Fest 2022 Issue 1 by Fest Magazine

Free Festival Guide

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Inside:

DÝRA Chloe Petts Angela Barnes Happy Meal Zach Zucker Lily Phillips

SISTER ACT

Ibeyi bring their musical magic to the International Festival Reviews

Features

Listings

10 - 16 Aug

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Director George Sully Editor Arusa Qureshi

Deputy Editor Ben Venables

Sales Team Tom McCarthy David Hammond Christian Gow

Design Team Phoebe Willison Dalila D’Amico

Writing Team Alvie, Anahit Behrooz, Eve Livingston, Deborah Chu, Fringe Dog, Jamie Dunn, Harry Harris, Fergus Morgan, Si Hawkins, Becca Inglis, Laura Kressly, Jay Richardson Cover Image Sandra Ebert

Fringe Dog Illustration Lauren Hunter

Radge Media Editor-in-Chief Rosamund West Commercial Director Sandy Park

General Manager Laurie Presswood

Digital Editor Peter Simpson

Digital Editorial Assistant Lewis Robertson

Fest Street Dates 2022 10, 17, 24 August

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Contact festmag.com hello@festmag.com @festmag

Published by Radge Media Limited., M9 Codebase, Argyle House, 3 Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh, Scotland EH3 9DR. Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but we cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate. Show times and prices are subject to changes – always check with the venue. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by Think Solutions, Glasgow

Fest 2022 Issue 1

5 Contents

Comedy 21 Chloe Petts Superb newcomer hour

Theatre 33 Happy Meal A joyful story of friendship and identity

Cabaret 48 Sugarcoated Sisters What makes us TikTok?

Music 50 D Ý R A Sonic installation

Kids 52 Shlomo Doesn't miss a beat

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16 Call to Attention The link between comedy and ADHD

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12 The Clown Will See You Now Working in healthcare over the pandemic

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6 Strange Magic Lisa-Kaindé Diaz, of Ibeyi, on the magic of sound

Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): Sandra Ebert; Dylan Woodley; Steve Ullathorne; Chloe Petts; Jamie Fletcher; Steve Ullathorne; Samuel Temple; Nathan Gallagher

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Strange Magic Lisa-Kaindé Diaz, one half of French-Cuban musical duo Ibeyi, tells Arusa Qureshi about the magic in their sound

win sisters Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz believe in magic. Call it twin intuition, a unique charge of energy or something entirely mystical, but whatever it is, it flows through their music. The Afro-Cuban French sisters have been bewitching and bewildering in equal measure since 2015, when they released their acclaimed self-titled debut as Ibeyi. With their electronic neo-soul sound, they’ve travelled the world and released another album since. But when the pandemic threatened to halt their progress, they turned to that innate magic. “We didn’t know if we were ever going to be on tour again,” Lisa-Kaindé says over a call from Paris. “And not to sound dramatic, but that’s kind of what people like promoters were saying – that the whole thing was going to fall down and that we’d never be able to reconstruct it. So really, that’s how we felt. But then we realised, actually, we had so much to say and so much to process and to heal and to celebrate, and so much to talk about. I guess it felt like it was the thing we needed to do; to go through all of those emotions.” Heading into the studio with longtime producer and XL label head Richard Russell, Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi found themselves channelling their magic and turning it into an act of healing and catharsis, the end result being their third album Spell 31. Made of Gold, the first song the duo recorded and the first

Cover Feature

to be released, was inspired by the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which the sisters happened upon while in the studio. The track itself concludes with a spell (number 31) from the book: “O You with a spine who would work your mouth against this magic of mine, it has been handed down in an unbroken line, the sky encloses the stars, and I enclose magic.” For Lisa-Kaindé, Spell 31 is Ibeyi’s best album yet, partly due to that “unbroken line” of magic from their ancestors, but also because of its impact on the strength of their partnership, as sisters and as musicians. “I think each album will be better because what we are trying to do is to allow both voices, both worlds to melt into each other and get better and kind of coexist,” she says. “So in that sense, I think it’s our best and the one that shows our sisterhood the best. We had never really taken the time to do that before.” With their first album, they needed the time to mourn their father, famed Cuban percussionist Miguel “Angá” Díaz, who died in 2006, and also their older sister, who passed away in 2013. “And then with the second album, Ash,” Lisa-Kaindé adds, “we were touring the world and we felt so much violence and anger, and I think it was about putting the anger out, letting it leave your body. In this one, there’s a lot of healing and a lot of cele-

Features

Photo: Sandra Ebert Lisa-Kaindé (left) and Naomi Diaz (right) aka Ibeyi

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SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Ibeyi Leith Theatre 8:00pm – 10:00pm, 18 Aug

Photo: Sandra Ebert

brating. I think we had to do a lot of this work on the first two albums to arrive at this one.” Spell 31 is a special project, not only for its ambitious sound and meditative qualities, but also because it carries a new level of confidence, heard in the collaborations with artists like Pa Salieu, Jorja Smith and BERWYN, and in the prevalence of Naomi’s voice and her contribution to the production. “The confidence allowed us to try things in a new way,” Lisa-Kaindé says. “Also it was the confidence that allowed my sister to sing more. You hear her more in this record, which I think makes the record better than our two previous ones.” Although, she admits, all three albums will be forever linked. Having kept the magic between them long enough, Ibeyi are ready to spread their healing and protection, looking ahead to a world tour from September, which is previewed by their appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival. “For us, catharsis always comes from music because that’s the way we connect to our dad, that was the way to our culture, to ourselves, to each other, and the audience,” Lisa-Kaindé notes. “I think there’s nothing more healing for me than writing a song and then singing it over and over and over again. Ibeyi exists live, it takes its strength, its power, and its poetry live. And I live for it. I was born to do it. I was born to sing with my sister on the stage – I know it. “I made a vow with my sister that we are here to stay and so I’m excited to see what’s next,” she continues. “What’s the next musical adventure, the next album, what are the next songs we’re going to put out? Where are we going to go? Because truly, we don’t know. We discover by doing, that’s what making an album is about – you throw things out, and then you see what connects. You have to interpret the signs and I cannot wait to see.”

Ibeyi

More EIF highlights at Leith Theatre Jeff Mills: Tomorrow Comes The Harvest Thu 11 Aug

The Detroit techno legend brings his collaboration with the late Afrobeat artist Tony Allen to Edinburgh for the first time.

Squarepusher Sat 13 Aug

Tom Jenkinson, known professionally as Squarepusher, has fused his hypnotic dance music with futuristic sounds since 1995.

Princess Nokia Wed 17 Aug

New York rapper Destiny Nicole Frasqueri makes her Edinburgh debut, with a new album likely on the horizon.

Arooj Aftab Sun 21 Aug

The Brooklyn-based Pakistani composer blends ancient Sufi music and Urdu lyrics with minimal arrangements.

Lucy Dacus Thu 25 Aug

Indie singer-songwriter, who is also a member of the supergroup boygenius, alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker.

