(no subject)
Edinburgh notes, Saturday
Bridget Christie
Review from the Indie - similar style/persona as before. Loved intense detail of deconstructing the yogurt ad. Nice bit abt "my fictional on-stage husband".
Beta Males sessions- Richard and the Storybeast
Chopped and changed who was on stage. Soames did several characters- all with en edge of sadness/ineffectaulity (with much deploying of puppy-dog eyes)- Scott of the Arctic as a complete idiot, and a guide on a boat to Seal Island, were memorable- liked a bit berating Harry Styles for writing a whole song telling a girl she's beautiful, if what made her beautiful was not knowing it… done to a poster of Styles precariously blutacked to a speaker, which created drama for quite some time wondering when it would fall off. Also the internal monologue of a teacher, and taking the "You do. You dare. you learn." Army ad to its logical conclusion ("You see the face of the man you killed at night.") Storybeast did the list of kings of England, retelling of Beowulf (the dragon dying is prob the best bit), and a couple of other discrete stories. They wove their bits together into a song at the end which was nice.
Surname and Surname
(Briony Redman and Paul Foxcroft)- starts with a play-type sketch about a psychic invited onto a murder investigation- turns out that he's a pre-cog, thus not much use in seeing the past ("the crime scene cleaners you hire are going to do a rubbish job, though.") which merges into pointing out that most sketch groups don't do a cold open these days, and perhaps the audience will be confused. Some good one-off sketches like Freddy Kreuger and Jason doing an audition tape for reality TV, and pitch meetings at 1980s games manufacturers ("What do children like best? Hippos! Poirot!"- also a bit of audience interaction) Recurring ones were good as well- Batman and Superman being friends (Batman's endless broodiness and parent shrine, Superman's cheeriness) and Ariel after getting her legs, having to learn all the names of things (the book prison! a special place to poo!) and social norms. Oh, and how fat the ocean looks from the outside.
Odessa
(Saw it at ARG- still good. Liked the Cop Trumps- "Justice style: Rough." "Nerves: FeCO3.")
Pierre Novellie
His first full-length show- I liked him as part of the Footlights stand-up shared show last year. Good- bit pedestrian, but v assured. How people get his name wrong, crime in UK vs S Africa, unemployment + daytime TV, Army ads in good times (all aspirational and abt travel) and recession (more realistic), translating the Zulu song at the start of TV- "It's a lion. There's a lion"- other films that could have observational theme songs. Liked his more niche explorations like the one about the supposed evils of carbs that ended up with "A wolf in banana's clothing" and the bit about studying Celtic and Norse and how in medieval Welsh there was a law "in manum vulvare", about the three occasions when you weren't allowed to kill someone with their hand in your wife's… business. review
Comedywealth Games
Mark Watson's ridiculous series of games pitting (in this case) a British, NZ, and Aussie comic against each other- swimming (across the floor in a sleeping bag- with a member of the audience), admin challenge- a set of tasks to do in seven minutes- inc make up your face, collect the most money in coppers out of this bag of apples, write a song, eat the most yogurts while riding an exercise bike- very messy! Really fun, but sadly started v late so I had to leave a bit before the end to go to the Late Show- I didn't end up enjoying that all that much, just didn't really find any of the acts clicked for me. (The compere Yusuf Islam was probably the best, but a bit laddish.) I think another time I should go for one of the bite-size showcase shows so there'll be someone else on in five minutes.
This entry was originally posted at http://shark-hat.dreamwidth.org/195508.html. Comment here or there.
Bridget Christie
Review from the Indie - similar style/persona as before. Loved intense detail of deconstructing the yogurt ad. Nice bit abt "my fictional on-stage husband".
Beta Males sessions- Richard and the Storybeast
Chopped and changed who was on stage. Soames did several characters- all with en edge of sadness/ineffectaulity (with much deploying of puppy-dog eyes)- Scott of the Arctic as a complete idiot, and a guide on a boat to Seal Island, were memorable- liked a bit berating Harry Styles for writing a whole song telling a girl she's beautiful, if what made her beautiful was not knowing it… done to a poster of Styles precariously blutacked to a speaker, which created drama for quite some time wondering when it would fall off. Also the internal monologue of a teacher, and taking the "You do. You dare. you learn." Army ad to its logical conclusion ("You see the face of the man you killed at night.") Storybeast did the list of kings of England, retelling of Beowulf (the dragon dying is prob the best bit), and a couple of other discrete stories. They wove their bits together into a song at the end which was nice.
Surname and Surname
(Briony Redman and Paul Foxcroft)- starts with a play-type sketch about a psychic invited onto a murder investigation- turns out that he's a pre-cog, thus not much use in seeing the past ("the crime scene cleaners you hire are going to do a rubbish job, though.") which merges into pointing out that most sketch groups don't do a cold open these days, and perhaps the audience will be confused. Some good one-off sketches like Freddy Kreuger and Jason doing an audition tape for reality TV, and pitch meetings at 1980s games manufacturers ("What do children like best? Hippos! Poirot!"- also a bit of audience interaction) Recurring ones were good as well- Batman and Superman being friends (Batman's endless broodiness and parent shrine, Superman's cheeriness) and Ariel after getting her legs, having to learn all the names of things (the book prison! a special place to poo!) and social norms. Oh, and how fat the ocean looks from the outside.
Odessa
(Saw it at ARG- still good. Liked the Cop Trumps- "Justice style: Rough." "Nerves: FeCO3.")
Pierre Novellie
His first full-length show- I liked him as part of the Footlights stand-up shared show last year. Good- bit pedestrian, but v assured. How people get his name wrong, crime in UK vs S Africa, unemployment + daytime TV, Army ads in good times (all aspirational and abt travel) and recession (more realistic), translating the Zulu song at the start of TV- "It's a lion. There's a lion"- other films that could have observational theme songs. Liked his more niche explorations like the one about the supposed evils of carbs that ended up with "A wolf in banana's clothing" and the bit about studying Celtic and Norse and how in medieval Welsh there was a law "in manum vulvare", about the three occasions when you weren't allowed to kill someone with their hand in your wife's… business. review
Comedywealth Games
Mark Watson's ridiculous series of games pitting (in this case) a British, NZ, and Aussie comic against each other- swimming (across the floor in a sleeping bag- with a member of the audience), admin challenge- a set of tasks to do in seven minutes- inc make up your face, collect the most money in coppers out of this bag of apples, write a song, eat the most yogurts while riding an exercise bike- very messy! Really fun, but sadly started v late so I had to leave a bit before the end to go to the Late Show- I didn't end up enjoying that all that much, just didn't really find any of the acts clicked for me. (The compere Yusuf Islam was probably the best, but a bit laddish.) I think another time I should go for one of the bite-size showcase shows so there'll be someone else on in five minutes.
This entry was originally posted at http://shark-hat.dreamwidth.org/195508.html. Comment here or there.