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Edfest Bouquets 2018

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It’s that exciting time of year again, when we award bouquets to the very best shows we’ve seen at this year’s Fringe. We’ve seen some amazing productions, and our final choices reflect a mixture of old favourites and new delights. Congratulations to all concerned.

Theatre

The Swell Mob – Flabbergast Theatre

Not in our Neighbourhood – Jamie McCaskill / Kali Kopae / Tikapa Productions

Velvet – Tom Ratcliffe / Andrew Twyman / @workTheatre

Are There More of You? – Alison Skilbeck / Hint of Lime Productions

The Basement Tapes – Stella Reid / Zanetti Productions

Big Aftermath of a Small Disclosure – Alice Malin / ATC

Gulliver Returns – Dan Coleman / Dawn State Theatre

Gutted – Sharon Byrne

 

Comedy

A Serious Play About World War II – Willis & Vere

Flies – Oliver Lansley/ Les Enfants Terribles / Pins and Needles

Beetlemania: Kafka for Kids – Tom Parry / Russel Bolam / Punchline

Either Side of Everything – Wil Greenway

 

Special Mentions

Six the Musical – Lucy Moss / Tony Marlowe

Stardust – Miguel Hernando Torres Umba / Blackboard Theatre

Up Close! – Chris Dugdale

 

Philip Caveney & Susan Singfield

 

 

Chris Dugdale: Up Close!

26/08/18

Assembly Rooms, George Street, Edinburgh

The three week blitz that is the Edinburgh Fringe is finally, tragically, coming to a close. On George Street, workers are already taking down the helter skelter and dismantling the outdoor bars. We can’t help feeling a twinge of sadness. For us, this is the busiest time of year, but also the most exciting. In all likelihood, the next show we see will be the last one of Edfringe 2018.

With this in mind, we’re not taking any chances. We want to be sure that our final show will be something that will amaze and delight us. We need a shot of something magical – and Chris Dugdale is a pretty safe bet to deliver the goods. Born in France, based in New York and a regular visitor to the Fringe, his shows combine dazzling sleight of hand, with mind bending manipulation and a slick, polished delivery. We love his droll delivery, his winning way with the people he brings onto the stage.

OK, so this year’s show incorporates many of the elements from last year’s – there are those complex card tricks, performed mere inches from disbelieving onlookers. There’s that little tin that somehow magically refills itself with different contents. There’s that thing he does with a Rubik’s cube… I mean, how? Somebody tell me how! And for 2018, he’s added a brand new illusion called ‘The Triangle,’ in which he manages to manipulate three people picked from the sell-out audience into arriving at the same conclusion.

It’s a phenomenally entertaining hour, so packed with incident that it sprints by like an athlete at full stretch. We gasp, we shake our heads, we applaud. And I tell myself that this year, there’s no way he’s going to make me put the tips of my index fingers together… no way at all. And once again, he makes me do it.

It’s already too late for me to urge you to go and see this show – but I’m looking forward to Edinburgh 2019.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

 

 

Edinburgh Fringe Magic Gala

 

15/08/18

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Debating Hall, Edinburgh

Ah, magic! With the weather in Edinburgh taking a sudden nosedive and the threat of Fringe fatigue constantly hovering in the background, a bit of magic is surely going to help matters – and what better way to sample it than this handy package, which offers visitors a taste of five different acts every day at 4.30pm?

Our host for the event is Elliot Bibby, voted Scottish Comedy Magician of the Year 2017. You can easily see why he won the title. He has a nice line in engaging patter (particularly in his interplay with a truculent audience member) and is very good at the old sleight of hand stuff. He takes the truculent one’s ten pound note, turns it into a worthless scrap of paper and hands it back to him. (Don’t worry, after a bit of persuasion, he changes it back again!)

The first guest is Tomas McCabe, who calls himself a mind reader. He brings a young woman up from the crowd and invites her to slam the flat of her hand down on a series of paper cups, one of which we are assured has a deadly metal spike hidden in it. To give the lady her due, she manages this without turning a hair, but most of the audience is holding its collective breath.

Next up is Polly Hoops, who  – as her name might suggest – does things with hula hoops (not the edible variety). She’s soon striding around the stage whirling several plastic hoops from various parts of her anatomy. It’s incredibly skilful and must takes hours of practice, but, I can’t help feeling, it isn’t really magic. ‘More like highly evolved PE,’ whispers Susan, and I have to agree with her.