Cover Feature

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Water Off a Duck's Back A conversation between writers and performers Jo Clifford and Maria MacDonell on their adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s much-loved fairytale

Photo: Robin Mitchell

Jo Clifford: I suppose I started it really. I’d been performing my show The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven for some years and then I performed a show called Eve with the National Theatre of Scotland. I love performing and I’m very new to performing. I was completely blocked when I was young by my shame for being trans. And it was only really in my late 60s, actually, that I kind of went, ‘Oh, yeah, I enjoy this’. Then this glamorous neighbour appeared, who turned out to be an actress. And that was Maria. I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight – that would be a bit of an exaggeration. But we discovered we got on together and I suggested that we make a play together. Maria MacDonell: You did come and see me perform. We didn’t just meet at the bins! Jo Clifford: That’s right. And then the question was, okay, if we’re going to write something together, what will it be? I happened to suggest Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling. That was simply because years and years before, I’d been at a conference of trans activists in Europe. One of the speakers was an amazing trans woman called Vladimir Luxuria, who had been an Italian MP, and a prostitute and an incredibly vocal pioneer for trans rights in Europe. And she said, we’ve always been around, we’ve always existed throughout the centuries, throughout the millennia, but the difficulty we’ve had in Europe, is that we’ve 10

Theatre

Jo Clifford (left) and Maria MacDonell (right)

not been able to express ourselves freely; if we keep our eyes open, and think about it, we can find traces of us in very unexpected places. She mentioned Hans Christian Andersen and she spoke about some letters that he wrote to men he loved saying, I feel very, very feminine when I’m with you. She said, Well, maybe Hans Christian Andersen was one of us, but he couldn’t write about it openly. But you can see this reflected in stories like The Little

11 Features Photo: Ellie McMaster

Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling. It appealed to Maria for completely different reasons, which is one of the joys of us working together. Is that fair enough, Maria? Maria MacDonell: Yeah, I think so. Hans Christian Andersen, said quite openly that The Ugly Duckling was the story of his life. When it was first published, it wasn’t even named in the publication as a children’s story. His other work obviously was known as being for children, but he didn’t call this a children’s story. He used to read it aloud at gatherings of adults. I was very interested in that respect. The way that we wrote the piece was that we spent a lot of time investigating and talking about each other’s lives. Because Jo and I both have more to look back on than we have to look forward to. But there’s more material in the past, because we are older. It felt very important for finding our mutual voice. Because we have had some familiar shared life experiences and some very, very different and that’s what we were very keen to bring to the piece. Does that seem like a fair answer, Jo? We have not conferred in advance! Jo Clifford: Yes, I think that’s a very fair answer! It’s lovely working with somebody else. Because I mean, I’ve written loads and loads of plays on my own, and you get stuck, often. And it’s miserable. But when you get stuck with somebody else, you can complain about it a lot, can’t you? Maria MacDonell: I think the joy of collaborating is that you very quickly become aware that you can create things together that you would never have thought of on your own. The outcome has that inner strength of all those different energies that the two of us brought to this. Jo Clifford: I know we’ve discovered a way of telling the story in a very vivid way, in a very lively way, in a way that absolutely uses live theatre.

SHOW: VENUE: TIME:

The Not So Ugly Duckling: A Play for Grownups Scottish Storytelling Centre 4:45pm – 5:45pm various dates between 11-27 Aug

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Photo: Dylan Woodle y

The Clown Will See You Now A chat with comedians who spent the pandemic working in healthcare Interviews: Si Hawkins t was one of the lesser-known pains of the pandemic: how do you have a quickie under layers of PPE? “I tried! It’s impossible!” cries Dr Anna LaRosa, as the show Medico nears its grand finale. But then she is slightly tipsy, having just quaffed something rosé-like from a colostomy bag. In other hands this bawdy tale of an Italian NHS doctor might be wildly inappropriate. In fact, these are some of the safest hands in town. Dr Stefania Licari, who plays the semi-autobiographical LaRosa, is one of numerous Fringe comics that performed vital healthcare roles as COVID struck. From confessional stand-up doctors to a drag-performing CEO, all healthcare life is here. Licari – a Philippe Gaulier-schooled clown and actor, and NHS intensive care doctor – had her lives nicely compartmentalised, pre-pandemic. Then everything got hysterical. “I celebrated Christmas 2021 in the back of an ambulance with a non-alcoholic Prosecco,” she recalls, “after escorting a COVID patient from one hospital to another, because the one we were at had reached capacity. It was all very surreal, for a long time. One intriguing aspect of her show is guessing which bits are based on fact. There are poignant scenes about losing patients, post-Brexit strife, and one horribly believable bigot. Were the muddied waters intentional? “Definitely intentional, crossing lines between reality and creation and switching between sadness and laughter,” she says. “I wanted to recreate a snapshot of hospital reality. One moment you cry, one moment you laugh; a rollercoaster of emotions.”

Comedy

Photo: Dylan Woodley

Zach Zucker

13 Features

also chief executive of HIV Scotland, and that final year required serious improv. During lockdowns, the service wasn’t “allowing people that might have been at risk of HIV to get a test,” he says, “so I led a team to set up a home testing service.” Balancing high-profile leadership and drag proved tricky though, and the 2020 Fringe looked set to be Nancy Clench’s swansong. Then the pandemic intervened, Sparling moved jobs, and Clench survived. The new show, If Your Symptoms Aren’t Life-Threatening, Please Hold! begins with Photo: Boris Mitkov

Like Licari, Zach Zucker is a Gaulier graduate, best known as the grotesque stand-up Jack Tucker who wowed/appalled the 2019 Fringe. This year he’s attempting a multi-character affair, Zach Zucker’s Spectacular Industry Showcase, including original songs, “which is scary”. He’s coped with catchy numbers before. As COVID rates rose, Zucker bestrode a much bigger arena: LA’s Dodgers Stadium. “I was the head of training, recruiting, staffing and hiring at the world’s largest COVID site,” says the comic, who was staying nearby, got tested, then volunteered. Testing switched to vaccinating, but that rapidly-evolving environment felt oddly familiar. “Working there was not dissimilar to the Fringe,” he says. “Things are changing every single day, it’s a massive investment, very delicate, anything horrible can happen. “But this really was life or death. At one point one out of four people getting tested was positive. It’s 42 degrees, there are wildfires in the distance. And we’re out there with surgical masks, face shields, gloves, long sleeves, dripping sweat as the ash rains down on us.” Thankfully his improv brain adapted. “We’re indestructible, you can’t kill the clowns,” he says. “I’ve been prepping my whole life for this shit.” Rivalling Zucker for most entertaining former health administrator, meanwhile, is Nathan Sparling, aka Edinburgh drag supremo Nancy Clench. Until January 2021 Sparling was

“We’re indestructible, you can’t kill the clowns” Zach Zucker

Stefania Licari

Comedy

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Image Courtesy: Nancy Clench

Nancy lockdown-moonlighting as an NHS receptionist. “It’s just a nod to the NHS, I think receptionists get a bad rep,” he says. “We feel like they’re prying into our personal lives.” The show delves into Sparling’s own ailments – gout, arthritis – to explain Nancy’s onstage trainers. “It’s often the very first question I get asked: ‘why are you not wearing heels?’” One man very familiar with career clashes is Fringe stand-up stalwart Dr Phil Hammond. After 11 years in paediatrics (“doing ME, CFS, long COVID,”) he recently retired, aged 60, but his final months might have been much more dramatic. Hammond is also Private Eye’s healthcare columnist, ‘MD’, with an increasingly important slot as COVID raged. It curtailed his more active involvement, however. “I offered to do frontline palliative care during the pandemic,” he reveals, “to help people who were dying. But I said I’d like to write about it in Private Eye, and they said, ‘No, thank you.’” Thankfully his live audience – often NHSheavy – are more enthusiastic, and he’s bringing two shows to this Fringe; a confessional retrospective, How I Ruined Medicine, and Dr Phil Hammond’s COVID Inquiry, which is also refreshingly frank. “I didn’t think there was going to be a pandemic,” he admits. “And I learned a real lesson. So part of my show is about making a big mistake myself and how science is actually learning from mistakes – but you have to admit the mistake and share it.” Perhaps wisely, Hammond is making no bold predictions about how COVID might affect this first full Fringe, post-pandemic. As for his fellow Edinburgh veterans, Zucker and Sparling are promoting several other shows too, and both admit to apprehension. But “I trust Scotland, more than England for their health and safety measures,” says the New Yorker, while Sparling applies some soothing perspective. “The Fringe has always been a hotbed of disease,” he says. “Whether you’re coming away with the flu, or a sore throat, or syphilis, it’s always been a petri dish.” Welcome back, everyone.

