REVIEWS Archives - Page 401 of 550

Mischief Movie Night – Pleasance at the EICC

14Aug

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Mischief Movie Night – Pleasance at the EICC

Mischief return to the Edinburgh Fringe with Mischief Movie Night, an improvised film night, complete with lively discussion of the genre and title to be chosen. Thankfully your host (Jonathan Sayer) has every film ever made, as well as tenuously related documentaries, bonus features, and over a half-dozen actors Rhyanna Alexander-Davis, Josh Elliott, Sue Harrion, Harry Kershaw, Henry Lewis, Dave Hearn, Charlie Russell and Henry Shields) and musicians (Ed Zanders, Oliver Izod, Christopher Ash, and Dylan Towney) to star in it. Improvisation is tricky genre, and in many cases one wonders if the audience would react half as well to the jokes if they didn't think they were entirely spontaneous and unpredictable and that they had played an important role in them. But this was not the case he...

Shame On You! – Summerhall Demonstration Room

14Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Shame On You! – Summerhall Demonstration Room

This is what The Fringe is about. Amongst all the comedy, cabaret, theatre and musicals you stumble upon something so strange, other-worldly and weird, almost spectacular in its conceit that it’ll work. And it does. Shame, it seems, is something no-one on the planet can entirely escape. Embarrassment likewise but as an emotion shame is likely to linger longer in one’s system. Trixa Arnold and Ilja Komarov began collating stories from all members of society in Switzerland on the topic before expanding their net to include Russia, Pakistan and The Netherlands, building up an archive of over 450 ‘stories’, some a couple of paragraphs long, others simple one-liners. In an intimate setting, in front of an audience just shy of twenty Ilja begins by simply reading some of these out, the inside...

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much – Pleasance Dome

14Aug

By Anna ChiariNo Comments

Scotland

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much – Pleasance Dome

An intoxicating vortex that for an hour sucks you in, leaving you breathless, captures your senses with its live music and virtuoso acrobatics, and ravishes your mind in an excess of incidents, accents, jokes and twists. Everything is perfect in this little gem of visual storytelling, a rare example of physical theatre where the theatrical action surpasses in suspense, action and acrobatics the speed and pace of a cinematic experience. A genre parody, the play retains the tone of a 1960s comedy and the suspense typical of Hitchcock, of which it is a satire without ever descending into exaggerated grotesquery. Rather than farce, in fact, the show claims the self-deprecating, light-hearted tones of some 1960s comedy-thrillers, such as Charades, where the grimaces and impressive facial exp...

14Aug

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Work.txt – Summerhall Old Lab

Work.txt is a show about work in which the audience do all (well... most of) the work. Only they tread the boards as there are no actors; following instructions projected on the wall, communicated over headphones or printed out onto a script. They build the set, read lines and act out what needs acting out together (if they are okay with that), alone (if they volunteer) or just as witnesses (if they prefer) to the others, the interplay between audience and screen, and to the light show and music, aided by an atmospheric haze machine. Why? It's a show about the gig economy, financial instability and bad jobs, as seen through a day in a nameless city, and the impact and connections made by a single worker. The format illustrates all that, though I can't imagine anyone finding their part o...

Men With Coconuts – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

13Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Men With Coconuts – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

The award-winning local improv troupe returned to the Fringe to illustrate what a double-edged sword the make-it up-as-you-go-along world of improv is. At times inducing belly-laughs, at others a cringe or two and all points in between. OK then, a multi-edged sword. The former was true at the start as our three players bounded onto stage following a frantic jazz soundtrack, repeating the manoeuvre no less than three times to accommodate late-comers. In all the excitement ringmaster Charlie appeared to lose track of his microphone while piano-player Colin dutifully added appropriate incidentals to the chaos and the tone was set, snapping to attention the audience, a key element in this milieu. The guys riffed around various suggested film genres on an imaginary ‘Prime Minister versus Cou...

13Aug

By Riana HowarthNo Comments

London

The West – COLAB Tavern

Colab Theatre’s immersive show propels you into a Western, bursting with sub-plots and missions. The story centres around the Mayor and Sheriff’s son who is arrested on suspicion of robbery and murder whilst we also rebuild the town after a devastating sandstorm. The set was wonderfully detailed without being too overwhelming or distracting. The tavern location was perfect for the show and the saloon swing doors were a neat touch. Co-written by Bertie Watkins, Ben Chamberlain, Charlotte Potter and the company, the script was bursting full of ideas and kept the audience entertained throughout whilst allowing for interjections from audience members and time to figure out the puzzles. With so many activities going on at once, the actors were excellent multitaskers and remembered which g...

The Sian Clarke Experience – Underbelly, Cowgate

13Aug

By Anna ChiariNo Comments

Scotland

The Sian Clarke Experience – Underbelly, Cowgate

There is a lot of dirt, a lot of grime, a lot of mess and a lot of rage on stage of the Sian Clarke experience, a physical performance that is as deliberately irreverent and uncomfortable as it is necessary for our society. It seems like an out-of-control rage that of the young comedian, Sian Clarke, but it is instead a calculated fun guaranteed by the strong stage presence of the performer who fills the stage with mastery and awareness. Sian does not want to be sexy, she does not want to be funny, she does not want to be "a good girl", she wants to be uncomfortable, desecrating, attacking a sexist and patronising society that threatens women on a daily basis and frames them in demeaning and humiliating categories. Hers is a necessary testimony, unfortunately shared by all the women pre...

Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope – King’s Head Theatre

13Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope – King’s Head Theatre

“Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper”. ‘Quentin Crisp: Naked Hope’ by Writer/Performer/Producer Mark Farrelly debuted at the Edinburgh Festival in 2014 and has toured constantly ever since, recently reaching its 150th performance. Directed by Linda Marlow, it offers a brief 70-minute snapshot into the extraordinary life of the legendary Quentin Crisp and is currently being performed as a unique double bill with ‘Jarman’. Split into two distinct parts, the play opens in the late 1960s in a grubby Chelsea flat. The audience is introduced to Quentin who suggests that “If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style”. This is a clear indication of the rules and values that served as an undertone to Quentin’s early life of beatings and rejec...

13Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Assisted – The Space at Surgeons’ Hall

Technology in our home has become the norm and we barely bat an eyelid at requesting information from our reliable Alexa. But how much information should we allow Alexa to have? At a time when our lives are stored on our smart phone’s – banking apps, apps for booking restaurants, exercise monitors, to name but a few functions that they perform, how nosey should these AI devices be? Our couple, Jordan (Matt Vickery) and Connie (Emma Wilkinson Wright), live what appears to be a happy life together, they have been dating for some time and have finally decided to take their relationship to the next level, to move in together. To help to make Connie feel at home, Jordan sets up a profile for her with his Alivia (Jessica Munna), his all singing and dancing AI voice assistant. Initially Connie...

Charlie Russell Aims to Please – Pleasance Courtyard

13Aug

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Charlie Russell Aims to Please – Pleasance Courtyard

Charlie Russell wants to create a show that will please absolutely everyone by trying to hit as many solo Fringe show tropes and styles as possible within an hour, based on what her audience likes the most. Though as a person/character Russell might just be trying to please an audience, as a show concept this is a quite challenge to them. You might know going in a comedy show is supposed to make you laugh, but it's something else for a performer to point out that's what they're trying to do, tell you they've failed if you haven't and give you a second and more controllable way of giving or with-holding approval: it's a gauntlet that more mischievous or combative audience members might take some convincing to just put back on your hand. Or maybe that's just her being a more positive (in ...