Wednesday, September 16

Tag: Pleasance Courtyard

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show – Pleasance Courtyard

The sweet smell of fresh, warm croissants, strawberries and a hot beverage is the perfect way to start a day at the Fringe. Bite-Size is back with another light and entertaining sketch show which will have you laughing as you tuck in to your pastry. Celebrating their 16th year on the Fringe, Bite-Size Plays have partnered up with The Pleasance to serve up their three-rotating menus, and there is plenty of ridiculousness to choose from. Menu 2 is a mixed bag of comedies and mini dramas. There are plenty of laughs and witty one liners with lashings of absurdity and silliness. Stand out sketches include, ‘Criminal Behavior’, a bumbling armed robbery, and ‘Jitters,’ where we meet the company ‘Think Twice’, trying to keep the divorce rates down by checking brides are not having second...
Lash: A Pulsating New Play About Going Out Out! – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Lash: A Pulsating New Play About Going Out Out! – Pleasance Courtyard

Boost your adrenaline and immerse yourself in this part gig, part theatrical experience, which proves to be a treat to the senses. This is storytelling that stirs up memories of long, booze-soaked late-night club shenanigans and regretful drug fueled streams of consciousness. There’s nothing more exhilarating than getting ready to go ‘out out’ on the town after a long, boring, mundane day at work. With the night threatening to go one way, or the other, with the line between reality, drugs, and booze blurring the vision threatening all of the senses, concepts which this unapologetic production thrives on.  Written and directed by Phillip Stokes the dark and dingy cobbled Bunker One is the perfect setting for this claustrophobic, loud and noisy piece. We’re hitting the town, big st...
Garry Starr: Classic Penguins – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Garry Starr: Classic Penguins – Pleasance Courtyard

Returning to the Fringe with his third solo show, comedian and clown Garry Starr attempts to perform every Penguin Classic novel in the space of an hour, to save literature from extinction. This seems like a bold claim; however, this is a man who has previously performed every style of theatre and all of Greek mythology and managed to make both incredibly funny. This year he has even branched out into children's theatre, albeit with an underlying narrative about mental health. Starr arrives onstage naked, save for a top hat, a dinner jacket, an Elizabethan ruff and a pair of flippers. He builds an instant rapport with the audience, riding the waves of laughter before gently encouraging some participation. There is a great deal of skill involved in his crowd work, never ridiculing an...
Gwyneth Goes Skiing – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Gwyneth Goes Skiing – Pleasance Courtyard

One day in 2016, Gwyneth Paltrow went skiing. The Hollywood starlet and celebrity sex toy saleswoman collided on the slopes with retired optometrist Terry Sanderson. A high-profile lawsuit soon followed. On the day of the collision, Sanderson claims to have suffered life-changing injuries. Gwyneth, meanwhile, lost half a day’s skiing. And Awkward Productions gained the inspiration for this hilarious fringe show. I think I know who the real winners were. Paltrow (Linus Karp) and Sanderson (Joseph Martin) are as different as can be. He likes boiled eggs for breakfast. Gwyneth prefers jade eggs. But they both like skiing. Sanderson falls and is rescued by our angelic Gwynfluencer. She takes him to her chalet for a pep talk and some bone broth. Sadly, things sour between them, and then ...
Abi Clarke: (Role) Model – Pleasance Courtyard Beneath
Scotland

Abi Clarke: (Role) Model – Pleasance Courtyard Beneath

Abi Clarke rose to fame overnight via a TikTok video that went viral, ever since she has been climbing the social media and stand-up comedy ladder, but with all this new found fame she is left with one major dilemma: does this mean that she should have to be a role model now too? In this rather funny stand-up comedy show Clarke addresses what it means to be a stereo typical “role model”, the limitations to being an influencer by trade and pressures that we women put on ourselves in this day and age. We learn about how fame has changed her as a person and question if one can truly be a role model when their favourite TV moments are those of pretty girls getting their hair chopped off on American’s Next Top model. Abi is a natural performer, her energy is infectious and she is just...
Me For You – Pleasance Courtyard (The Green)
Scotland