Nancy Clench

SHOW: VENUE: TIME: SHOW: VENUE: TIME: SHOW: VENUE: TIME: SHOW: VENUE: TIME:

Zach Zucker Monkey Barrel Comedy 7:50pm – 8:50pm, 3–28 Aug, not 17 Nancy Clench Just the Tonic Nucleus 9:30pm – 10:30pm, 4–28 Aug, not 15 Dr Hammond’s Covid Inquiry theSpace @ Symposium Hall 8:10pm – 9:00pm, 13–27 Aug Stefania Licari theSpace @ Symposium Hall 8:10pm – 9:00pm, 4–28 Aug, not 15

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Comedians and adult ADHD Interviews: Jay Richardson

ikening her restless brain to a “coked up Hollywood scriptwriter” at a party trying to sell their latest script, Angela Barnes jokes that nowadays she’s surprised to meet a comedian who hasn’t got ADHD. A glance at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe brochure reveals Alfie Brown, Simon Brodkin, Alice Brine and Marjolein Robertson talking about their Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as well. And they’re not alone. Barnes doesn’t exhibit the physical “hyperactivity” that most people associate with ADHD, of “naughty nineyear-old boys chucking chairs around classrooms”. Instead, it’s her thoughts that are “constantly throwing worstcase scenarios at me”. Historically, ADHD has been overlooked or misdiagnosed in girls and women. Diagnosed last year, at 44 years old, Barnes had grown up internalising her disorganisation and procrastination as personal failings. “The reason it feels like everyone’s suddenly got ADHD is because these

Comedy

diagnoses, particularly for women, have only been around for a couple of years, so of course there’s this explosion,” she says. And there’s a higher percentage of stand-ups with ADHD than in the general population because comedy is the “perfect job” for people with the condition. “It suits me to have a lot of variety, to not be with the same people every day,” she says. Perhaps most relevantly though, “Somebody with ADHD doesn’t hold onto [the brain’s reward signal] dopamine, so you’re constantly looking for that next hit. And strangers’ laughter gives you that in abundance.” Barnes was “euphoric” to be

“We’ve just managed to find a workspace that supports us” Kiri Pritchard-McLean

Photo: Dylan Woodle

Call to Attention

Kiri Pritchard McLean

Moreover, his forgetfulness and puppyish, people-pleasing tendencies afford him material.

Features

Few environments are more hectic and distracting than the Edinburgh Fringe. Yet Goldsmith, who’s attending for an incredible 26th time, reckons that while he’s “very self-involved, forgetful and easily distracted, I’m pretty high-functioning and effective”. Managing the admin of being a self-employed solo performer has involved “creating little strategies to get around” his so-so memory. Photo: Drew Forsyth

belatedly diagnosed. But Stuart Goldsmith is hesitant about getting his “scatty” traits formally recognised. His resistance stems from “the idea that being special is so seductive and to an extent, it solves all your problems. What if this is just a bandwagon?” NHS psychiatrist and stand-up Benji Waterstones doesn’t go that far. But he observes that while “‘self-diagnosis’ seems quite fashionable, it is very different to that made by a doctor trained in diagnosing a mental disorder.” But “even a formal diagnosis can be problematic. “Psychiatrists rely solely on a patient’s subjective descriptions and our subjective observations of their behaviour, and subjectivity isn’t a bedfellow of hard science... we will all sometimes experience inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Where to draw the line between normal and pathological is usually defined as the point at which it impacts on someone’s ‘functioning’, which is arbitrary too.” Currently writing a book, You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here, and adapting it for television while performing at the festival, Waterstones recently scored highly on an online screening for ‘adult ADHD’: “I am often distractible and restless in this hyperconnected, digital age, where our attention is the commodity that companies are vying for. But I suspect that my score was less explained by a mental illness and more a consequence of my hectic 21st century lifestyle.”

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“Many years ago, I introduced myself to someone I’d already slept with. I mention that not because I’m a huge player but because something wasn’t right, the synapses didn’t fire in the right way. My desire to be friendly and outgoing overrode anything else. She was like ‘Christ, are you fucking kidding me?!’” As a writer, performer, director, podcaster and vocal campaigner for several causes on the comedy circuit, few acts juggle as many projects as Kiri Pritchard-McLean. Admitting that she lost five bank cards over lockdown without leaving the house, she nevertheless ventures that “people tend to make assumptions that ADHD comes with chaos”. But the Welsh comic, who was diagnosed at 23, is thriving because she seeks out effective collaborators. “The places where you would see me have ‘success’ in inverted commas,” she suggests, “are those where there are other people to prop things up and move them forward.” She adds: “I find it really easy to write in pairs. And with my sketch groups [Gein’s Family Giftshop and Tarot], I’m great when you’ve got me in the room and you’ve got my attention.” Wary of being defined by her ADHD, Pritchard-McLean points out that for all the benefits of lateral thinking and creativity associated with it, “most undiagnosed people are male and are in prison. How it affects the general population is not as glamorous as performing comedy, we’ve just managed to find a workspace that supports us”. Victoria Melody has made the link between dopamine and stand-up her principal focus. The “documentary theatre-maker” typically “embeds” herself into her subject matter for several years. She’s only been performing stand-up since 2017, just before her ADHD diagnosis, but is now hooked. Initially struggling with formulaic concepts like the comedic rule of three, of building tension and releasing it, “I was failing,” she says. “But I was also failing at life before the ADHD diagnosis. I was masking, because I didn’t want to admit that I had a bad memory or that I was exhausted because my mind was going 200 miles an hour.”

Comedy

Angela Barnes: Hot Mess

Pleasance Courtyard, 7:00pm – 8:00pm, 3–28 Aug, not 15 Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Home Truths

Monkey Barrel Comedy, 7:05pm – 8:05pm, 3–28 Aug Victoria Melody: Head Set

Pleasance Courtyard, 4:50pm – 5:50pm, 3–28 Aug, not 9, 16, 23 Stuart Goldsmith: A Shared Illusion (WIP)

Monkey Barrel Comedy, 1:25pm – 2:25pm, 4–11 Aug

Benji Waterstones: You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here (WIP)

Just the Tonic at The Caves, 12:50pm – 1:35pm 4–28 Aug, not 15

In her hybrid theatrical-stand-up show, Head Set, Melody is conducting an experiment with neuroscientist Dr Silvana De Pirro, wearing an EEG (or electroencephalogram) head set to show her brain activity as she performs. As an alternative to conventional medicine, comedy has several things to recommend it. People with ADHD are “oversharers, but in stand-up that becomes a positive,” Melody suggests. “Blurting things out without any filter is very funny and not offensive in the right environment.” However, an audience’s expectations is a hard deadline we have to meet. “You can see my focus, my engagement, my excitement and how relaxed I am. It’s an insight into my brain and audiences really love it. So it becomes part of a positive feedback loop.” For Waterstones, comedians feeling that “stand-up helps with their ADHD-like symptoms, seems as good a treatment as any. Our understanding about so-called mental illness is still very primitive compared to physical health, so we just need to find what is most helpful for each individual.”

e’ve teamed up with one of the sponsors of this year’s Fest (Re)Launch Party, Bounce Back Drinks, to offer one lucky winner a case of their post-social replenishment drink and their very own Festival Recovery Kit, containing everything you need to stay on your A-game for this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe. And you can enter via our pals at The Skinny. Bounce Back is a lightly sparkling refreshment, containing a unique science-based formula of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that work together with the body’s natural restoration process to help alleviate the stresses of an active social life, allowing the body to feel refreshed the next day. The Festival Recovery Kit includes a tote bag, some Bounce Back cans, a sleep mask, ear plugs, a dental kit, wet wipes and a snack bar. To be in with the chance of winning this prize, simply scan the QR code or head to theskinny.co.uk/ competitions and answer this easy multiple choice question: Which of these is a key ingredient in Bounce Back? A) Lactic acids B) Amino acids C) Sulphuric acids

Bounce Back Drinks Competition closes midnight Sun 14 August. Entrants must be aged 18 or over. Winners will be notified by email and will have 24 hours to respond or the prize will be offered to another entrant. The Skinny’s T&Cs can be found at: theskinny.co.uk/about/terms-and-conditions

Competition

Win a Festival Recovery Kit!

