Gilded Balloon

Amy Howerska: Smashcat

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29/08/16

Gilded Balloon@The CountingHouse

Amy Howerska is on top form. It’s the final night of the Fringe, but she’s as lively and sparky as ever, and this is an excellent set. There’s less of a theme than last year’s Sasspot; but that doesn’t seem to matter. This year’s show is loosely based around the idea of growing up, of realising that behaviours that mark us out as funny and appealing when we’re young start to seem tragic as we get older.

She’s dressed as Freddie Mercury (from the I Want To Break Free video), complete with greasepaint moustache, and she totally manages to rock the look.

There’s a sense of scattershot  about the show as Howerska hops nimbly from one idea to the next, from David Bowie’s Labyrinth, to her sister’s similarity to Nessa from Gavin and Stacey, but it all flows effortlessly and it’s laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end. Haverska has oodles of charisma and a self-confidence that’s really very appealing indeed.

As we make our way outside, fireworks are lighting up the sky to mark the end of the Fringe, but, we decide, Amy’s show was a better place to be.

4.2 stars

Susan Singfield

Ryan Cull: Brace Yourself

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18/08/16

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

Ryan Cull is Canadian and it’s soon evident that his homeland, and what happened to him in his childhood, has pretty much shaped the man he is today. As a youngster, he suffered from Legg-Calve-Perthes disease, a condition which affects the hip and meant that he had to spend a couple of his formative years wearing leg braces. He supplies a large photograph of himself wearing them and asks if anybody in the audience has heard of the disease. There’s a doctor in the house, who says she knows about it. Amazingly, there’s also a man who is actually suffering with the condition himself, and a woman whose brother has it. Cull does a double take and claims this is the first time this has happened to him. He suggests that the four of them should go out for lunch.

Cull has an appealing personality and he’s good at talking to his audience and getting them to talk back to him. His best material is the stuff that deals with the childhood illness and the lifelong effect it’s had on him. Some of his other stuff (a riff about the people he dislikes on Facebook, for instance) suffers from over-familiarity while his views on what constitutes a ‘real man,’ seem faintly old fashioned.

But he’s a good storyteller and the tale about his youthful attempt to get rid of his freckles using a razor is (if you’ll forgive the pun) hair-raising. This is pleasant, likeable stuff, and well worth checking out.

3.9 stars

Philip Caveney

The Free Association Presents: The Wunderkammer

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12/08/16

Gilded Balloon @ The Counting House, Edinburgh

The Wunderkammer by Do Not Adjust Your Stage is an improv show with a difference. Rather than responding to audience suggestions – a formula we’re surely all accustomed to by now – the eight-strong team relies instead on invited guests speakers to provide them with inspiration.

It’s an interesting strategy, adding another dimension to the show and unleashing the potential for ideas to fly in all directions.

First up today we have magician Kevin Quantum. His tale of a half finished PhD and a discussion on the ethics of magic are both fascinating, if somewhat overshadowed by the impressive magic trick he performs at the end (how did he do that?), and pave the way for the troupe to develop some outlandish improvisations. Next up is Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, knighted for his role in cloning Dolly the sheep, who talks about gene selection and designer babies. It’s a more serious topic, perhaps too serious for the improvisations it sparks, which inevitably trivialise the scientific work that inspire them. There are some laughs though, not least when Matthew Stevens steps in, in role, to question the validity of the pseudo-science being spouted.

It’s a neat idea, with the benefit of built-in callbacks to ideas from the speeches, and, if it’s a little ramshackle, it’s endearingly so. These young performers aren’t quite as fluent as improv veterans such as Stu Murphy or Garry Dobson, but they’re entertaining nonetheless, and show a lot of promise. If you’ve a spare hour at lunchtime, you could do a lot worse than spend it here.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Amy Howerska: Sasspot

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29/08/15

Gilded Balloon, Teviot, Edinburgh

Amy Howerska opens the gig with a warning: it’s the end of the festival and everyone’s gone a little bit stir-crazy. She’s probably right: a whole month of gigging in this hot-house of creativity and competition is bound to take its toll. But she, unlike a lot of others, at least looks like she’s maintained a healthy balance – all glowing skin and shiny eyes. She doesn’t look tired or defeated or in dire need of some clean air. She’s ebullient and fresh, and the whole thing starts off well.

