Fringe, Day 4
One of the things I love about the Festival is that you can go out with a detailed schedule or none, and still end up doing something different. We were heading up to the Gilded Balloon to see CYOD when we got flyered outside Bedlam for Four Walls, and a free ticket was wafted at us. Now, free tickets at this point in the Fringe are like gold dust- in my experience they're much more common at the start to get bums on seats- so we snapped it up. 3 quid each for some theatre can't be bad!
Four Walls follows the story of a girl who wakes up in a house that might not be her own, full of talking mirrors and clocks, flatulent slippers and a painful memory she's trying to recall. On the whole, the acting was good and things moved along, but at times the flow suffered when, for instance, the slippers were noisily clowning around, drowning out the main dialogue with the important plot points in it. I won't spoil the ending, but needless to say there's a grim secret that was well handled by the cast. Top marks to the girl playing the mirror, but I was not moved particularly by the beardy American chap (shame, as he's important to the plot). Oh well. As an aside, the Bedlam cafe is super-cheap and better than the artisan coffee stalls of woeful over-pricing. :P
Next up was Gamarjobat. We knew we were onto something good when we filed into a fairly packed room with all ages from young kid to old pensioner. It turns out we were also sat in the front row next to a pair of Gamarjobat super-fans from Japan, who were the most enthusiastic girls ever. How to describe the show? It's mime meets Tommy Cooper meets Laurel and Hardy, performed by two sharply-dressed and colourfully-mohicaned chaps, Ketch and Hiro-pon. I have never seen such an energetic performance; they didn't let up for a second, and even though they never speak they had me hooked and rolling in the aisles. The kids especially loved the slapstick moments, while the odd dick gag kept the parents happy. And the escalator sketch alone is worth going to see, never mind the bits with comedy props like the remote-controlled robot. The encore was devoted to a musical skit which seemed like it had a different pace to the rest of the show; it wasn't *bad*, but it didn't move me the same way their high-energy clowning did. Anyway, we love Gamarjobat, so if they happen to tour after Edinburgh go and see them. And tell me so I can see them again.
Now, the last show we saw this day was my pick, and I'm just going to go right ahead and say yes, I am now officially an Old Fart. I appreciate Pink Floyd. I collect fine wine. I grumble about the Music of Today. So it's no surprise that I saw a flyer for Tubular Bells for Two and leapt at it like a tramp on chips. It's what it says on the tin, really. Two Australian gents play the entirety of Mike Oldfield's meal ticket, on a stage crowded with instruments and tape loop devices. Quite apart from the tons of musical skill involved, the dexterity needed to leap from playing two keyboards to thrashing at a drum kit then doing a glockenspiel solo is something of great joy. There were moments of humour too, such as when one of them enjoyed a nice glass of wine in a passage where there was nothing for him to play, or when one of them hit the wrong loop pedal (but they recovered admirably, better than the night they confessed they managed to wipe the bassline just before introducing it!). Just go and see it already. And if you tell me you've never heard of Tubular Bells I shall shrivel up and beat you with my walking stick.
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