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Comedy Reviews

S-27 by Sarah Grochala

a dark rectangular room. May (Gabriella Munro), a young photographer, is charged with taking photos of dissenters, rebelling against the organHHHHH isation, as they are directed towards a door, and their VENUE: The Mill impending doom. TIME: run ended What ensues is a tour-deforce about the adaptability of human beings within an Inspired by the horrific atrociauthoritarian dictatorship and ties committed in Cambodia’s the consequences of those S-21 prison, Feet First Collecadaptations. It’s a play that tive’s S-27 by Sarah Grochala has asks: just how far would you you in the brutal depths of a go to save yourself? Would you tyrannical regime before you’ve abandon a baby, kill your sister, found a seat in the theatre. sell your body? Guards aggressively ‘proThe answers to these quescess’ each audience member tions, and the complexities of before herding everyone into the sacrifices being made, are 20

shown through gut-wrenching vignettes throughout. These snippets are broken up by musical interludes with choreographed, repetitive body movements, allowing you further into these atrocities. At times, the dialogue leans towards cliché, but this doesn’t detract from an incredible performance from the entire cast. Lauren Beeton and Sally Clune give are particularly transfixing performances that delve into sheer fear, hopelessness and the intoxication of power. S-27 is a full submersion into a disturbing reality that leans a little too closely into our own. ✏︎ Edwina Sleigh

Photo: Matt Crockett

Comedy Reviews

Tartuffe

a dark rectangular room. May (Gabriella Munro), a young HHHHH photographer, is charged with taking photos of dissenters, rebelling against the organVENUE: Holden Street Theatres isation, as they are directed TIME: times vary, various towards a door, and their dates between 11 Feb impending doom. and 15 Mar What ensues is a tour-deTICKETS: $20 – $28 force about the adaptability of human beings within an Inspired by the horrific atrociauthoritarian dictatorship and ties committed in Cambodia’s the consequences of those S-21 prison, Feet First Collecadaptations. It’s a play that tive’s S-27 by Sarah Grochala has asks: just how far would you you in the brutal depths of a go to save yourself? Would you tyrannical regime before you’ve abandon a baby, kill your sister, found a seat in the theatre. sell your body? Guards aggressively ‘proThe answers to these quescess’ each audience member tions, and the complexities of before herding everyone into the sacrifices being made, are

Chloe Petts: Transience

There is no preaching or soapboxing here and the anecdotes are more concerned with bodily functions and football crowds than gender theory or textbooks. In her straightforwardness, Petts illustrates the absurdity of gender norms and transphobia arguably more effectively than any of the latter could. Ultimately, Petts may be grateful for the delay: Transience is the right show for this moment, and Petts the right comedian to perform it. She needn’t worry about the time lost to the pandemic – based on Transience, her ascent in the comedy world will surely be almost immediate. ✏︎ Eve Livingston

Petts is a natural comedian: audiences would be forgiven for double-checking that Transience really is a debut, given HHHHH her assured presence and confident performance. She VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard banters with a mixed crowd TIME: 6:00pm – 7:00pm easily, delivering punchline 3–28 Aug after punchline – many of them off-the-cuff – and surely It’s easy to imagine that an establishing herself as a comunwelcome two-year delay edy star of the future. to your comedy debut might And her material has never dent your confidence or cause felt so timely. An oft-misgenyou to question your material. dered lesbian, self-described Chloe Petts was ready to take as “the man I always wanted to to the Fringe stage in 2020 be,” Petts is uniquely placed to before that pesky pandemic unpick and shed light on the got in the way; luckily, her act senselessness of the gender has emerged unscathed and binary and an increasing onperhaps even stronger as slaught of transphobia, an aim a result. she achieves with ease.

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Photo: Anneliese Nappa

crawled from the ocean has evolved into a curious animal. An animal that misses the chance to reflect while locked at home during a pandemic is HHHHH a curious animal indeed. VENUE: Assembly George Square And, boy, does Randy know Studios his animals! A merciless snake TIME: 9:15pm – 10:15pm, 3–28 in Sub-Saharan Africa, a nutriAug, not 15 ent-rich five-inch worm, a terrified gecko. He knows what evolution has given a species Randy Feltface has lost none of and the precise threat to the existential concerns which its existence. made his last Edinburgh show, He knows storytelling too: Randy Writes a Novel, from The Epic of Gilgamesh to so gripping. the 2018 thriller The Commuter. Fortified by vaccines, he And history: the Anglo-Zanzibar opens with a song that takes War and the 1950s polio epia four million year view of hisdemic. His skill is narrowing his tory. To a purple puppet alien, focus from panoramic topics with an anthropological turn to vivid images: the violent of mind, the slime that first and salacious death of a 10th

Randy Feltface

Comedy

century Pope. Randy wears all this knowledge loosely. You never get a sense of the encyclopaedia on the desk as he wrote the show. While sometimes he reaches for lower-hanging fruit, he always manages to smuggle a surprise: a riff on TikTok gives a quick, unexpected callback to an anagram of his name. The show bounces to a singa-long ending, the audience tonight whoop as we exit. But the story that introduced the karaoke lingers: a sober Randy is still unable to shake the need for approval in a testosterone-fuelled bar. Alien of Extraordinary Ability is, then, an extraordinary show: with Randy as much a philosopherpuppet as he is a puppetphilospher. ✏ Ben Venables

“What a fucking start!” McCabe chuckles, as she strolls on stage, a fair bit late thanks to a faulty Assembly Studios fire alarm. “I’ve waited HHHHH three years for this, and they make me wait 15 minutes VENUE: Assembly George Square more.” McCabe could probably Studios have helped, actually: she was TIME: 7:45pm – 8:45pm an electrician before 3–28 Aug, not 15 comedy called. Plenty of her tall tales involve alcohol, like when she took her one-legged dad on Stand-up Susie McCabe is a pub crawl for fathers’ day, trying to be a better person. That is the loose theme of her or when she was forced to rowdy new hour, Born Believer, attend the hen do from hell anyway, which the 42-year-old with her mother. There are lots Scot essentially just stuffs full of punchlines about her age, of as many rollicking stories as her Catholic guilt, her love of football, and her sexuality – she can.