Tom Crosbie is very quick to point out that he isn’t a magician either, just a full blown nerd. Mind you, what this man can do with a Rubik’s cube is nobody’s business and it certainly looks pretty magical. At one point he manages to ‘solve’ a cube while it’s in mid air. He assures us that anybody can do this provided they put in the requisite study time, which in my case would be 24 hours a day for the rest of my life.

The final act is Ben Hart and, happily, there’s no doubting this young man’s abilities in the abracadabra stakes. He performs an astonishing routine with a pack of cards, that keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller – until he’s able to blow them away in a puff of dust. He then borrows three rings from three members of the public and somehow manages to fuse them together. We have good seats near the front and I watch him like a hawk, but… no, no idea how he did that. Astonishing stuff.

All of these acts can be seen in their own shows elsewhere on the Fringe and, let’s face it, we all need a little more magic in our lives.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Michael Wilson: My Adventures in Mental Health

15/08/18

Three Broomsticks, South Bridge, Edinburgh

We’ve been looking forward to this event. We’ve been familiar with Michael Wilson’s keenly-observed lyrical poetry for a long time now: we’ve heard drafts of earlier pieces in workshops, and have seen him perform several times in Manchester. No doubt about it, he has real talent, and we’re keen to see what he’s been working on in recent years.

As the title suggests, My Adventures in Mental Health is a personal chronicle of mental illness. In his brief introduction, Michael is keen to point out that his own experiences are just that – his own; he’s not claiming any kind of universal insight. And yet, this deeply personal collection of poems is genuinely revelatory: there is an appealing Everyman quality to it, despite uncommon individual circumstances. I think it’s in the humanity, the vulnerability, that shines through every line.

The narrative is thematic rather than chronological, leading us through a cycle of depression, mania, hyper mania, hospitalisation, drugs – and finally to wellness, to hope, to love. It’s strangely uplifting – the structure allowing us the relief of a happy ending, the ability to smile at the man sitting in front of us, who has just laid bare the horrors of a severe illness. This is the sort of writing that should make it easier for others to talk, to open up. Michael makes it look easy. His poems make it beautiful.

Take these lines, for example:

His hand on my shoulder holds little in it…

But I thought if I could describe this pain

it would transfer –

like the ones we had as kids.

Apply water.

Apply pressure.

Lift and reveal.

But temporary.

Colour smudge bright.

His hand on my shoulder

leaves a tattoo on my skin.

I love the wistful nature of this section, the brightness of the child’s memory suffusing the present pain. Michael’s poetry is all like this: pain made palatable through gentle imagery, savagery tempered through the beauty of sound.

The venue isn’t ideal for his performance – the open window and the busy road combined with Michael’s melodic Northern Irish accent and soft voice mean that it’s hard to hear at times – but it’s worth leaning in and concentrating hard. This is a lovely piece of work.

5 stars

Philip Caveney & Susan Singfield

 

 

 

Loveless

20/03/18

This powerful, brooding film by director Andrei Zvyagintsev (who also gave us the equally compelling Leviathan in 2014) offers a melancholic slice of life in contemporary Russia. A nominee for this year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar, it eventually lost out to Sebastian Leilio’s A Fantastic Woman, but it’s nonetheless a superb drama that deserves wide acclaim.

Loveless focuses on a couple going through the throes of a messy divorce. Boris (Alexi Rozin) is an office worker, whose deeply religious boss is opposed to any kind of marital discord. This means that Boris has to keep his impending break-up a close secret around the workplace. He has already found himself a naïve young girlfriend, Masha (Marina Vasileva), has got her pregnant and is planning to set up a new life with her – but, for the moment, he’s still sharing the family home with his wife, Zhenya (Marian Spivack). Mind you, she’s not blameless in all this, because she too is embroiled in a passionate affair with widower, Anton (Andress Keiss), and is intent on ensnaring the man she sees as her best hope of escape from drudgery. Both Anton and Zhenya are completely focused on their respective futures – so much so that it is all they can think about.

