Monday, December 23

Tag: Edinburgh Fringe

The Lovely Boys – Just The Tonic at The Caves
20Aug By Beth EltringhamNo Comments
Scotland

The Lovely Boys – Just The Tonic at The Caves

It’s very rare that a reviewer is left speechless after a comedy show but hours later, I’m still not sure what I had actually watched. The lovely boys are not your average stand-up comedy duo, in fact the show could better be described as a strange psychedelic dream crammed into a nightmare-ish underground vault. This is not a comedy style that would fit the masses, but then Mr Bean became famous because of his clowning antics, why couldn’t these two. The show is described by the duo as “one big hour of chaos glory” and they certainly aren’t wrong on the chaos part. Strange and disturbing character sketches had the audience wildly laughing almost as much as the two men had been laughing at themselves. Our primary characters “our two lovely boys” were the funniest part of the show...
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Stop The World We’re Getting Off – The Space, Venue 45
20Aug By Beth EltringhamNo Comments
Scotland

Stop The World We’re Getting Off – The Space, Venue 45

Stop The World We’re Getting Off takes a different approach to the concept of “the apocalypse”, no zombies, no nuke war, just the results of the damage that we the human race are currently doing to the world. The play takes place in a not-so-distant future when the world is no longer inhabitable due to a thick smog that has taken over as a result of the human races’ lack of care for the planet. 5 Survivors find themselves living their day to day lives hiding away in a bunker, however 5 is soon to become 6 when Ava (Georgie Cunningham) falls pregnant and dark secrets are revealed. With oxygen running low and so little time before the baby can arrive, it’s up to the team to work together to find an improbable solution. Tenderfoot Theatre Company are a global activist group specializing...
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Intelligence – Assembly Roxy
20Aug By Oliver GigginsNo Comments
Scotland

Intelligence – Assembly Roxy

Inside the basement of the US State Department, two young Foreign Officers Paige (Sarah Street) and Lee (Joy Sunday) are reluctantly assisting Special Envoy Sarah MacIntyre (Laura Jordan), recently returned from a top-secret and personal mission to a volatile foreign country. MacIntyre needs to prepare a report to convince the president, or the repercussions could mean death for many… if she’s right. But is she? The exact region the situation is happening in is kept purposefully vague, the reason given being that the junior officials Paige and Lee aren't cleared for the specifics of this operation, which is itself tied into an attempt by their superiors and other departments to ensure MacIntyre's initiative fails. This haziness works, mostly, as it doesn't tie the show down to a specifi...
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Max Fosh: Zocial Butterfly – Underbelly Bristo Square
20Aug By Roger JacobsNo Comments
Scotland

Max Fosh: Zocial Butterfly – Underbelly Bristo Square

Ah, so that’s why he spells it with a ‘Z’… The other half of the title is no mystery at all as Max flits and flutters about the stage, cramming in a baker’s dozen’s-worth of material on top of what he borrows from his considerable canon of YouTube adventures. Lazy, he isn’t, and his genuine enthusiasm heads off a certain strain of criticism at the pass. It’s apt to hear many teenagers these days refer uncharitably to Radio’s Three and/or Four as ‘Radio Tory’, and yet they (1.34 million subscribers) love Harrow-educated Max and it’s probably because in the first place he doesn’t try to hide his background and second, he’s authentically interested in what he’s doing. Which means not everything he does is interesting or amusing to everybody, but his hit-versus-miss ratio is pretty decent, ...
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Cicada’s Children – theSpace on North Bridge
19Aug By Melissa JonesNo Comments
Scotland

Cicada’s Children – theSpace on North Bridge

Anna Freeman’s black comedy drama Cicarda’s Children stars Mark Jones as footloose and fancy free Danny who’s unwittingly fallen for a surviving member of a now defunct cult, Cicarda’s Children, Bella (Anna Freeman). Duped into believing Bella into launching a coffee shop, Danny spirals into a descent that involves relinquishing every aspect of his 2022 identity. At only 50 minutes long, this short production is a mere taster or perhaps even portfolio of what Freeman as actor and writer are capable as writer and actors. Or perhaps a vignette of a wider on-going story. So, the Fringe is the perfect frame to perform this short one act play that has ‘A Play, A Pie and A Pint’ quality to it. At the centre of this weirdly charming piece are Jones and Freeman, whose consummate unforced nat...
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The Twenty Sided Tavern – Pleasance Dome
19Aug By Beth EltringhamNo Comments
Scotland

