l a v i t s fe 1–8 AUG 2018 | WEEK 1 LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
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RECIRQUEL COMPANY UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME ALEX EDELMAN COURTNEY ACT SARA BARRON WRENNE
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IN ASSOCIATION WITH
CABARET | COMEDY | DANCE | KIDS | MUSIC | THEATRE | VISUAL ART
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CONTENTS FESTIVAL 2018 | ISSUE 1 | LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVAL
Big Fat Bribes
2
Top 20
5
News
13
FEATURES
14
Anya Anastasia
14
Alex Edelman
17
My Land
29
FOOD & DRINK Events round-up
36 36
CABARET
39
Courtney Act
39
Hitlist
40
Gingzilla
41
Top Tips: Week 1
42
COVER STORY
COMEDY
Podcasts
47
ANYA ANASTASIA: THE EXECUTIONERS
Jamali Maddix
48
Aussie cabaret star Anya Anastasia is back with a new show and this time, she’s going after techno obsessives, slacktivist keyboard warriors and the 21st-century landscape itself. She joins musical partner-incrime Gareth Chin for a thrilling analysis of our modern world. Find out more on page 14.
45
Reginald D Hunter
45
Hitlist
46
Sara Barron
51
Top Tips: Week 1
73
DANCE
81
Dance Base
81
Hitlist
82
Cold Blood
83
Top Tips: Week 1
85
KIDS
89
David Baddiel’s AniMalcolm
89
Hitlist
90
Circa: Wolfgang
91
Top Tips: Week 1
92
MUSIC
95
Wrenne
95
Hitlist
96
Classical at EIF
97
Top Tips: Week 1
101
THEATRE
17
29
OFFERS Win tickets to see Bruce Dickinson at EIBF
ALEX EDELMAN
MY LAND
The 2014 Edinburgh Comedy Awards Best Newcomer returns with his third solo show about tribalism and gorillas that can do sign language.
Blending dance, physical theatre and circus, Recirquel Company Budapest arrive at the Edinburgh Fringe with the world premiere of their new show.
9
Win a night at the Fringe with Whyte & Mackay
9
Win a bottle of Caorunn gin
9
Win a pair of tickets to Art Late Win tickets to Terry Alderton: The Musical
A Generous Lover
103
Hitlist
104
Mental Health
105
Feminism
109
Alt-right opposition
114
Top Tips: Week 1
116
VISUAL ART
123
Tacita Dean
123
Hitlist
124
10
Ruth Ewan
125
10
EVENTS
128
Free side dish for Edinburgh Fringe performers from wagamama 10
Art Late
TOP RATED SHOWS AT LIST.CO.UK/FESTIVALK/ As soon as the festival gets rolling, our critics will be out and about, scouring the city for the shows you need to see – and the ones you can give a miss. Head to list.co.uk/festival every day for all the latest reviews and check our Top Rated page, our essential list of all the best shows.
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Here at List Towers we’re not above a wee bribe to make us sit up and take notice of a show – so come on, what are you waiting for?
CONTRIBUTORS CONTENT Editor Arusa Qureshi Head of Digital Media Scott Henderson Content Manager Murray Robertson Senior Content Producer Alex Johnston Content Producers Deborah Chu, Katharine Gemmell, Sofia Matias, Henry Northmore Subeditors Brian Donaldson, Paul McLean SECTION EDITORS Cabaret Arusa Qureshi Comedy Brian Donaldson Dance / Kids Kelly Apter Festival Food & Drink Deborah Chu Front / News Deborah Chu, Katharine Gemmell Music Henry Northmore Theatre Gareth K Vile Visual Art Rachael Cloughton PRODUCTION Senior Designer Lucy Munro Designers Stuart Polson, Seonaid Rafferty DIGITAL Senior Developer Andy Carmichael Senior Designer Sharon Irish Data Developers Andy Bowles, Alan Miller, Stuart Moir
B
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S BE
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It's that time of year again. Se nd us something nice and/or weird and we might just cover your show. The more bizarre, the better. The more edible, the best. Just please, for the love of god – don't post anything illegal or gross.
WANT TO BRIBE US? Send your bribes to: The Keeper of the Bribes The List | Tweeddale Court | 14 High Street | Edinburgh| EH1 1TE
COMMERCIAL Digital Business Development Director Brendan Miles Partnership Director Sheri Friers Senior Events and Promotions Manager Rachel Cree Senior Account Manager Paul Murphie, Debbie Thomson Account Managers Ross Foley, Jakob Van den Berg Ad Ops Executive Victoria Parker Affiliate Content Executives Craig Angus, Becki Crossley Events and Promotions Assistants Amy Clark, Maria Panagiotopoulou ADMINISTRATION Head of Accounting & HR Sarah Reddie Director Robin Hodge CEO Simon Dessain
Published by The List Ltd HEAD OFFICE: 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE Tel: 0131 550 3050 editor@list.co.uk GLASGOW OFFICE: at the CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow G2 3JD Tel: 0141 332 9929, glasgow@list.co.uk; list.co.uk ISSN: 0959 - 1915 © 2018 The List Ltd. Reproduction in whole or in part is forbidden without the written permission of the publishers. The List does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. The List provides this content in good faith but no guarantee or representation is given that the content is accurate, complete or up-to-date. Use of magazine content is at your own risk. Printed by Acorn Web Offset Ltd, W.Yorkshire.
2 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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TOP 20
PHOTO: GUY SANDERS
festival
THEATRE
Queens of Sheba This play tells the stories of four black women who have been turned away from a nightclub for ‘being too black’, based on the real-life Dstrkt night-spot incident in London in 2015. See feature, page 109. Underbelly Cowgate, 2–36 Aug (not 13).
PHOTO: GUILLAUME MORIN
PHOTO: ANNA KUCERA
PHOTO: RUTH CLARK
VISUAL ART
KIDS
CIRCUS
Tacita Dean: Woman With a Red Hat
Brainiac Live!
Tabarnak
Turner Prize nominee explores the nature of performance with works spanning the length and breadth of her career. See review, page 123. The Fruitmarket Gallery, 1–31 Aug.
Expect exploding dustbins and microwaves in the name of science during this wacky show, which proves that blowing stuff up never gets old. Underbelly Bristo Square, 1–27 Aug (not 13).
Cirque Alfonse pay homage to their Quebecois roots in this irreverent celebration of French-Canadian folk culture, performing gravity-defying circus. Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 4–25 Aug (not 8, 13, 20).
>>
1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 5
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PHOTO: ISOBEL LUTZ-SMITH, THE IMPETUOUS ENGINE, 2016, FILM STILL. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.
PHOTO: SCOTT CHALMERS
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VISUAL ART
Gingzilla: Glamonster vs the World
Platform
Ben Hudson’s alter-ego is on a mission to take over the world. Go with him on a journey through gender equality and feminism from the 50s until now. See feature, page 41. Assembly George Square Theatre, 1–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 21).
Edinburgh Art Festival’s showcase of artists at the start of their careers. This year Platform features works by Renèe Helèna Browne, Annie Crabtree, Isobel Lutz-Smith, and Rae-Yen Song. See feature, page 18. City Art Centre, 1–26 Aug.
THEATRE
CABARET
THEATRE
COMEDY
Chase Scenes
Anya Anastasia: The Executioners
A Generous Lover
Alex Edelman: Just for Us
A fusion of epic poetry, classical mythology and queer modernist lit, this true story focuses on helping a loved one dealing with mental illness. See preview, page 103. Summerhall, 1–26 Aug (not 2, 6, 13, 20).
The third solo show by the former Edinburgh Comedy Award winner. This time round it’s all about jigsaw-loving Nazis and tribalism. See feature, page 17. Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug.
PHOTO: ATTILA KENYERES
CABARET
A thrilling re-enactment of chase scenes from film culture acted out and coupled with live projections on screen. CanadaHub @ King’s Hall in association with Summerhall, 1–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20).
Anya and partner-in-crime Gareth Chin unleash their musical cabaret and satirical wit on 21st-century follies. See feature, page 14. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1–26 Aug (not 13).
KIDS
COMEDY
Dick and Dom: Dick v Dom
Jamali Maddix: Vape Lord
Legendary children’s comedy double act pits the audience against one another in a series of interactive games, songs, and, of course, bogies. Underbelly Bristo Square, 1–12 Aug.
The host of Viceland’s Hate Thy Neighbour stops in Edinburgh before heading out on his first world tour. He ponders the state of society and confronts hate. See feature, page 48. Monkey Barrel, 2–26 Aug (not 13).
6 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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PHOTO: DECLAN ENGLISH
DANCE
MUSIC
Giselle
Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin
Ballet Ireland present a full-length modern retelling of the classic romance, reviving the timeless tale of love, betrayal and redemption beyond the grave. Dance Base, 3–19 Aug (not 6, 13).
A performance of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror film Suspiria with live music from Claudio Simonetti and his band Goblin, who composed the original soundtrack, plus a greatest hits set too. Summerhall, 5 & 6 Aug. PHOTO: ALICIA CLARKE
PHOTO: © THÉÂTRE DES CHAMPS-ELYSÉES
CIRCUS
MUSIC
COMEDY
DANCE
My Land
The Barber of Seville
Sara Barron: For Worse
Vertical Influences
Six circus artists recount personal stories of tradition, freedom and love through stunning acrobatics and the interplay of light and shadow. See feature, page 29. Assembly Roxy, 1–26 Aug (not 8, 13, 20).
Rossini’s comic opera about doing bad things for love. This new production comes to the EIF from Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. See feature, page 97. Festival Theatre, 5–8 Aug.
Debut stand-up hour from host of the hit US storytelling show The Moth, in which she skewers her husband, child, WhatsApp, and more. See feature, page 51. Just the Tonic at the Tron, 2–26 Aug (not 13).
Iconoclastic Canadian ice skaters Le Patin Libre combine the virtuosity of contemporary performance with the coordination and style of street dance. Assembly at Murrayfield Ice Rink, 8–25 Aug (not 13, 14, 20–23). PHOTO: BEN ARONS PHOTOGRAPHY
PHOTO: 59 PRODUCTIONS
MUSIC
THEATRE
Five Telegrams
Underground Railroad Game
Epic digital projection celebrating Scotland’s Year of Young People and paying tribute to the centenary of the end of WWI, featuring an orchestral score by Anna Meredith. See feature, page 23. Festival Square, 3 Aug.
Jennifer Kidwell and Scott Shepard’s Obie-award-winning duet about race relations in the US, tackling issues of race, sex and power in politics with fearless humour. See feature, page 33. Traverse, 2–26 Aug (not 3, 6, 13, 20, 25). 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 7
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IImage by Niall Walker/Mihaela Bodlovic Traverse Theatre (Scotland) is a Limited Company (SC076037) and a Scottish Charity (SC002368) with its Registered Office at 10 Cambridge Street, Edinburgh EH1 2ED
WORLD PREMIERE A TRAVERSE THEATRE COMPANY AND RAW MATERIAL CO-PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH REGULAR MUSIC
CANADA EDINBURGH FESTIVALS 2018
5 – 26 AUG 0131 228 1404 traverse.co.uk
Canada is back this summer with more than 70 acts offering something for everyone across the city. From circus to skating, from a cappella to cutting-edge new theatre, acclaimed classical performers and literary delights – Canada takes its place among the very best of Edinburgh’s festival treats.
To see it all, check out The List’s dedicated Canada brochure, or visit list.co.uk/canada
8 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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READER OFFERS WIN A BOTTLE OF CAORUNN GIN
The List, in association with Caorunn Gin, are offering you the chance to win a bottle of their award winning gin. We’ve teamed up with Caorunn Gin to celebrate the launch of the Caorunn Summer Garden; a pop-up event hosted by Hotel du Vin during this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Running throughout the Festival, this peaceful yet vibrant outdoor sanctuary gives you the opportunity to escape the bustling festival crowds and indulge in a suite of mouthwatering Caorunn Gin cocktails and al fresco dining. Caorunn Summer Garden is brought to you by Hotel du Vin.
WIN TICKETS TO MUSEUM AFTER HOURS
The List, in association with National Museums Scotland, are giving you the chance to win a pair of tickets to the hugely popular Museum After Hours, at the National Museum of Scotland. After four sell-out years, the Fringe is taking over the National Museum of Scotland again for three exhilarating nights this August. Showcasing highlights from their acts, talented Fringe performers come together to provide an amazing night within the inspiring backdrop of the National Museum of Scotland. With pop-up bars and entry to this summer’s major exhibition, Rip It Up: The Story of Scottish Pop, it is set to be an inspiring and legendary night. To be in with a chance of winning, just log onto list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
Where is the Caorunn Summer Garden?
What is the name of the National Museum of Scotland’s major music themed exhibition taking place this summer?
Caorunn Summer Garden Wed 1 – Fri 31 Aug 11 Bristo Place Edinburgh EH1 1EZ
Museum After Hours Fri 10, 17 and 24 Aug 7:30 – 10:30pm National Museum of Scotland Tickets £18 (£16)
caorunngin.com
nms.ac.uk/afterhours
To be in with a chance of winning, log onto list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
TERMS & CONDITIONS: Competition closes Fri 31 Aug 2018. Over 18s only. No cash alternative. The List’s usual rules apply.