Me For You – Pleasance Courtyard (The Green)

‘Me for You’ is a fascinating play about two women who are in love. It has a sparkling, very funny script and is beautifully performed. The climate emergency provides an intriguing backdrop to this contemporary drama. Holly has been seeing Jake for quite some time. Now they want to have a child together. But Jake comes to regret the day he introduces Holly to his friend and workmate, Alex. The two women quickly fall in love. For a while Holly continues to sleep with Jake but, as she’s also having an affair with Alex, she stops taking the pill. Holly finally tells Jake the truth. Understandably he’s very upset. And Holly’s assurance that “It’s you, not me” and that she still cares about him, doesn’t really help Jake to feel any better. Two people had loved each other. But the r...
The Sex Life of Puppets – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

The Sex Life of Puppets – Pleasance Courtyard

An interesting title, and an even more interesting show.  Brought to the stage by Blind Summit Theatre, the play does exactly what the title suggests, it gives an insight into the private lives of a selection of puppets which sounds a wee bit twee, but this play is anything but twee!  The puppets are not string puppets but hand-held puppets, which I assume would make them easier to manipulate for the subject of the show.  The puppeteers use a table to sit the puppets down and the rest is down to the script and the puppeteers’ imagination.  The puppets are all human puppets whose characters are brought to life by their handlers, they discuss subjects such as sexual wellbeing, what they like to name their genitals, nursing home sex, lesbian sex and many more. ...
Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch – Pleasance Courtyard

This 3 for 1 offer is for the most part good value. Sheeps with pedigree, Ladhood creator Liam Williams, Stath Lets Flats star Al Roberts and writer Daran Johnson. Former Fringe favourites return after a six year hiatus with a new suite of sketches which are in turn brilliant, tricksy, silly and just plain weird, in what they promise is their final Fringe run together (probably!). Given their already high-flying status, this is more of an excuse for the ‘boys’ to get together one last time, rather than a serious career or financial move. There’s an intriguing boy band dynamic and comedic palsy bickering throughout the show which is part of the show’s charm. The quality of the sketches is varied to say the least, the opening skit, possibly the high point of the show, features a...
Ania Magliano: Forgive Me Father – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Ania Magliano: Forgive Me Father – Pleasance Courtyard

Magliano is moving up the roster at the Pleasance, last year she was in a container, today she is in a proper raked auditorium with 3x the capacity, and it is full. I see a real progression, a maturity, in her material, and her delivery. Last year she braided a lightweight tale about getting a haircut. This year she has knitted a gorgeous monologue, about life, forgiveness and moving on, as fine as the olive green waistcoat she wears: perhaps a bit baggy and saggy in places, but quirky, stylish and unique. Magliano’s fresh face and natural colour choices, down to her russet cords, have led some to assume she is a Vegan, but as she explains, she left that dietary choice behind 12 years ago when she came out as bi-sexual. She is not a fussy eater anymore! Magliano’s ‘nice girl’ who...
Patti Harrison: My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE – Pleasance Courtyard
Scotland

Patti Harrison: My Huge Tits Huge Because They Are Infected NOT FAKE – Pleasance Courtyard

I really wasn’t ready for this. I thought this was just another comedian. How wrong I was, and how old this made me feel! In the packed 250-seater, all are welcome Patti tells us as she races frantically up and down the aisles, bi, trans, binary and those with allegations. America’s most famous trans comedian, the 33-years old Ohioan veers between a school teacherly persona with a Mall girl drawl to a self-obsessed and terrifying monster involved in a bizarre sexual relationship with children’s character, Stuart Little. Yes, you heard that right! Whilst also giving us a sneaky peek of her ‘in progress’ side hustles, her theatrical masterpiece-in-the-making about growing up biracial, complete with thrash metal song, or her ‘Emily In Paris’ remake that is nothing like the origin...