The problem is, they have a 12 year old son, Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), who regularly witnesses their bitter arguments and even overhears them trying to fob responsibility for him onto each other. A scene that cuts from a bitter marital dispute to Alyosha – in the darkness of his bedroom, face contorted in an agony of misery – is utterly heartbreaking. Neither Boris nor Zhenya seems to be aware of his unhappiness – indeed, they barely notice him at all, until, inevitably, he goes missing. The resulting search means the two of them have to grudgingly work together alongside the highly motivated volunteer group that has been recruited for the task.

In a Hollywood version of this story, of course, the two protagonists would no doubt develop new respect for each other; they would discover hidden strengths that they never knew existed; they might even end up deciding to stay together. But in Zvyagintsev’s abrasive world-view, there is no redemption. The couple are enslaved by their own mutual loathing and bitter resentment. They go about the search for their son as though it is some kind of thankless chore, an annoying box to be ticked. A visit to Zhenya’s secretive mother on the suspicion that Alyosha may be hiding out with her amply demonstrates that the roots of such selfishness run deep. She too seems unable to exhibit any kind of concern for the missing child, preferring instead to complain about the way she has been treated by her daughter and the man she never wanted her to marry in the first place.

Aloysha’s unseen presence dominates the remainder of the film. It is there in the deserted buildings the search team visit; it is there in the sterile winter landscapes through which they trudge. It would, of course, be wrong to reveal how the search for him turns out, but suffice to say that a brilliantly constructed coda displays all too effectively how hopeless and myopic his parents’ dreams of bright new futures are. In this story,  selfishness is all-pervading and parents will always put their own aspirations above those of their off-spring.

A word of warning. This is not the film to watch if you are seeking a cheery and relaxing  night at the cinema. If on the other hand, you enjoy a deep, harrowing drama that claws relentlessly at the emotions, it’s certainly one to check out.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Box of Delights

02/12/17

The Box of Delights might have started life as a novel by John Masefield in 1935 but, for me, it will always belong to 1984 and television.

The BBC children’s adaptation was my first ‘box-set binge,’ enjoyed even before I knew those words existed in formation. It was Christmas Eve, early afternoon. I was thirteen, my brother three years younger. Mum called us down to the front room, where there were blankets on the sofa and a plate of mince pies on the coffee table. And she handed us a present. A small, VHS-sized box, containing – we soon discovered – the whole six-part series, painstakingly recorded every week, and saved up for this festive treat (a cunning plan, of course, designed to keep us out of the way while our parents did the busy stuff that parents do on Christmas Eve, but we were blissfully ignorant of this then). We settled in for the long haul, and were mesmerised by the tale that unfolded.

I never revisited the story: never read the book, never sought to see it again. But when I saw it advertised as part of The Cameo’s 2017 Christmas season, I couldn’t resist the chance to view it, on a somewhat larger screen than the 14″ one we had back then.

And it’s lovely; no wonder the memory is so golden. Okay, some of the special effects – so impressive in their day – look pretty shonky now, and there are gaping plot-holes that need to be plugged. But the overall effect is still magical; the story still engaging.

Orphan Kay Harker (Devin Stanfield) is home from boarding school for the holidays. He’s staying with his guardian, Caroline Louisa (Carol Frazer) in his ancestral home, Seekings. He’s pleased to find that his friends, the Jones, will be staying for the holidays, as their parents have had to go abroad (there are four Jones kids, but only two of them really have anything to do, namely Maria (Joanna Dukes) –  a fierce little thing who’s a dab hand with a pistol – and Peter (Crispin Mair), who’s a bit of a drip really, but proves to be a useful ally in Kay’s adventuring. Susan and Jemima (Flora Page and Heidi Burton respectively) remain in the background, Peter’s ‘sensible sisters’ – I’m not sure why they’re there). Maria’s fears that the festive season might prove dull are certainly unfounded: Kay, it seems, has been identified as someone who can help those in the magic world, and Cole Hawlings (Patrick Troughton) has a mission for the boy. For Hawlings has a magic box, and the evil Abner Brown (Robert Stephens) is in hot pursuit of it; Kay must look after the Box of Delights until it can be returned to its rightful owner…

The ‘returning it to its rightful owner’ is by far the worst part of the series. It’s episode five; we’re reaching the dramatic climax. And then there’s a bizarre scene where Kay goes ‘to the past’ to seek Arnold of Todi (Philip Locke), by way of some badly rendered pyramids and some English-speaking ancient Egyptians. It’s the weakest moment by far, but it doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the show. Nor does the odd acceptance everyone seems to have of kids going missing (a whole gaggle of choirboys are kidnapped, and there’re no parents waiting for them when they’re finally rescued).