The show centres on Howerska’s unusual background. She boasts a familial line of ex-military (SAS?) men, and grew up in a sky-diving drop-zone run by her father when he left the services. It’s wonderfully unusual; she doesn’t have to work too hard to pique our interest. There are tales of near-death in the Brecon Beacons, and a large cast of aunties and other relatives are vividly brought to life. She’s sparky and likeable, and the audience is on her side.

It’s a shame, then, that she seems to lose confidence part way through the set. There are only twenty or so people in the audience, and so of course our laughter is more muted than it would be in a larger crowd. Maybe we don’t respond as she expects at a key moment? It’s hard to tell. But she loses focus, leaves the stage to switch on a fan, and then starts commenting that we’re not laughing at particular lines. She seems to panic a little, derailing her momentum.

Luckily, this doesn’t last too long, and Howerska soon regains her stride, explaining with gusto why funerals are better than weddings, and why hen parties are hell on earth. She’s funny, smart and different – and definitely one to watch.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield

The Wonderful World of Lieven Scheire

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29/08/15

Gilded Balloon, Teviot, Edinburgh

Lieven Scheire strolls onto the stage of the Wee Room and announces that he’s about to do something that to me, seems an impossibility: he’s going to make science interesting; more specifically, the subject  of special relativity. It’s to his credit that he manages to do exactly that, whilst making a room full of punters laugh out loud into the bargain.

Scheire is Belgian. He has the puppyish demeanour of everyone’s favourite primary school teacher and is able to convey quite complex information with effortless simplicity. As somebody who suffers from dyscalculia, I’m probably a challenge for him, but he softens the blow by allowing me to pilot a rocket ship. OK, it’s an imaginary rocket ship, measuring 12 meters in length, but Scheire explains how it can be momentarily parked in only 10 meters of space and I don’t end up with a brain ache. In a Fringe that seems to be dominated by nerdy young comics explaining why they don’t fit in to the generally accepted term of what constitutes a ‘lad,’ Scheire is actually a genuine nerd, who revels in being exactly what he is. This is one of the most original comedy shows we’ve seen this year, part stand up, part lecture. With just a couple of days to go before it’s all over, it may already be too late to recommend him, but he’s certainly a name to look out for in the future.

Just not one that’s easy to pronounce.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Aunty Donna

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21/08/15

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

I didn’t think I liked sketch comedy. I don’t, much, when it’s on TV – when ideas and catchphrases are repeated throughout an entire season, and it all gets a little bit dull.

I discovered tonight, however, that I might like sketch comedy when it’s live – I liked this sketch comedy, anyway. They’re certainly popular; the venue was packed. It’s great to see strong acts getting the audiences they deserve.

Aunty Donna are three Aussie blokes (Broden Kelly, Zachary Ruane and Mark Samual Bonanno) and their frenetic, silly, high-octane antics kept the audience truly entertained. There was never a let-up in the pace (within minutes the trio were raining sweat upon the front row) and the sheer variety of sketches was most impressive. Standouts included the Bubble Bath Boys (who’d hijacked the show), a scene about taking in a ‘stray man’ and the recurring trope of ‘the man who…’ – a delightful piece of whimsy, which really made me laugh.

The ideas are all drawn together nicely at the end, making this a perfect choice for a Friday night show: it’s energetic, irreverent and a whole lot of fun.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Confessions of a Redheaded Coffeeshop Girl

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20/08/15

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

Rebecca Perry is Joanie Little, an anthropology graduate, working as a barista and dreaming of a different life. The monologue is interspersed with songs, and the story moves from a wry contemplation of the mundanity of a dull McJob, into a fantasy about love and possibility.

Perry is a charming performer with a lovely singing voice, and she tells her tale with wit and warmth. She takes us with her into Joanie’s world, and paints a vivid portrait of the characters she meets.

It’s an enjoyable show, as frothy as cappuccino – but, ultimately, the espresso doesn’t have much kick. The people-as-wildlife trope has perhaps been done too many times to have much impact now, and it’s all just a little too feelgood and saccharine to really make its mark.

If you like your theatre decaffeinated, this might be the show for you.