McCabe knew she was gay from a young age – along the way. She is not afraid of mining her personal life for material, either. Her romantic relationships and her parents’ health problems are all touched on with arresting affection, as are some classic Fringe themes, like the differences between Scotland and England. The whole thing is ultimately a lot like being down the pub with a larger-than-life pal. Animated and exuberant throughout, McCabe is an infectiously funny raconteur in the grandest Glaswegian tradition. ✏ Fergus Morgan

Feature

Susie McCabe: Born Believer

Photo: Jiksaw – Aeman Sukar

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Just the Tonic at the Caves 3:40pm – 4:40pm, 4-28 Aug, not 15

There are two sides to standup comedian Chelsea Birkby. There is the nice side and there is the nasty side. Her Edinburgh Fringe debut No

her anxious energy is definitely part of her charisma. No More Mr Nice Chelsea is also something of an introduction to Birkby, who was a finalist for the So You Think You’re Funny? Award back in 2018, has written for multiple seasons of Mock The Week – and has presumably had to wait a lot longer than she expected to kickstart her career with a solo hour. She can consider it kickstarted, though, because this is ultimately a seriously promising show – deceptively smart, tightly structured, and delivered with chatty charm. ✏︎ Fergus Morgan

Feature Reviews

Photo: Chris WR Cox

Chelsea Birkby: No More Mr Nice Chelsea

More Mr Nice Chelsea is largely about her long, occasionally traumatic, and often hilarious struggle to reconcile the two. It takes in her childhood in Milton Keynes (there is plenty of noughties nostalgia here) and her university days (featuring all the frolics of freshers’ week), before taking a sharply serious – but still somehow silly – turn to discuss her diagnosis with bipolar disorder and an incident of sexual harassment she suffered. All of it is delivered with an endearing, affectless giggle and a self-effacing, slightly dorky grin, too. She could probably slow up a touch, though:

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Photo: Monika Pronk

Aliya Kanani: Where You From, From? HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Just the Tonic at The Tron 7:40pm – 8:40pm, 4–28 Aug, not 15

Aliya Kanani is really good at lying – or storytelling, as she prefers to call it. It’s a skill that comes naturally when you’re continually questioned about your background, and then questioned again when the 26

Comedy

first answer you give isn’t quite enough. The title of Kanani’s show may be a nod to this awkward line of cross-examination, but it’s also a reference to her own feelings of not necessarily fitting in anywhere. In her debut hour, the Canada-based comedian ruminates on what it means to belong, engaging with universal themes like race, sexuality and gender to highlight why and how it becomes such a loaded question. Her explicit, confident delivery makes light of the notion of sticking out, but there is some poignancy here too, especially when she explains how she almost

quit comedy due to being tokenised, only to find herself back within its grasp. Some of the material around not-so-random airport security checks and her time as a flight attendant travelling the world feel overly drawn out. But throughout, there are nuggets of gold, ranging from her nickname at school (it rhymes with Kanani) to the rap about putting a dick in a blender. Instead of pandering to what might be expected of her as a brown woman doing comedy, Kanani plays with those assumptions to take up the space she rightfully deserves. ✏︎ Arusa Qureshi

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HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Underbelly Bistro Square 6:10pm – 7:10pm, 3-29 Aug, not 15

Stand-up comedian Emmanuel Sonubi used to moonlight as a nightclub bouncer and, at six feet three and 19 stone, it is easy to appreciate why. Sonubi’s problem, though –

and the central theme of his new hour Emancipated – is that what was on the inside did not match society’s expectations about the outside. Raised in North London with five older sisters, he was always more interested in musicals than muscles, always keener on Fame than fighting. In fact, before he became a comedian a few years ago, Sonubi worked extensively as an actor. But it's his experiences as a bouncer that are the most entertaining element of Emancipated. He has a brilliant riff on how watching over a dancefloor is like looking after young children, and several

outrageous stories of the things he saw drunk people do while on the job. Sonubi tells them all with an easy, affable charm. He meanders a little – early festival nerves, probably, given this is his Fringe debut – and he is more insightful than outright hilarious when it comes to more serious subjects like stereotyping and cancel culture, but he never seems out of his depth. His star is on the rise, too, having recently appeared on Live at the Apollo and supported Jason Manford on tour. This show is another solid step up the ladder. ✏︎ Fergus Morgan

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Photo: Steve Ullathorne

Emmanuel Sonubi: Emancipated

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Alex MacKeith: Thanks for Listening

route for the acoustic guitarist comic, melodically strumming away to increasingly unhinged lyrics. Coronavirus has unquestionably helped him in this regard, with his opening HHHHH number an amusing account of being locked down with his VENUE: Underbelly equally repressed father, the Bistro Square incremental easing of their TIME: 2:45pm – 3:45pm constipated love related with 3–28 Aug, not 15 droll humour. An instant irritation here though is MacKeith’s tendency to mention apparent Openly paying homage to the personal revelations (a dead current greats of musical com- brother? An adoption story?) edy – Bill Bailey, Tim Minchin and and then never develop them Flight of the Conchords – while further, re-cloaking behind his kicking against his internalised stage persona, as if presuming blandness as a white, cis, midthe audience’s attendance of dle-class male, Alex MacKeith future shows. takes the tried and tested This is a minor bugbear

Eryn Tett Finds Her Audience HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Just the Tonic at The Tron 5:00pm – 6:00pm, 4–28 Aug, not 15

New comedians are always told to work on ‘finding their audience,’ and Eryn Tett plans on taking that advice literally. Armed with a flipchart, a microphone and a TV screen, Tett presents an hour of comedy-slash-market-research designed to hone down her support and pinpoint her 30

Comedy

perfect audience member. Tett’s comedy falls somewhere between stand-up and absurdism, a string of one-liners, observations and idiosyncratic impressions. She is affectedly awkward, immediately likeable and, once you settle into the rhythm of her offbeat material, consistently funny – for the right audience, of course. This show is high concept and its format is brave; the comedy is interrupted at scheduled points to gauge audience feedback and contribute to Tett’s data collection. She deals confidently with this intense audience interaction and relieves the pressure with reference to the data she has already collected – certain sec-

though, as generally Thanks for Listening is an entertaining debut and superior example of the genre, with the comic successfully channelling widespread social anxieties into singalong tunes, while adding just enough idiosyncratic crazy to make himself appear distinct. A nice twist on the stalker-y vibes of such troubadours is that in one song about a female neighbour he casts himself as the catch, despite the tune’s dark conclusion, while a ditty about his radical weight loss plan is wonderfully demented. There are obviously deeper, darker waters for MacKeith to plumb within himself but for a first show this is an appealing introduction. ✏ Jay Richardson

tions of the seating plan tend to like her more than others; will the pattern continue? Tett uses technology well to punctuate the show. While pre-recorded video clips of her signalling a data collection moment aren’t strictly necessary, pastiches of sponsored ads are clever and funny and one particular reveal about her findings so far leads to one of the show’s biggest laughs. The premise of the show works for Tett because it’s true that she will need to find her audience; this brand of semi-surreal and esoteric comedy won’t be for everyone. But for the right audience, this is a fun Fringe hour spent with an accomplished comedian. ✏ Eve Livingston

Theatre Reviews

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Traverse Theatre times vary 4–28 Aug not 8, 15, 22

Happy Meal opens on a snowy (digital) vista but warmth radiates off the stage in this rapturous story of finding friendship and your own identity online. Art can often be sceptical of our hyper-connected world but Tabby Lamb’s play understands the intense intimacy of the internet and its ability to allow queer people to experiment with being their authentic selves.

That’s the experience of Alec (Sam Crerar), who’s building confidence as a trans man in digital spaces before testing the waters in the outside world. He finds a fast friend in the exuberant Bette (Allie Daniel). The pair spend their evenings chatting about Buffy and Neighbours but when Alec suggests meeting IRL, the relationship gets more complicated, forcing the dismantling of their projected identities for something messier but more honest. Lamb’s dialogue is delightfully rat-a-tat and spills over with noughties references, but beyond the nostalgic callouts there’s a pleasing directness in the script’s depiction of the

Photo: LottieReviews Amor

Happy Meal

joys and complications of being transgender. Despite most of the drama taking place on Alec and Bette’s desktops Happy Meal never feels static, with the vivid staging using colourful lighting projections and some very familiar audio cues to transport us to myriad online spaces. Energy emanates from the performances too. As Alec, Crerar exudes a cock-of-the-walk swagger while Daniel plays Bette as a geeky diva who uses goofiness to hide plenty of inner turmoil. The Fringe doesn’t want for transgender stories, but you’ll find few as wise, tender and joyous as this one. ✏︎ Jamie Dunn

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Bloody Elle HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Traverse Theatre times vary 5–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22

There are three guitars and three microphone stands sitting innocuously on stage before Lauryn Redding saunters on, beer firmly in hand. She addresses the audience casually and amicably, before introducing her semi-autobiographical tale of first love

and heartbreak, as if we were all sitting together in a pub, whiling the hours away. But the storytelling that follows is masterful and thrilling, capturing the intricacies and intensity of such infatuation and lust with tenderness. Bloody Elle is centred on the tragic trope of the star-crossed lovers but set within an LGBTQ+ framework, with working-class, aspiring musician Elle falling for the posh, polite and soon-to-be doctor Eve. Redding’s original score is built around folk-pop and soft-rock songs that are chopped up and looped with skill, her blistering vocals soaring above the guitar lines of each track as she moves from

microphone to microphone, and acoustic to electric guitar. Though the music and spoken word is stirring throughout, the real strength of Bloody Elle lies in the effortlessness with which Redding assumes the role of every character, switching register, accent and even physicality with such ease and precision that you quickly forget you’re watching a one-woman solo show. As a piece of gig theatre, Bloody Elle is electrifying, joyous and cathartic in equal measure, celebrating difference and complexity, while also underlining the urgency of acceptance. ✏︎ Arusa Qureshi Photo: Lottie Amor

Bloody Elle

Theatre

Reviews Photo: Andy Catlin

Svengali

Svengali HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 1:45pm – 2:45pm 3–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22

“Nature is mental,” so comes a line toward the end of this captivating reimaging of George du Maurier’s Svengali. It’s a neat, declarative summation of the previous 40 minutes, where we are led by the collar through the story of a tennis prodigy who is chewed up and spat out by her monstrous coach, left to process the blur of events

that’s happened to her. The one-woman performance by Chloe-Ann Tylor is terrific, creating a perfect balance in the titular Svengali. He sees in Trilby not a person, but an animal to be trained. Neat mannerisms highlight these predatory aspects – the stretching, as if preparing for a fight; the occasional drop to the haunches, evoking a tennis player about to receive a serve; and the strangely chilling hands slicking back his black hair when he needs to compose himself. At the same time, he is phenomenally charismatic, and you do feel yourself being

sucked in, charmed in the same way Trilby is. When the show flips to Trilby’s perspective for the last 10 minutes or so, it does take a minute or so to come to terms with this change. The script is vital, funny and full of deft, poetic lines. The pacing is a little quick in the middle, as Trilby ascends up the ranks from upstart to potential Wimbledon champion, and maybe an extra 10 minutes would help this. But on the whole, this is an excellent piece that showcases a performer and writer both on the top of their games. ✏︎ Harry Harris

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S-27 by Sarah Grochala HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

The Mill run ended

Inspired by the horrific atrocities committed in Cambodia’s S-21 prison, Feet First Collective’s S-27 by Sarah Grochala has you in the brutal depths of a tyrannical regime before you’ve found a seat in the theatre. Guards aggressively ‘process’ each audience member before herding everyone into a dark rectangular room. May (Gabriella Munro), a young photographer, is charged with taking photos of dissenters, rebelling against the organisation, as they are directed towards a door, and their impending doom. What ensues is a tour-deforce about the adaptability of human beings within an authoritarian dictatorship and the consequences of those adaptations. It’s a play that asks: just how far would you go to save yourself? Would you abandon a baby, kill your sister, sell your body? The answers to these questions, and the complexities of the sacrifices being made, are shown through gut-wrenching vignettes throughout. These performances that delve into performances that delve into snippets are broken up by musical interludes with choreographed, repetitive body movements, allowing you further into these atrocities. 36

At times, the dialogue leans towards cliché, but this doesn’t detract from an incredible performance from the entire cast. Lauren Beeton and Sally Clune give are particularly transfixing performances that delve into sheer fear, hopelessness and

the intoxication of power. S-27 is a full submersion into a disturbing reality that leans a little too closely into our own Mint, sunt voluptaectur simus ulpa consequi volum quis cus exped eniet eicab ius quis cone sed mod est veritat.. ✏︎ Edwina Sleigh

his pleas for help. Understandably, the lad feels betrayed, and the following day he locks them both in a classroom to get answers. Reece soon has his elder on the back foot, throwing around insults that HHHHH question her Black identity and VENUE: Summerhall irritating her with his repeated TIME: 5:40pm – 6:50pm use of the n-word. Gillian, de3–28 Aug, not 15, 22 spite her seniority, is not above her own cheap shots (mocking his stature, questioning his An ugly incident at middle-class sexuality). Their exchanges beBritain’s favourite retailer kicks come more revealing – and the off this beautifully performed play more compelling – when two-hander. Reece (Jelani they slip into various role-playD’Aguilar), a nervy Black teen, ing scenarios and eventually is roughed up by police for no start inhabiting each apparent reason outside M&S other’s shoes. while his prissy teacher Gillian Nana-Kofi Kufuor’s script is (Misha Duncan-Barry), who’s breakneck, but the fizzy pace also Black, watches on, ignoring can’t distract from its convo-

luted setup, clearly designed to force these warring characters together. You might find yourself asking, why doesn’t Gillian just shout through the door for assistance? Or crucially, why don’t these characters address each other like student and pupil? The raw performances are undeniably powerful, though. Particularly compelling is D’Aguilar, a livewire who can change from intimidating thug to vulnerable boy on a dime. The characters’ punchy back and forths are a bit like watching two pugilists, both of whom you want to win. But as the play’s nihilistic final moments suggest, we live in a society where neither can. ✏ Jamie Dunn

Reviews

Photo: Lazenby Brown

My Voice Was Heard But It Was Ignored

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Image courtesy: The Gingerbread Agency

The TwentySided Tavern HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Dome 4:30pm – 5:40pm 3–28 Aug, not 15

Dungeons & Dragons has always lent itself to theatricality, with its distinct storytelling flair, cast of wild and wacky characters, and unapologetic fantasy aesthetic. The Twenty-Sided Tavern takes the concept of the beloved tabletop role-playing game (never cited by name in the runtime 38

Theatre

for, the gamemaster informs the audience drily, copyright reasons) and turns it into the Fringe-iest of Fringe shows: an improv-style adventure replete with bad props, audience participation through their phones (it is Fringe 2022, after all) and comedy bits that should be grating, but end up disarmingly winning instead. As an example of its genres (digitally adjacent theatre, improv comedy), The Twenty-Sided Tavern doesn’t push any boundaries, yet its simple, basic premise lets the easy chemistry of the cast stand out, resulting in a show that feels low stakes in the best possible way:

infectiously charming, reliably funny people putting on a silly show. Its DIY sensibility (wigs hastily thrown on and off, accents that the cast rib each other about throughout) allows for a deadpan, self-referential kind of improv that lets the audience in on the joke – there’s a generosity at play here which refuses the gatekeeping that fantasy communities can tend towards. Tabletop role-playing games are, at their heart, about two things – chance and community. The Twenty-Sided Tavern takes both, if nothing else, seriously: what else is there to do but laugh at the fickle hand of fate together. ✏ Anahit Behrooz

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Image courtesy: Jo Thorne

Oedipus Electronica

Oedipus Electronica HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 3:30pm – 4:45pm 3–26 Aug

Following their last show Medea Electronica, experimental theatre company Pecho Mama once again draw from ancient Greece; this time, transplanting mythical characters into more contemporary and familiar contexts. Oedipus Electronica is based on the story of the tragic hero that unwittingly kills his own 40

Theatre

father and marries his mother but in this version, Oedipus’ mother Jocasta is the central figure, with Oedipus as her fictional creation. Artistic Director Mella Faye, who plays Jocasta, excels in her performance as a struggling writer enduring an ectopic pregnancy and this switching of focus is effective in amplifying themes such as motherhood. Faye’s overall sound design, alongside the lighting and technical details are used to great effect to heighten the drama and storytelling, especially at moments of climax like Oedipus’ act of self-blinding. But there are times when the musical backdrop, though skilfully composed and performed, feels disconnected from the main

action, temporarily removing you from the dialogue, even at points when the audience is directly acknowledged. Modern reinterpretations of Greek mythology require an element of divergence – there is, after all, a cliché that can come naturally with tales that have been read, told and depicted for thousands of years. With Oedipus Electronica, the company loses some of that balance due to moments that feel overwrought. But still, in their retelling of such stories with the addition of jazz and electronic-infused soundtracks, Pecho Mama emphasise an originality that enables the suspense and the devastation to quietly simmer. ✏ Arusa Qureshi

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Gilded Balloon Teviot 4:00pm – 5:00pm 3–29 Aug

In 2002, frustrated by the BBC’s coverage of the nascent war in Afghanistan, Henry Naylor wrote a satire skewering the media’s panting opportunism (the resulting play, Finding Bin Laden, premiered at the Fringe

in 2003). Realising that he knew nothing of the country or the conflict he was writing about, him and his photographer pal Sam Maynard set off to uncover the ‘facts’ for themselves. 20 years on, what they actually found haunts him still. Naylor is a superb storyteller, capturing both the ignorance that led him into a war zone 20 years ago, and the hard-won self-awareness of the intervening years. Though he still carries plenty of disdain for the various agents tearing the country apart, this time Naylor reserves most of the censure for himself. Who was he to be endangering the lives of others for the sake of a story; one which he might

not have the right to tell, and ultimately will not alleviate the suffering of its victims? Despite Naylor’s best, most genuine intentions, there are moments where people and events feel reduced to pat moralising – a girl in a photograph is a ‘gift of empathy’, not a full person caught up in a senseless war. Overall, however, with Maynard’s deeply affecting photographs projected behind him, Naylor offers a glimpse into a complicated country that does not shy away from our part in its destruction. The afterimage of what he’s seen – and what we’ve tried to look away from these past two decades – burns on. ✏ Deborah Chu Photo: Rosalind Furlong

Henry Naylor, Afghanistan Is Not Funny

Reviews

Afghanistan Is Not Funny

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Photo: Devin de Vil

A Bard Day’s Night We review three very different interpretations of Shakespeare at the Fringe The Tragedy of Macbeth is a sensory interpretation of the Scottish play by Flabbergast Theatre, heightened even by smell as red wine and the players’ hard-working sweat wafts in the air. Drums, harmonies and chimes make an inventive soundscape, adding texture and rhythm to the play. The interplay between Lady Macbeth and the new Thane of Cawdor is suffused with a vital physicality, which puts across the animalistic ambition underpinning the plot. Shakespeare’s words are a little harder to connect with, often voiced richly but carefully, in an otherwise animated performance which makes for a Macbeth that feels both like a Fringe and a full scale production. A walk down Drummond Street, to Pleasance’s oldest space, finds the Bard reimagined in Boris the Third. A pleasing and fun hour that tells the story of a teenage Boris Johnson performing 42

Theatre

as Richard III at Eton College. Harry Kershaw’s Boris bumbles with the charm and disarming upper-class English politeness that won over the English electorate. The play sets up plenty: the school production within the play and also the comedic parallels between Richard III and Boris. Plus, the early 1980s political references parallelling with our own time (did Boris have a ‘party’ in his room?). It lacks the intricate plotting of both its protagonists and doesn’t all pay off. Yet it has a winning charm and is effective in putting over the teenage Boris’ arrested development and cocoon of his privilege. Over at Ashton Hall in Saint Stephen’s, Stockbridge, Ian McKellen is now, at 83, playing the young Dane Hamlet. Or he’s playing one of the Hamlets in Hamlet with Ian McKellen, in a confused, and confusing, ballet. If the artistic intentions are clear at all, it’s hard to get on board. A costume change

Johan Christensen & Ian McKellen

which sees our two Hamlets in technicolour shirts, patterned like Elmer the Elephant, is a choice attempting to signify something – but what? Is Hamlet zany? It’s hard to know which Hamlet to be distracted by as one or the other seems, inadvertently and unaccountably, to be on stage stalking another production. ✏︎ Ben Venables

The Tragedy of Macbeth

HHHHH HHH Assembly Roxy, 12:00pm – 1:30pm, 4-29 Aug, not 17

Boris the Third

HHHHH HHH Pleasance Courtyard, 4:10pm – 5:10pm, 4-29 Aug, not 15

Hamlet with Ian McKellen

HHHHH HH Ashton Hall, Saint Stephens Stockbridge, times vary, 2-28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22

Photo: Paul Maguire

Taiwan Season: Tomato

lascivious possibilities (smooth skin, round form, you get it), three performers immerse themselves in its world, filling their own theatrical space with HHHHH its form – plastic, real, and one dinky tomato-shaped camera VENUE: Summerhall that films the proceedings. TIME: 3:10pm –3:40pm Choreographer Chou Kuan3–28 Aug, not 8, 15, 22 Jou cleverly navigates the plurality of desire: the performers’ movements shift from The eponymous fruit of Tomato languorous to frenzied in mere becomes a cipher for lust seconds, every move expressing the simultaneous freedom and intimacy in this curious half-choreographed, half-digital and complication of sexuality in piece that digs into the tactility the modern age. There are times where the and frenzy of sexual desire with choreography edges towards sometimes wry, sometimes bewildered enthusiasm. Plumb- the crude – in interpretation rather than explicitness – ing the depths of the tomato’s

Photo: Stella Chen

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus Reviews

slightly derailing the dreamy obliqueness that runs through the rest of the show. Yet there’s something undeniably beautiful, and profoundly human, about it all, and the live-documenting camera – a potentially gimmicky tool – becomes one of the show’s most knowing touches, making manifest the shudder and collapse and sheer vitality of the human body as sexual subject. Only 30 minutes long, Tomato moves swiftly in and out of a pleasurable chaos, making the audience as complicit as the performers. Desire, it tells us, is a sweet and maddening and rabid thing. Give in to its push and pull. ✏ Anahit Behrooz

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Photo: Paul Maguire

Dreams of the Small Gods HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Summerhall 7:50pm – 8:40pm 3–28 Aug, not 15, 22

A naked woman hangs from a trapeze, before slowly gaining consciousness of herself and what she’s capable of. Dreams of the Small Gods is an audacious display of performer 46

and creator Zinnia Oberski’s powerful physicality, as the Wild Woman’s tentative fear gives way to explosions of joy. Swinging from her heels and rolling gleefully in the dirt, the Wild Woman’s unfurling strength draws the Demonstration Room into her sense of wonder – until, that is, the creature from the spirit world intervenes. By stripping back its visuals to its most basic forms ...Small Gods is allowed to resonate on multiple levels: are we witnessing the Fall of Eve? A new chimera? The production speaks to many of our best-

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus

known myths and origin stories, without losing its focus on the primacy of the Wild Woman’s sensual experiences – the sound of rain, the flex of her hands on the rope. Unfortunately, the show’s final act loses much of this clarity, as Oberski’s propulsive movements seem less sure of what they’re meant to be conveying, and where this leaves the Wild Woman. Spiritual transformations are a messy business at the best of times, but it’s a shame to see the Wild Woman thus diminished to the realms of smaller gods. ✏ Deborah Chu

Image: Steve Ullathorne

Cabaret Reviews Sugarcoated Sisters: Bittersweet

partnership, which combines idiosyncratic melodrama with straight-faced, sardonic jokes about ridiculous men. Bittersweet is the story of the HHHHH sisters’ return to their hometown and their various unlucky VENUE: Just the Tonic at exploits in the world of dating. The Caves They introduce themselves TIME: 8:50pm – 9:50pm, 4–28 appropriately with a jingle sumAug, not 15, 22 marising their main qualities (“We’re sick bitches, we’re the Musical comedy involving more Sugarcoated Sisters, I’ve got than one person requires a very bipolar and I’ve got diabetes”), specific type of camaraderie which leads to songs about and balance to stop it from red flags in ex-boyfriends, toxic entering that potential territory masculinity and a demented of cringe. Though being real-life version of Happy Birthday. siblings certainly helps, the Through their male alter-egos, Sugarcoated Sisters eliminate the Bitter Brothers, they ridicule this possibility through their the laddish banter that results very natural and self-assured in men determining women 48

Cabaret

Sugarcoated Sisters

can’t be funny, getting the audience involved in their over-thetop, brazen parody of men that like to take down women. Their comedic timing is excellent but beyond that, Bittersweet is a showcase of true musicianship, from Chloe’s effortless plucked guitar accompaniments to Tabby’s dynamic scat singing and fluid double bass lines. They may be known for their content on TikTok but the Sugarcoated Sisters deserve a live audience and prove that their musical comedy works way beyond the confines of the internet. Who’d have thought that an audience sing-a-long involving the words poo and floppy dick could be so effective. ✏ Arusa Qureshi

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Assembly George Square Studios 7:00pm – 8:00pm 4–28 Aug, not 15, 22

The concept of the Final Girl is a common trope used in slasher films. She’s the last woman left alive to come face to face with the killer and often the force that restores good; the one continuing on the story. It’s fair to assume that you’d root for this person, wanting her to suc-

ceed in outsmarting the villain. The latter applies unequivocally to Baby Lame, whose debut solo show Final Baby Girl! is a maniacal romp through their ultimate fantasy of, at long last, assuming that Final Girl role. The cult cabaret star’s frenzied persona is punctuated well with the videos screened behind them, ranging from a wacky cartoon about their early life to screenshots of matches from a horror-centred alternative to Tinder or Grindr. Along the way, they never forget about the audience, who quickly become unwilling participants in their strange narrative about erotic vampires and

mass-murders. In most cases, such forced audience participation can be hit or miss but Baby Lame’s brand of absurdity is hard to resist, with everyone on their feet (or lying on the floor in some cases), cheering them on in pantomime-style call and response. In this riotous hour full of original songs and slasher film cliches, Baby Lame combines punk-horror and innovative theatre-making to playfully interrogate the trope of the Final Girl. They’re not fearful or intimidated by this anonymous knife-wielding killer; they’re badass, gutsy and kind of kinky too. ✏ Arusa Qureshi

Photo: Nik Pate

Final Baby Girl!

49 Reviews

Final Baby Girl!

Image: Samuel Temple

Music Reviews DÝRA

scapes and liminal states”. Closer to a sound bath than a staged production, D Ý R A HHHHH provides that rarest of Fringe experiences: calm. As we look VENUE: Summerhall up at the ceiling of a pale, gosTIME: times vary samer tent, ambient coloured 3–28 Aug, not 4, 8, 15, 22 lights shift imperceptibly from arctic blue, to sunset pink, to sherbert orange – and that’s if Shoeless and lying on our backs, you choose to keep your eyes we are given a gift in an ice open. Eyes closed, the sounds – cave in Summerhall’s basement. understated, mesmeric, layered Su Shaw, a Scottish-Portuguese – allegedly conjure Dýrafjörður artist and musician working in the Westfjords of Iceland, but as SHHE, has created D Ý R A, a the where is almost incidental. “sonic installation evoking land- Our journeys are both collec50

Music

DÝRA tive and individual; this is true escapism from the unchecked chaos of the festival. There is very little content to speak of here, though that is entirely the point. Eventually we hear water dripping, our igloo seemingly lashed gently by the sun, or like a SAD lamp coaxing us back to reality. And then: silence. Pupils dilating, mistaking the mottled ceiling for deep sky, we reflect, rejuvenated. D Ý R A is an unshowy, minimalist 50 minutes, but it achieves exactly what it sets out to do. ✏ George Sully

Lizard Boy

VENUE: TIME:

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 6:30pm – 7:30pm 3–28 Aug, not 15

Under the comic book spoofs, dating app quips and infectious indie pop numbers, Lizard Boy is an endearing tale about self-acceptance and opening yourself up to love. Writer and composer Justin Huertas plays Trevor, an awkward recluse

villain, Siren – underpin it all with a furious clout. Some cutesy numbers are used to good comic effect, particularly when the “dark story” of the dragon of Mount St Helen is told with a jaunty ukulele and kazoo. The plot could be taken as a parable for the prejudices that still haunt Grindr – Trevor’s green skin is portrayed not by costume but an appeal to the audience’s imagination, which brings to mind the racist preferences that some users put in their dating profiles – but Lizard Boy doesn’t dwell on this for long. For the most part it is a fun romp, if a little saccharine, with a nice dose of romantic wish fulfilment. ✏ Becca Inglis

Photo: Kevin Berne

Lizard Boy

51 Reviews

HHHHH

whose neuroses are hardly helped by his scaly green skin – the result of a childhood encounter with a dragon on a kindergarten playground. When, tired of hiding out in his flat, he opens Grindr, what starts as a promising date soon evolves into a call for a reluctant hero to save the world. Trevor’s loneliness and yearning for affection are beautifully rendered in Huertas’ songwriting, whose heartfelt yet catchy pop sensibility resembles guitar-wielding singer-songwriters like Jason Mraz. The music can stray into twee territory at times, though the operatic vocals of Kirsten deLohr Helland – who plays the jaded rock star

festmag.com

Image: Nathan Gallagher

Kids Critics Shlomo’s Beatbox Adventure for Kids

Alvie, 14 months, reacts to a fun history of hip hop and beatboxing

Who was your favourite character and why? It’s a one-person show and besides being an excellent beatboxer, Shlomo tells a good, candid story and gels well with the kid volunteers that come onstage for a beatbox battle. What happens in the show? Beatboxer Shlomo [they/him] runs through a fun history of hip hop and beatboxing, with plenty of excellent demos and easy-to-follow instructions for kids to copy their technique. Shlomo describes how he started beatboxing aged eight after the neighbours complained about his drumming. He gets in some Fresh Prince of Bel Air references for the adults and slips in nice woke messaging about non-binary identities, being an anti-racist ally, ADHD and mental health too. 52

Kids

Were there any characters you didn’t like? It didn’t really have characters, it’s more of a true story and a music lesson. What did you like most about the show? Alvie was hooked for the first five minutes, chair dancing and watching Shlomo bouncing around under colourful lights. Then he fell into a spontaneous deep nap, because that’s what babies do. His eight-year-old cousin thought it was amazing though and was still practicing his new skills the next day.

What didn’t you like about the show? It’s one energetic person with two mics onstage. Sometimes no mic (which was impressive). Maybe some props or visuals or snippets of well known songs would have held the attention of the smaller kids more and mixed up the show a bit. What did your grown-up think about the show? I enjoyed the 80s and 90s Bronx flashbacks and hearing Shlomo’s story – plus the unexpected mentions of non-binary pronouns probably prompted a few good chats with kids after the show. Would you tell your friends to come to the show? Yes! Especially ones with kids maybe five and up. VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 12:05pm – 1:05pm 3–28 Aug, not 17

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Comedy 00:00

International Comedy Jam Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, 10-28 Aug, not 13 Bumble Me Tinders: Dating Horror Stories! Laughing Horse @ The Pear Tree, 10-28 Aug, not 15 Just the Tonic’s Midnight Show Just the Tonic at The Grassmarket Centre, Various dates from 12 Aug to 27 Aug Shannon Matthews the Musical Just the Tonic at The Caves, 10-27 Aug, not 15, 22 Late Show Great Show Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 10-28 Aug