Because, despite the flaws, there’s a lot to love. Jonathan Stephens is really funny as inept gangster, Chubby Joe, and Robert Stephens is as delightfully malevolent as you’d expect, clearly relishing the role of arch-villain Abner Brown. The scenes with Herne the Hunter  (Glyn Baker) are spectacular, and some of the effects are truly impressive, even after all these years (the shrunken posse of kids standing next to Chubby Joe’s big foot is particularly well-conceived). It’s a joyous, festive slice of nostalgia. Seriously, what’s not to love?

Now, pass the mince pies!

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Chris Dugdale: Up Close

17/08/17

Assembly Rooms, George Street, Edinburgh

There’s no other explanation: Chris Dugdale is actually a sorcerer. He’s not a performer who’s learned a load of tricks; he can’t be, because some of what he’s doing is simply impossible. Okay, so he’s a showman and he plays along with the schtick, delivering a few crowd-pleasers that we’ve seen elsewhere and can conceive of what the trickery might be (although we still don’t know how, but we can’t have everything), but there are elements here that simply don’t make any sense – unless we accept that he’s a wizard of some sort.

I mean, I don’t know how he does that stuff with the Rubik’s cubes, but I can go along with the idea that it’s a relatively simple blend of maths or dexterity – or, indeed, trick cubes of some sort. But the tiny tin of Altoids that never leaves the table… I won’t give any spoilers, but THERE’S NO WAY A MERE HUMAN CAN ACHIEVE WHAT HE DOES HERE! 

This is the third time we’ve seen Dugdale perform, and he gets better every time (or maybe he’s just making us think that with his mind control techniques?). This year’s show, Up Close, is much more dazzling and show-bizzy; there’s an energy and pace that has us buzzing from the start. He’s clearly enjoying himself, and his enthusiasm is infectious: the crowd is lapping up his act.

If you’ve had a busy day and are feeling tired or lethargic, get yourself along to the Assembly Rooms and see Chris Dugdale if you can. He’ll have you pepped up and grinning within a few minutes – although he may leave you doubting everything you think you know…

5 stars

Susan Singfield

 

A Number

08/04/17

Caryl Churchill’s play is a meditation on the nature of identity, presented here in partnership with Edinburgh’s International Science Festival. Concise, punchy and extraordinarily thought-provoking, it’s set somewhere in the near future and consists of a series of conversations between two characters… or more accurately, between four characters because the play is about cloning and its implications.

The staging is sparse and unsettling. A claustrophobic boxlike space is inset onto the bigger stage of The Lyceum Theatre. The floor inclines sharply upwards and there is little in the way of props: a couple of wooden chairs, three doorways, a bare light bulb. As we join the story, Bernard 1 (Brian Ferguson) is midway through a conversation with his ‘father’, Salter (Peter Forbes). Bernard has just discovered that he is not Salter’s original birth son but a clone created from the genes of an original child, who, Salter tells him, died in a car crash. More unsettlingly, Bernard is not a singular clone but one of ‘a number’ (probably more than twenty) that were created at the same time, without Salter’s knowledge or permission. Bernard is just coming to the realisation that there’s a score of identical copies of him somewhere out there and the thought of it is driving him mad…

Churchill’s dialogue is, as ever, beautifully crafted, lots of overlapping thoughts and fragmented sentences, ideas hinted at but never overstated. Scenes are interrupted by sudden flares of light, which surprise the audience every time they occur. The two actors portray their characters brilliantly and if there’s a disappointment here, it’s only that the play is over too quickly – I was left wishing that there could be another hour of this to relish and that I could have met a few more of those clones. But as the saying goes, that’s all she wrote.

Those who love Churchill’s writing should take the opportunity to catch this rarely seen work. It will stay with you long after the cast have taken their bows.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Certain Women

08/03/17

Certain Women seems like an appropriate choice for International Women’s Day. Our expectations are buoyed by the stellar cast (and yes, I’m including Kristen Stewart in that; we can’t hold Twilight against her forever), and we are not disappointed. This quiet little film is a lovely, lovely thing.