3.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Morro and Jasp Do Puberty

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18/08/15

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

Female clowns are hardly a new phenomenon (there were the glee-maidens of medieval England, for example, or the famous Columbine, Franceschina and Smeraldina characters from Commedia dell Arte), but it’s certainly rare to see a contemporary clown show centred entirely on the tribulations of teenage girls. The characters, Morro and Jasp (Heather Marie Annis and Amy Lee), are sisters and, in this latest offering, they ‘do puberty.’ And boy, do they do puberty.

I’d never have thought it, but actually clowning seems like the natural form for an exploration of a young girl’s angst. The exaggerated, melodramatic nature of the genre is ideally suited to the heightened emotions and over-reactions we all experience when we’re growing up. Getting your first period is hugely important when you’re a teenage girl, and it really does matter if your little sister gets hers first. Annis and Lee completely nail the sisters’  conflicting emotions: Morro’s disgust at having to take time off from soccer-baseball because of all this icky adult stuff; Jasp’s desperate longing for a boy to put her on his list. These are feelings we can all relate to – men and women – because we’ve all experienced the hell of puberty.

Annis and Lee are consummate clowns, imbuing the simplest of ideas with life and vigour. This is fresh, funny and insightful comedy, and definitely worth seeing.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Nathan Penlington’s Choose Your Own Documentary

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19/08/14 Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

I kind of know Nathan Penlington – or, at least,  there’s a tenuous connection. We come from the same home town. My brother was friends with his brother for a while, and – when I started my very first teaching job in North Wales – Nathan was in the sixth form. I didn’t teach him, but he wasn’t a kid you could fail to notice: long hair, a penchant for tartan, and a regular performer of magic tricks and poetry. I still have a CD of his poems somewhere, sold at the end of a school event. So, when we saw Choose Your Own Documentary advertised, I was interested to see what he’d ended up doing. And ‘making rather good documentaries’ seems to be at least part of the answer, alongside ‘writing books’ and ‘reflecting on the past.’

Choose Your Own Documentary is an innovative blend of film and spoken word, with a twist of audience participation. Nathan, it transpires, is a long-time fan of Choose Your Own Adventure books, and the documentary tells us of the bulk purchase he made of second-hand copies. Inside the books were the twenty-year old private scribblings of a troubled young boy, whose fragments of diary haunted Penlington, and pre-empted the film: he decided to track down the boy and see what sort of man he had become. For many film-makers, that would be enough.

But Penlington is trickier than that: he doesn’t reveal the whole story. We, the audience, have to decide which parts we want to see. We are given little remote controls, and we have to vote for what comes next. We are inside the frustrating world of the Choose Your Own Adventure series, knowing that there are other – maybe better – permutations. If we want to see those, we have to attend the show again (I think I would, if it weren’t at the Fringe, and there weren’t so many other things I want to catch). It’s clever, it’s original, and it’s also strangely moving. Luckily, there’s a book (The Boy in the Book by Nathan Penlington, published by Headline), which contains the whole story. So we buy that, and leave content.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Woyzeck

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17/08/14

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh

Splendid Productions’ version of Woyzeck is a real triumph. I have a head full of superlatives, and don’t know where to start.

Well, unlike Splendid, I’ll start at the beginning. The actors are on stage, not in-role, and interacting with the audience. They greet us, make sure we’re comfortable, ask someone to hold a mirror while they finish their make-up. They explain what they are doing (“We’re setting it up so that we can make a tonal change in a minute”), and there is such wit and warm-heartedness in the approach that it’s impossible not to smile.

And then they go to the end. The murder scene. There’s a numbered caption board telling us that this is scene 23, and what happens in it, and there are three actors and there’s a stage full of props. Sound effects are produced on stage in front of us. Costume changes too. The caption cards change with every scene, and the chronology is all over the place. There’s music and singing, and audience participation. We are made to feel complicit in the killing and in Woyzeck’s destruction; why don’t we intervene and stop it? And it’s marvellous, all of it. Brechtian brilliance. Fourth wall ripped away. Lively, confrontational, exciting and joyous. The best thing I’ve seen at this year’s Fringe.

Thank you, Splendid. I’ll be coming to see this again when you go on tour.

5 stars

Susan Singfield