Windsor – Shakespeare North Playhouse

If Shakespeare chose a modern company to perform his work then it would undoubtedly be The Pantaloons; I’m equally sure he would be thrilled with director Steve Purcell’s adaptation of a play that had The Pantaloons stamped all over it when it was first written. Roguish knight Falstaff (Alex Rivers) is down on his luck and reliant on the good will of the Host (William Ross-Fawcett) of his local tavern to keep him in good spirits of any kind! When he informs servants Nym (Jodie Micciche) and Pistol (Andrew Armfield) that he intends to seduce Mistress Ford (Micciche) and Mistress Page (Armfield) they refuse to deliver his letters, so he throws them out. When the letters eventually arrive via Mistress Quigley (Micciche) the two ladies laugh over their similarity and decide to get their rev...

Police Cops in Space – Underbelly Festival

2Aug

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

London

Police Cops in Space – Underbelly Festival

With multiple sell-out Fringe runs and an acclaimed full-scale musical under their belts, it’s safe to say that comedy group Police Cops (made up of Zachary Hunt, Nathan Parkinson and Tom Roe) have had a busy few years. Not ones to take their feet off the pedal, the trio are back at Underbelly Festival in Cavendish Square this summer, with the return of their 2017 sci-fi send-up Police Cops in Space. We meet galaxy-dwelling Sammy Johnson, the son of the late Jimmy Johnson — the so-called ‘Best Damn Police Cop Ever’ — who becomes embroiled in a cosmic caper after the Australian humanoid who killed his father returns for his revenge (and to destroy the universe, obviously). Parodying the likes of Blade Runner, Star Wars and The Terminator, Police Cops in Space picks apart the genre’...

In the Lady Garden – Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker One

2Aug

By Torya HughesNo Comments

Scotland

In the Lady Garden – Pleasance Courtyard, Bunker One

Pairing homely references to Yorkshire puddings with anecdotes about sex toys, Babs Horton's new comedy monologue provides an hour of gentle feminist fun Main character Alice is 69, an age that seems not entirely accidental given the subject matter, and says that "I know a lot about sex - mainly theory". She's been married to Keith for years, after being expelled from convent school much to her mother's disgust. We meet Alice in a prison cell, created simply by director Deborah Edgington using wooden blocks to represent a bench and a toilet. This promising set up digresses into a series of funny and touching reminiscences, mostly seguing into each other like the thoughts of a distracted mind Julia Faulkner as Alice is an engaging performer, vocally confident and in command of the...

1 Cent Comedy presents: Black Widows – Laughing Horse

2Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

1 Cent Comedy presents: Black Widows – Laughing Horse

Black Widows is a comedy show that is not afraid to explore the darker areas of comedy, the stuff that not all comedians would dare to joke about. With a line-up of female only comedians without a filter in a very small room, straight men must enter at their own peril. Leading the show is our host Moni Zhang who is joined by an ever-changing line up of female comedians. Moni herself is the perfect comedic host: to the point, charming and with a good no nonsense attitude. Her jokes are fast, direct and she’s very good at singling out her prey without making them too uncomfortable. Her support for her fellow artists shines through which really helps the space to feel less like a group of strangers stuffed into a karaoke room and more like a group of friends sharing a laugh together. ...

Much Ado About Nothing – St Luke’s Bombed Out Church, Liverpool

2Aug

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Much Ado About Nothing – St Luke’s Bombed Out Church, Liverpool

It’s almost thirty years since Dan Meigh got Off The Ground Theatre, well, up and running, and there is much to be excited about with this production of one of Shakespeare’s funniest pieces, full of delightful word play and it is often wondered whether it is the missing Love’s Labour’s Won, the latter half of a comic double bill with Love’s Labour Lost. In post-war Messina, the home of Leonato (Ben Currie) with daughter Hero (Sarah Elise France) and cousin Beatrice (Kathy McGurk) ever present, Prince Don Pedro (Phil Rayner) leads the returning soldiers which include his illegitimate brother Don John (Chloe Hughes), Claudio (Tyler Clark), and Benedick (Connor Wray), and it is with some inevitability that Claudio is drawn to Hero as much as Benedick and Beatrice are apparently not. But th...

Son of a Bitch – Summerhall Demonstration Room

1Aug

By Torya HughesNo Comments

Scotland

Son of a Bitch – Summerhall Demonstration Room

Billed as a show about maternal ambivalence, Anna Morris’ debut play is an honest and sympathetic portrait of a woman on the edge. Morris plays Marnie, a yoga teacher who goes viral for a ten second video clip of an air rage incident where she calls her four year old son Charlie a “cunt”. Her husband says she’s probably a bad parent, other mums ostracise her at the school gates, and she is roundly condemned by strangers from across the globe. However, in a cleverly written script full of twists and turns, we learn that there is more to the story than meets the eye. In this solo show Morris plays a wide variety of characters with considerable skill, switching from an eccentric flatmate to a slightly hapless father with small changes of accent and body language. These different ...