The Twenty Sided Tavern – Pleasance Dome

There are very few shows quite like the Twenty Sided Tavern, a choose your own adventure for theatre goers and dungeons and dragons fans alike. Step into the game with your own selected dice picked blindly from a bag determining your designated player. Are you a Fighter, a sorcerer or a Rogue? Either way you are in for a treat. Three professional improvisation artists take to the stage bringing the crazy world of Dungeons and Dragons to a live audience, determining their character’s movements with a combination of audience choice and the spin of the twenty sided dice. They are silly, bold and utterly hilarious. Guiding the gang is the “Game Master”, the dungeon master of the game. If you choose to embark on this quest adventurer, be prepared to use your mobile phone. Upon arrival...
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Murder, She Didn’t Write – Pleasance Courtyard
19Aug By Kat CliffordNo Comments
Scotland

Murder, She Didn’t Write – Pleasance Courtyard

Murder, She Didn’t Write is a quick, funny and well presented production. In this improvised show no one, not even the cast, knows what journey they will end up taking the audience on. I was struck immediately by the quality and careful design of the set, and I very much enjoyed that even as the audience were filing into the room we had our detective working on his notes and a pianist playing us in, it really set the scene and put you in right frame of mind for a murder mystery extravaganza.  The show kicks off with some audience participation as one of the audience is chosen to help the detective in the investigation. The setting and the mystery are then set by the audience. The detective, played by Stephen Clements, had some great quips and jokes right off the bat, building up the e...
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Comedy Night at the Museum – Gilded Balloon
19Aug By Kat CliffordNo Comments
Scotland

Comedy Night at the Museum – Gilded Balloon

Comedy Night at the Museum is a hilarious illuminating romp through a litany of exhibits at the National Museum of Scotland. We were guided through this adventure by a smart and witty host. There was some audience interaction and some sharp jokes right from the offset. The host invited a group of ‘professors‘ in the form of a variety of stand-up comedians to come on stage and review slides of museum exhibits and give their ‘academic’, ‘professional’ and …entirely incorrect opinions and interpretations of items from the museum leading to some absolutely absurd, side splitting, hysterical tangents and some bizarre outcomes. The narrative was pushed forward by some intellectual questioning from our host which only served to make these explanations become ever stranger and more ludicrou...
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Things We (Never) Learned in Sex Ed – The Space On North Bridge
19Aug By Oliver GigginsNo Comments
Scotland

Things We (Never) Learned in Sex Ed – The Space On North Bridge

You can probably guess what the show is about from the title, though a slight distinction must be made. As the show itself states, this isn't about covering the biology or, as it were, the ins and outs of the thing, as these things are the closest thing most education systems get to covering well. This show is more about the other stuff, like how puberty affects your (and other people's) relationships with your body, consent, pleasure, and many other non-penetrative aspects of sex. Though of course those, and other sexual acts, are also dealt with.  This is done through songs, sketches, stories told directly to the audience and discussions between the creators/performers, Lindsay Spear and Lea Sheldone. It's a mix of the personal and the general, of the comedic and the educa...
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Room – A Room of One’s Own – Pleasance Courtyard
19Aug By Anna ChiariNo Comments
Scotland

Room – A Room of One’s Own – Pleasance Courtyard

Room- A Room of One’s Own, written and performed by Heather Alexander, is a refined, intimate, and literary pleasure. A room for the soul, where one can meditate, reflect on contemporary reality, be enchanted by the beauty of prosody, and let oneself go with hope, not only in the future but also in an illustrious past that still lives within us. Everything, from the scenography to Dominique Gerrard's direction, is impeccable. With just a few props, Alexander moves around the stage in a monologue, almost a stream-of-consciousness, transporting the spectator to a very precise era, a very precise environment, and a very precise mind. We are in the early 1900s in the room, or instead at the desk, of Virginia Woolf, the author of One Room of One's Own, and the words, the reflections, and the...
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