There are three (largely) unrelated stories here, all set in the same Montana town. First up is Laura (Laura Dern), a stressed-out lawyer with an unhappy client. The hyper-realism of the film means that even the most dramatic moments are beautifully understated: there is no sensationalism, only humanity and warmth. There is nothing so simple as a baddy, just flawed people, doing the best they can – and carrying on when things go wrong. Dern excels as the overworked, harassed professional, berating herself for her failings, and always striving to do more. It’s compelling stuff.

The second tale is Gina’s. Michelle Williams plays the role with customary skill, imbuing the ambitious businesswoman with vulnerability as well as zeal. We know her solid-seeming relationship is flawed, because we’ve already seen her husband (James Le Gros) in the first story, leaving Laura’s bed, but again writer-director Kelly Reichardt eschews the cliched route, and nothing much is made of this. There’s no discovery, no showdown, no climactic denouement. Instead, we are shown the minutiae of their house-building project, the moral compromises they make to source some local stone. It sounds dull, but it isn’t. It’s a real slice of life, a perfect example of a (sandstone) fourth wall being gently lifted so that we can peek inside.

The third story is the best of the bunch, utterly heartbreaking in its simplicity. Kristen Stewart plays Beth, a newly qualified lawyer, who works for the same firm as Laura. In need of extra money, she’s conned into taking an evening job teaching school law in a town that’s a four-hour drive away – an unsustainable arrangement that leaves her exhausted. A lonely rancher (Lily Gladstone) chances on the class – “I just saw the people going in” – and begins to rely on her weekly trips to the diner with her teacher. Gladstone’s beatific smile when Beth rides with her on her horse is so touching it hurts. Her neediness is naked, and her disappointment inevitable. It’s all the more devastating because of the way the narrative confounds our expectations: we are movie literate; we know there’s supposed to be a last-minute knock-on-the-door or change of heart. But there isn’t, of course. Just sorrow for what might have been, and the resumption of routine.

This is a wonderful film, full of sympathy and heart.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

 

 

Lyceum Variety Night 2

26/02/17

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Those enterprising people at Flint & Pitch have been busy putting together another night of  entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre, featuring the best of spoken word, theatre and music. Hosted by genial regulars Sian Bevan and Jenny Lindsay, this eclectic second helping kicks off with the jazz-inflected rhythms of Pronto Mama, a band who revel in slippery time signatures and who soon have everybody bopping along in their seats.

Next up, poet Aidan Moffat treats us to some of his wry and rather saucy poems (plus some rather wonderful extracts from his son’s diary). He finishes his section with a dedication to all the people he’s canoodled with down the years, complete with a raised can of Tenants Lager at the end. I’ll drink to that!

Actress/musician/singer/author Gerda Stevenson offers us a varied selection of items – a traditional Scottish ballad accompanied by one of those strange droning instruments that resembles a wooden suitcase (and which I’ve annoyingly never learned the name of), a trio of prose pieces commemorating great Scottish women, and a final song for which she enlists the help of a couple of friends for the harmonies.

After a short break, festival favourites, The Creative Martyrs take to the stage, looking like a cross between Estragon & Vladimir and Laurel & Hardy. Incredibly, they soon have us chanting along to the suggestion that we should ‘Burn The Books’, while their song about drowned refugees is also incredibly provocative and revealing, the final line leaving the audience temporarily too stunned to applaud. These two performers are really quite brilliant.

Tonight being the anniversary of Johnny Cash’s death, singer/songwriter Rachel Sermanni kicks off her segment with a haunting cover of one of the great man’s most famous songs, A Thing Called Love, and then offers a couple of songs of her own. Her voice is remarkable – ethereal, haunting, quietly amazing. I fully expect to hear more of her soon.

The advertised act, Don Paterson, is down with the flu, but Colin McGuire fearlessly steps in at the last moment to give us an extract from his work-in-progress play, which is all about that most important of subjects – sleep. He goes down a storm with the Lyceum audience.

Last up, American poet (and BBC slam-champion), Adele Hampton offers us some of her wry and distinctive poems. She admits that she is feeling a little nervous but despite that, acquits herself well with tales of weight-lifting and belonging. She leaves the stage to heartfelt applause.

It is left to Pronto Mama to finish off the night, which they do not with the usual pounding rock song, but with a plaintive acapella tune, which sends everyone home feeling happy and thoroughly entertained.

The next variety night is penciled in for Sunday 4th June. Miss it and you’ll only have yourselves to blame.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney