Part 2
Edinburgh show notes again.
Weds 14th
Tony Law (Stand 1) Amazing. Wanted to get in on the act of the science comedians and do a show about space: "the difference is I read no books about it." Having trolls-vikings-kids, kids, sorry! Breastfeeding to The Wire. House vs flat ppl., Dinner party.
Chris Coltrane (The Globe, Free fringe); political... dunno, it was funny and I'll definitely see him again, but I don't have much to say about it? Follow him on Twitter @chris_coltrane.
Play That Goes Wrong (Pleasance Above), best single laugh so far, when 2nd actress is concussed. Bit Noises Off but very very well done, lots of nice touches- each actor is bad in different ways, Perkins can't remember/pronounce words, Cecil does literal gestures, Felicity too sexy for context etc. Set falling down very impressively.
Fast Fringe: (Pleasance Dome) Susan Calman comperes well. My fave was def Mike Wozniak (offbeat oneliners, "cat facts", Michael Fabbri (Job centre) and Rachel Parris (Rihanna song abt showing ankles) also good.
Claudia O'Doherty (Pleasance 2); never got that into it. Nice framework and good AV stuff, just didn't click w the character, I think.
School Night (Pleasance Beneath); oddly small audience. (Not sure why I can't find a review for this- I know it's had buzz in London.) Basically three acts come on and teach you something- either something they already know about or something they've swotted up.) Host David Morgan, personable. ?Goldstein abt film was pretty good, David Kay on drama as self-satisfied actor OK, really liked John Robins as English teacher "I'm the sort of teacher who's cool. Who Doesn't play by the rules. Who gets sacked for gross misconduct." Flirted w real Eng teacher in audience. (I won a prefect badge for knowledge of LoC.)
Thurs 14th
Meditation (Buddhist Centre); pretty good at de-stressing me!
Caroline Hardie, (Underbelly Daisy), abt stresses of life like choosing clothes; what the Queen is like in private; drying hair.
Simon Munnery, Fylm (Stand 1) live camera on face/table. "The first show where the screen talks back to you." Wrote the review he wanted and aimed toward it... "overwhelmingly pink" -instantly provided by a slide. Dogs as doctors, dogs in space; dial going from crowd-audience-mob. Disconcerting, ridiculous, sporadically successful, and entirely amazing, like practically everything he does. Buy last yr's DVD!
Lucy Porter (Stand 1); good as usual. Abt being a northerner "at heart", Croydon/rubbish city bid.
Beta Males (Pleasance 10 Dome); brill, connected sketches abt a city w. superheroes. Generic sketch: "I am your archnemesis, Arch Nemesis man! I will destroy you with my hubristic science thing!"/ 15th cent Italian Renaissance sketch/ audience plays into hands of fate to decide path of a sketch- which parent should die to create a hero (but it destroys him instead); Superman/Police Man (and Lollipop Man, a lollipop); Strongth's sad life; lots of clever wordy bits, and one man slowly being fed plums. Snatches of radio for costume changes; saga of Walrus Man; "Checkov's for guns. If it isn't a Chekov's, it won't fire." A group for ppl who lost loved ones to superheroes, who then become vigilantes. Great stuff.
Squidboy (Assembly Roxy); fucking amazing, fisherman/squid, polar fleece squid costume; lots of mime/vocal fx, cool long bit of eating crisps/cat/bird, a dog fetching from China. "What a mess." "Are there any chairs that aren't imaginary?"; a corner shop where everything costs £2.
ACMS (Stand 1) In love; most of these notes will be even more dreamlike than usual, because it's that kind of night. Hosted by Thom Tuck and John-Luke Roberts. "We're not a traditional double-act." (In the sense of barely being a double act at all, but more of one person trying to run a show and one trying to be annoying.) "The theme is war, you'll see it occasionally through the evening because we forgot to tell most of the acts about it." Opera singers introducing the acts, to tunes ranging from the pearl singers' duet (aka the BA ad music) to "Ah! Tom Bell! He'll save every one of us!"
A set in Russian. Munnery quoting Kierkegaard, in a viking hat. One of the Beta Males taking the Kings of England rhyme (Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste...) and extending it into the future- lots of King Pauls to come before The Silence, apparently. Joe Lycett as a seedy promoter, in leopardskin and a top hat- has lots of acts called after serial killers, all with great tits.
Tuck picks up Munnery's viking hat and is all Norwegian. He paints himself into a corner and promises a joke- Roberts helpfully imitates his voice and heckles him as his internal monologue bigging himself up. Roberts: "Do you even have an internal monologue any more, or is it just me? 'I should give up drinking.'" Tuck: "I think I'm going mad."
Tuck had apparently just been nominated for Best Newcomer... "In my tenth consecutive year at the Fringe." "Was that rueful, or bragging?"
A Dane and Ghanaian in a double-act, with the Dane's only comprehensible words being "Coca-cola?" "PEPSI?!?" and the Ghanaian reminiscing about the word cup.
Nadia Kamil, all spaced out because she'd just given blood. Will Adamsdale doing a post-apocalyptic play in a world strewn with CDs and cockroaches, with an audience member who didn't understand the concept of not reading the stage directions, and Tuck as Josef Fritzl.
Malcolm Head, a hopeless poet. (I've seen him before. Is he in Mischief Theatre?) Sarah Benetto, about making people on buses think that she's cheating on her boyfriend. Tom Bell, with a terrifying magpie rhyme/Birds crossover- "1,732 for I am the last one." (He was pleased at how well it went. Tuck: "That's the trouble, things go well here and people think 'I'll put that in my show.' Noooooooo!")
David O'Doherty reprised his Lance Armstrong song, but enlarged about how the horrors of was are all his fault- and taped toilet-paper banners of Armstrong, Mussolini and Hitler- or, as someone pointed out, Richard Herring- to the ceiling and got the audience to dive-bomb them with plastic gliders, as he played the Grand Designs theme tune.
Tuck cutting short Roberts' attempted crescendo to end the evening- R: "I'm trying to build a comic construct." "I don't like them." "We're all aware of that."
Some photos from the run; the night I was at is their #6.
This entry was originally posted at http://shark-hat.dreamwidth.org/187757.html. Comment here or there.
Weds 14th
Tony Law (Stand 1) Amazing. Wanted to get in on the act of the science comedians and do a show about space: "the difference is I read no books about it." Having trolls-vikings-kids, kids, sorry! Breastfeeding to The Wire. House vs flat ppl., Dinner party.
Chris Coltrane (The Globe, Free fringe); political... dunno, it was funny and I'll definitely see him again, but I don't have much to say about it? Follow him on Twitter @chris_coltrane.
Play That Goes Wrong (Pleasance Above), best single laugh so far, when 2nd actress is concussed. Bit Noises Off but very very well done, lots of nice touches- each actor is bad in different ways, Perkins can't remember/pronounce words, Cecil does literal gestures, Felicity too sexy for context etc. Set falling down very impressively.
Fast Fringe: (Pleasance Dome) Susan Calman comperes well. My fave was def Mike Wozniak (offbeat oneliners, "cat facts", Michael Fabbri (Job centre) and Rachel Parris (Rihanna song abt showing ankles) also good.
Claudia O'Doherty (Pleasance 2); never got that into it. Nice framework and good AV stuff, just didn't click w the character, I think.
School Night (Pleasance Beneath); oddly small audience. (Not sure why I can't find a review for this- I know it's had buzz in London.) Basically three acts come on and teach you something- either something they already know about or something they've swotted up.) Host David Morgan, personable. ?Goldstein abt film was pretty good, David Kay on drama as self-satisfied actor OK, really liked John Robins as English teacher "I'm the sort of teacher who's cool. Who Doesn't play by the rules. Who gets sacked for gross misconduct." Flirted w real Eng teacher in audience. (I won a prefect badge for knowledge of LoC.)
Thurs 14th
Meditation (Buddhist Centre); pretty good at de-stressing me!
Caroline Hardie, (Underbelly Daisy), abt stresses of life like choosing clothes; what the Queen is like in private; drying hair.
Simon Munnery, Fylm (Stand 1) live camera on face/table. "The first show where the screen talks back to you." Wrote the review he wanted and aimed toward it... "overwhelmingly pink" -instantly provided by a slide. Dogs as doctors, dogs in space; dial going from crowd-audience-mob. Disconcerting, ridiculous, sporadically successful, and entirely amazing, like practically everything he does. Buy last yr's DVD!
Lucy Porter (Stand 1); good as usual. Abt being a northerner "at heart", Croydon/rubbish city bid.
Beta Males (Pleasance 10 Dome); brill, connected sketches abt a city w. superheroes. Generic sketch: "I am your archnemesis, Arch Nemesis man! I will destroy you with my hubristic science thing!"/ 15th cent Italian Renaissance sketch/ audience plays into hands of fate to decide path of a sketch- which parent should die to create a hero (but it destroys him instead); Superman/Police Man (and Lollipop Man, a lollipop); Strongth's sad life; lots of clever wordy bits, and one man slowly being fed plums. Snatches of radio for costume changes; saga of Walrus Man; "Checkov's for guns. If it isn't a Chekov's, it won't fire." A group for ppl who lost loved ones to superheroes, who then become vigilantes. Great stuff.
Squidboy (Assembly Roxy); fucking amazing, fisherman/squid, polar fleece squid costume; lots of mime/vocal fx, cool long bit of eating crisps/cat/bird, a dog fetching from China. "What a mess." "Are there any chairs that aren't imaginary?"; a corner shop where everything costs £2.
ACMS (Stand 1) In love; most of these notes will be even more dreamlike than usual, because it's that kind of night. Hosted by Thom Tuck and John-Luke Roberts. "We're not a traditional double-act." (In the sense of barely being a double act at all, but more of one person trying to run a show and one trying to be annoying.) "The theme is war, you'll see it occasionally through the evening because we forgot to tell most of the acts about it." Opera singers introducing the acts, to tunes ranging from the pearl singers' duet (aka the BA ad music) to "Ah! Tom Bell! He'll save every one of us!"
A set in Russian. Munnery quoting Kierkegaard, in a viking hat. One of the Beta Males taking the Kings of England rhyme (Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste...) and extending it into the future- lots of King Pauls to come before The Silence, apparently. Joe Lycett as a seedy promoter, in leopardskin and a top hat- has lots of acts called after serial killers, all with great tits.
Tuck picks up Munnery's viking hat and is all Norwegian. He paints himself into a corner and promises a joke- Roberts helpfully imitates his voice and heckles him as his internal monologue bigging himself up. Roberts: "Do you even have an internal monologue any more, or is it just me? 'I should give up drinking.'" Tuck: "I think I'm going mad."
Tuck had apparently just been nominated for Best Newcomer... "In my tenth consecutive year at the Fringe." "Was that rueful, or bragging?"
A Dane and Ghanaian in a double-act, with the Dane's only comprehensible words being "Coca-cola?" "PEPSI?!?" and the Ghanaian reminiscing about the word cup.
Nadia Kamil, all spaced out because she'd just given blood. Will Adamsdale doing a post-apocalyptic play in a world strewn with CDs and cockroaches, with an audience member who didn't understand the concept of not reading the stage directions, and Tuck as Josef Fritzl.
Malcolm Head, a hopeless poet. (I've seen him before. Is he in Mischief Theatre?) Sarah Benetto, about making people on buses think that she's cheating on her boyfriend. Tom Bell, with a terrifying magpie rhyme/Birds crossover- "1,732 for I am the last one." (He was pleased at how well it went. Tuck: "That's the trouble, things go well here and people think 'I'll put that in my show.' Noooooooo!")
David O'Doherty reprised his Lance Armstrong song, but enlarged about how the horrors of was are all his fault- and taped toilet-paper banners of Armstrong, Mussolini and Hitler- or, as someone pointed out, Richard Herring- to the ceiling and got the audience to dive-bomb them with plastic gliders, as he played the Grand Designs theme tune.
Tuck cutting short Roberts' attempted crescendo to end the evening- R: "I'm trying to build a comic construct." "I don't like them." "We're all aware of that."
Some photos from the run; the night I was at is their #6.
This entry was originally posted at http://shark-hat.dreamwidth.org/187757.html. Comment here or there.