TERMS & CONDITIONS: Competition closes Tue 21 Aug 2018. Over 18s only. No cash alternative. The List’s usual rules apply.
WIN A NIGHT AT THE FRINGE AND A BOTTLE OF WHISKY WITH WHYTE & MACKAY
WIN TICKETS TO SEE BRUCE DICKINSON AT EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL
The List are partnering up with Whyte & Mackay this festival season to offer one lucky reader a spectacular night at the Fringe. Winners can win a pair of tickets to the shows of both comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti and Irish sketch comedy group Foil, Arms and Hog on Thu 23 Aug, courtesy of Underbelly. You’ll also win a bottle of their award-winning, triple matured blended Scotch whisky. Try it for yourself at their Surprisingly Smooth Fringe Bar at Bistro Square this festival season.
The List, in association with Edinburgh International Book Festival, are offering readers the chance to win a pair of tickets to see Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson. Bruce Dickinson will be making an appearance at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss his new bestselling memoir What Does This Button Do?. Dickinson is the frontman of one of the world’s momst iconic heavy metal bands; but he has plenty more strings to his guitar. Come along to hear from one of music’s most multi-talented men.
To be in with a chance of winning, log onto list.co.uk/offer and tell us:
To be in with a chance of winning, log onto list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
How many times is Whyte & Mackay blended Scotch whisky matured?
What band does Bruce Dickinson front?
Nina Conti and Foil, Arms and Hog Thu 23 Aug McEwan Hall, Bristo Square, Edinburgh EH8 9AG
whyteandmackay.com TERMS & CONDITIONS: Competition closes Sun 12 Aug 2018. Entrants must be 18 or over. No cash alternative. The List’s usual rules apply.
Writing with an Iron Fist: Bruce Dickinson Sat 18 Aug 8.30 – 9.30pm Baillie Gifford Main Theatre Charlotte Square Gardens Edinburgh EH2 4DR edbookfest.co.uk TERMS & CONDITIONS: Competition closes Sun 12 Aug 2018. No cash alternative. The List’s usual rules apply.
9 THE LIST 1 Aug–8 Aug 2018
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READER OFFERS WIN A PAIR OF TICKETS TO ART LATE
The List, in association with Edinburgh Art Festival, are offering you the chance to win a pair of tickets to their Art Late evening featuring music from ST.MARTiiNS. Art Late, which is part of the Edinburgh Art Festival, offers visitors a tour of the exhibitions by night, with free drinks and artist performances, culminating in an intimate live music gig in a gallery. Enjoy collections by Shilpa Gupta, Adam Lewis Jacob, Stills: Centre for Photography and Tacita Deans before closing the evening with an intimate performance by Dundee based two-piece ST.MARTiiNS. You can find out more about the evening on their website. To be in with a chance of winning, log onto list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
FREE SIDE DISH FOR EDINBURGH FRINGE PERFORMERS FROM WAGAMAMA
The List, in association with wagamama, are giving Fringe performers the chance to enjoy a free side dish with every main meal order at various wagamama restaurants in Edinburgh. With a menu created to soothe, nourish and replenish your soul, you can enjoy a little warming ginger, chillies that kick or nourishing noodles. Pick from all kinds of rice and noodle dishes, alongside fresh salads, shareable sides, as well as feel good juices and expertly crafted Asian beers. Wagamama have an extensive vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free menu too. All you need to do is turn up and present details of your Fringe 2018 performance and ID to receive your free side dish.
Where are ST.MARTiiNS from? Edinburgh Art Festival: Art Late Thu 9 Aug 5.30 – 10.30pm Various locations Tickets £9 (£8)
edinburghartfestival.com
wagamama Available only in participating stores Edinburgh Fri 3 – Mon 27 Aug
www.wagamama.com
TERMS & CONDITIONS: Competition closes Tue 7 Aug 2018. Over 18s only. No cash alternative. The List’s usual rules apply.
TERMS & CONDITIONS: One free side dish per performer when purchasing a main dish. Valid only with proof that you are a Fringe 2018 performer. Management reserves the right to withdraw this offer at any time. Valid from 3 August until 27 August 2018. Valid at Edinburgh St Andrew Square, Lothian Road and Ocean Terminal only. The List’s usual rules apply.
WIN TICKETS TO SEE TERRY ALDERTON: THE MUSICAL
FREE £75 VOUCHER FOR NAKED WINES
The List are partnering up with Get Comedy to offer five lucky winners the chance to win a pair of tickets to see Terry Alderton: The Musical. This is your chance to see one of the world’s top comedians perform his life as a musical. Multi-Award winning comedian Terry Alderton has had a crazy life. He’s spent the last year turning his biography into a full blown one-man musical. Featuring: his time in the CIA, the fight over a parking space with Prince Charles and the loss of his imaginary friend Bogey. A thrilling and worrying insight into the mind of a comic genius, set to music by Grammy nominee Owen Parker. To be in with a chance of winning, log onto list.co.uk/offers and tell us:
Who wrote the music to Terry’s musical? Terry Alderton: The Musical Wed 1 – Mon 27 Aug 6.30pm Assembly George Square Studios - One Tickets £12.50 (£11.50)
The List are giving you the chance to support artisan winemakers and enjoy great tasting wine with a £75 discount voucher to spend at Naked Wines. The most exciting wines in the world are made by small, low-production winemakers who don’t have the financial muscle to get on to the UK supermarket shelves. Wines made by these winemakers are hard to find; when they can be found, they are often very expensive. Naked Wines support independent retailers so wine-lovers can enjoy these wines, make friends with the people who made them, and save money.
Claim your £75 discount now using voucher code LIST75 at nakedwines.com.
terryalderton.com TERMS & CONDITIONS: Competition closes Tue 7 Aug 2018. No cash alternative. The List’s usual rules apply.
TERMS & CONDITIONS: For UK residents aged 18 or over. Cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Your voucher can be used against your first order of £114.99 or more. 1 voucher per customer. Full terms and conditions at www.nakedwines.com/terms.
1 Aug–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST 10
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edinburgh 2018
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P I DR D E E F E N CO R A K BY 14:30
GEORGE SQUARE PICCOLO TENT
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THE RE
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02-26 AUG, TIMES VARY TRAVERSE.CO.UK 0131 228 1404
22:30
02 - 26 AUG
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SUMMER AT ECA CHALLENGING, INNOVATIVE & INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS
26 July – 26 August 2018 EXPLORE THE PROGRAMME www.eca.ed.ac.uk/summer-eca
11 — 27 August 2018
900 authors from 55 countries in 800 events Book & browse events: edbookfest.co.uk @edbookfest
#SummeratECA #EdArtFest
Including: Rose McGowan Zindzi Mandela Ali Smith Ngugi Wa Thiong’o Chelsea Clinton Maria Alyokhina Louis de Bernières Karl Ove Knausgaard Jim Broadbent DJ Semtex Laura Bates Frank Quitely Akala Gaël Faye 100 Years of Muriel Spark Yanis Varoufakis Jackie Kay A L Kennedy Philip Pullman Rachel Kushner Luke Wright Val McDermid Brett Anderson Afua Hirsch Mark Beaumont Chitra Nagarajan Mark Cousins The Last Poets
12 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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NEWS NEWS AND GOSSIP FROM ACROSS THE FESTIVALS
fast ts fac • The Edinburgh International Festival heads back to Leith Theatre for the first time in 30 years with its 16-day-strong music programme, Light on the Shore, featuring performances from the likes of Mogwai, King Creosote, Julie Fowlis, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Django Django and Karine Polwart. • Street show performers will be able to collect tips by contactless card for the first time ever. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society have partnered up with the tech company iZettle after noticing the effects of an increasingly cashless society on street performers livelihoods. It makes the festival the first in the world to introduce this concept.
It’s the last festival before we bid adieu to our European friends, so check out these Brexit-themed shows before we crash out, softly leave or – who even knows anymore? These guys probably don’t have the answers, but at least you’ll be entertained as we wave our hankies across the Channel
GOING, GOING . . . Jessie Cave, Dylan Moran, Alan Bennett’s Green Forms, Banana Boys, The Greatest Play in the History of the World . . . , Iain Stirling Does Jokes With Pals
• Access and inclusion is at the heart of this year’s festival with organisers making it a priority for the city and its summer events to be open to all. Examples of this include changing place toilets and comprehensive access guides from the specific festivals.
ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING How did we get from Cool Britannia to Brexit Britain? Follow the first three decades of Leah and Chris’ life, from their childhood raised on Harry Potter and New Labour to a turbulent future where dreams might not always come true. Roundabout @ Summerhall, 20–26 Aug (not 21), 11.30pm, £15 (£13).
GONE . . .
• The key themes of the festival in 2018 across different art forms include the centenary of WWI, class, the 70th anniversary of the NHS, sex and consent, family, our lives online, disability and faith from different perspectives. Social issue-based shows have seen a huge surge in representation in recent times with nearly 25% of performances based on such topics in a recent survey by the SIT-UP Awards.
Lost Voice Guy, Guilty Feminist, Daniel Kitson, Laughing for Palestine with Frankie Boyle, Nish Kumar, Alan Bennett’s A Visit from Miss Prothero, ABBA A-Rival, 1895-1927 in New Orleans: The Red Hot Roots of Jazz
ANTIGONE NA H’ÉIREANN A re-imagining of Sophocles’ play, set in a not-too-distant future where a hard-border Brexit has severed Ireland in two, reigniting factional violence. Paradise in the Vault, 3–26 Aug (not 12, 19), £10 (£8). Previews 3–5 Aug, £7 (£5).
MATT FORDE: BREXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP
PHOTO: KARLA GOWLETT
Poster
C EU LATER
WHAT A SELL OUT
PHOTO: NICK RASMUSSEN
HOW BY ITS
AS DON’T JUDGE
• Made in Scotland celebrates its 10th birthday in 2018. The programme dedicates itself to showing off the very best of Scottish talent with 23 shows selected each year. In its ten years, it has enabled 74 productions to visit 35 countries around the world.
PHOTO: PHILIP GATWARD
FELICITY WARD: BUSTING A NUT | NATALIE PALAMIDES: NATE | MADDIE CAMPION: 20 USES FOR A LOVE DOLL You know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words . . . well we’ve got about as many questions for these three comedians based on their posters. Amid the glut of Fringe paraphernalia adorning every surface of this city, they’ve managed to tickle our funny bones before they’ve even spoken a word, and that is truly worthy of some kudos.
Political comedian Matt Forde takes to the stage for his last show as an EU citizen, and he uses the hour to skewer the politicians responsible with his usual sardonic wit. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, £14 (£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8.
JONNY WOO’S ALL STAR BREXIT CABARET The headlines are given the musical treatment in this bedazzled satire from drag superstar Jonny Woo, with other Fringe stars playing the part of major political players. Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–27 Aug (not 13, 20), £14 (£13). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8.
A VERY BREXIT MUSICAL Relive ‘Cavid Dameron’s’ decision to hold the referendum and ‘Joris Bohnson’s’ thinly veiled power grab through the eyes of a ‘Maily Dail’ journalist on the hunt for his big break. Just the Tonic at La Belle Angele, 2–26 Aug (not 13), £5.
1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 13
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FESTIVAL FEATURES | Anya Anastasia
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
14 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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Anya Anastasia | FESTIVAL FEATURES
Aussie cabaret star Anya Anastasia takes a satirical swipe at the troubled world we live in with her new Fringe show, The Executioners. Arusa Qureshi talks to her about her passion for cabaret as an art form and her new role as a cultural ambassador
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n late 19th-century Paris and early 20th-century Berlin, where the artists and radicals of the day converged on venues that were home to subversive performance and risque satire, cabaret was not only escapism, it was a mode of dissent; a way to relay messages of protest and challenge notions of conformity. Following in that tradition, Australian cabaret queen Anya Anastasia takes the responsibility of her craft seriously, using her music, comedy and razor-sharp wit to scrutinise the harsh realities of modern life. Her latest creation, The Executioners, sees her rip into the fabric of our digitally enhanced, 21st-century world to provoke conversations on where we as a society currently stand. ‘I’m calling it a satirical millennial neo-cabaret,’ she explains when asked about the show, ‘and it evolved from my belief that cabaret has a responsibility to comment on how the world is changing and evolving and on new ethical questions coming up. I see that in my role as both a cabaret performer and as a comedian and I started writing this show off the back of things like Trump getting elected and Brexit. And here in Australia, we’re facing similar things where individuals are feeling overwhelmed by the scale of global issues and the minimal influence that we feel that we have on the momentum of where the world is going.’ The character that Anastasia has created for The Executioners is selfreflective but also holds a mirror up to Western culture. ‘I started noticing my own embarrassing habits. I know I’m a product of this generation where I’m completely obsessed with my phone, I completely do have the belief that pictures of my brunch are what other people want to see and that I’m important in my own little social media universe. And I thought it was really funny that at a time where I feel like everyone is listening to what we’re having to say, it’s also a time where on a greater scale we’re not really being listened to.’ With this in mind, Anastasia is acutely aware of her personal duty as a performer and artist, especially in 2018. ‘I’ve always been a believer in my responsibility as an artist,’ she notes, ‘and I guess my last show is a world apart from where I am now. The whole concept is very different this year and that comes from this increasing awareness of that responsibility.’ Earlier this year, Anastasia was announced as the South Australia & Adelaide Cultural Ambassador in Edinburgh for 2018, extending this idea of responsibility beyond ethics. An accolade that comes with financial and marketing support from the South Australian government, Anastasia is both an unexpected candidate and yet the ideal ambassador. ‘This year they have selected my show and me as an artist because they saw the show as one with a voice that they wanted to be heard and me as an artist that they were proud of as an export. And it’s something I do naturally anyway; I can’t tell people enough how much I love the Adelaide Fringe and how thriving the South Australian arts scene is but now they’ve just gone and made it official for me and it’s my job to tell you that now!’
‘The Executioners is an interesting choice because it is a very contemporary show,’ she continues, ‘it gets political, it’s challenging, it puts a lot of fresh ideas out there so it’s an interesting show for a government to back but I think that there’s a lot to be said for the South Australian government that they really do get behind contemporary ideas and thinkers and embrace the eccentric as well.’ The Executioners is full of energy and sass as Anastasia tears through an arsenal of original songs alongside her musical-partner-incrime Gareth Chin. With her passion for the art form and strong drive to entertain and assess, it’s entirely understandable why her show would be chosen. But as Anastasia admits, she really didn’t have any particular expectations going in. ‘To be honest, this year, I had no idea that this show was going to have such a future. I got it out and I wrote it really quickly because I just wanted to make a comment on some of the things that were driving me mad at the time. I had no intention of carrying it any further. But what happened was that audiences just felt this urgency of getting behind it and sharing it. We got this award and the stars just aligned for us to keep doing this show.’ With the conversation having started in Adelaide, it is set to continue in Edinburgh as audiences get a taste of the fresh, multi-dimensional and hyper show that is The Executioners. And Anastasia can’t wait to make her return to the city. ‘I mean I’m certainly addicted,’ she says. ‘I love the Edinburgh Fringe, I love the performer networks but also how wonderfully enthusiastic the audiences are.’ Since the success of her last hit show Rogue Romantic, it’s clear that Anastasia has taken a step back and really examined how to use her art to engage on a wider level. ‘I don’t think I could have done it in any other genre, but my developmental phase for [The Executioners] was extremely experimental. I was doing cabaret nights in a small intimate venue and I was literally appointing people in the audience to be a director every night and asking questions like “are we taking this too far?”, “do you agree with this?”, “is there anything else that’s concerning you?”. So it really evolved as a conversation and I think that’s the amazing power and strength of cabaret.’ Modern cabaret may remain a space for creativity and imagination, but the more recent resurgence in cabaret as a vehicle for the dissection and dissemination of political ideology harks back to the origins of the art form. Anya Anastasia exemplifies this connection, but her work is also the definition of where contemporary cabaret currently is and where it is headed: fiercely entertaining, gloriously sardonic and packed full of astute observations and formidable questions about the world we live in. Anya Anastasia: The Executioners, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 8pm, £11–£13 (£10–£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8.
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ELEPHANT SESSIONS WHYTE SIOBHAN MILLER Mon 13 August Doors 7.30pm
LINDISFARNE Sun 26 August Doors 7pm
Clerk Street | Edinburgh | EH8 9JG 0131 668 2019 | thequeenshall.net T: @queens_hall | F: @queenshall 16 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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Alex Edelman | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
JUST SAYING Millennial comedian Alex Edelman has drifted out of the comfort zone with his third Fringe hour. Brian Donaldson hears from this US stand-up about the end of an era
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n our ‘Edinburgh’ arrogance, we sometimes assume that if a comedian who’s made their mark at the Fringe is suddenly incognito for a couple of Augusts, well, they must be doing nothing with their lives. Such a conclusion is way wide of the mark when it comes to Alex Edelman who tore up the Fringe in 2014 with his Best Newcomer-winning show Millennial and a year later with Everything Handed to You. In fact, during that period, the 29-year-old Bostonian was part of the writing team on US sitcom The Great Indoors which starred Stephen Fry and Joel McHale (‘if Aaron Sorkin was writing the show you’d think that it wasn’t very good, but for me, it was the best thing ever’), supported Beck, performed stand-up on Conan, and played some gigs in Berlin and Moscow with Eddie Izzard: ‘this isn’t meant to sound shitty, but [Moscow] was like performing on another planet: the city was so dense, concrete and Soviet.’ And, of course, he’s been working on his third assault upon the Fringe which has resulted in Just for Us. This new hour (which received strong reviews at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in April) ostensibly revolves around the story of him dropping in on a meeting of neo-Nazis in New York, having been appalled at the rise in anti-Semitic abuse on Twitter. ‘Everyone gets abuse online but I find myself being disproportionately affected by stuff that makes me think that the Nazis are back, and that maybe there’s some real sinister thing going on that I’m not quite aware of. Twitter really was a big impetus for this show. But I also just wanted to see the worst the world has to offer without me having to leave Manhattan.’ Though he describes himself as more of a ‘Jon Ronson boy’, inevitable comparisons have been made with this show and the
affable door-stepping documentary work of Louis Theroux. ‘All of my shows have been a little journalisty,’ states Edelman. ‘My first show was almost entirely a reportage of the different types of millennials I was meeting, and the second one was about my brothers and religious identity. Yet this show is weirdly my most personal show so far.’ With Edelman having forged his initial reputation with a show about those in their 20s, it must feel slightly odd and vaguely nostalgic that he’ll soon leave that decade to enter his 30s. ‘I’ve had all of the things that people in their 20s should experience: I’ve had the most tremendous fortune to be able to travel and meet wonderful people. I got to spend four summers just BSing with really fun comedians and going to Australia. I’m sad to see it’s almost over, but I’ve found myself evolving into a different kind of person.’ That person is now about to take another step in his Edinburgh life with a heavily anticipated show which he’ll perform in the Pleasance Courtyard’s iconic Cabaret Bar. The Fringe of 2018 should only add to the good feelings he has towards the Scottish capital. ‘I won’t use the word “career”, but Edinburgh gave me the opportunity to do this as a living, and I do think of my life in some ways as marked out by the festival, with all those 2am crêpes and ciders. I’ve noticed that a lot of those skills I picked up over the last two years writing on a sitcom are coming to bear on my Edinburgh preparations: my understanding of story, motivation and character is much more bedded in. This is the first Edinburgh show that I’m excited about rather than petrified of.’ Alex Edelman: Just for Us, Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, 8pm, £10–£14. Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.
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FESTIVAL FEATURES | Platform
FILM STILL : COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.
NEW SENSATION Rae-Yen Song, It’s a Small World, 2017
As part of Edinburgh Art Festival, Platform gives artists at the start of their career a chance to make and present new work. Now in its fourth year, Rachael Cloughton catches up with 2018’s crop of chosen creatives
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n 2015, the Edinburgh Art Festival introduced Platform, a group exhibition that gives festival audiences the opportunity to see work by early career artists based in Scotland. Artists apply through an open call and are considered by a changing judging panel – with Jonathan Owen and Hanna Tulikki making the selection this year. The artists chosen – Renèe Helèna Browne, Isobel Lutz-Smith, Rae-Yen Song and Annie Crabtree – may have just made one of the most distinct editions of Platform yet. Staged at the City Art Centre, this is not simply a show about emerging talent, but a sensitively curated exploration of bodies, identity, politics and the ‘slipperiness’ of images. ‘It’s a very experiential show – you can’t be a passive listener,’ explains Browne, who has created a sound installation with five vocal compositions linked to five different types of chairs. ‘The works are centred on thinking about language, both how it exists as speech within the body and outside of it, and then how it’s governed or structured by society afterwards.’ Browne is interested in the notion of ‘perfect’ speech, an idea associated with Received Pronunciation. ‘[RP] is spoken by only 2% of the population but is regarded as the most valued,’ explains Brown, who is originally from Northern Ireland. ‘I started this project with a very broad “not of here” accent – a specifically Irish accent. The work kind of took off from that subjective position.’ What Brown presents is a celebration of difference. The audience are invited to sit on a range of chairs and listen to diverse soundscapes, from ASMR lessons (autonomous sensory meridian response is a tingling sensation on the skin, commonly triggered by auditory or visual stimuli) to tongue twisters and gargles. Lutz-Smith takes a similarly visceral approach in her multi-channel film installation. ‘I have quite a lot of mouths in my work,’ she explains. ‘There is a point at which the tongue breaks the surface of the screen. It took 20 attempts. It was like a mouth exercise and I had to train my tongue to do exactly as I wanted.’ LutzSmith’s film is about the preparation of a meal but also the deconstruction of a film: ‘The videos are all synched together and the actions are happening around you. I don’t really use film work in a narrative sense. It’s more
like choreography,’ she explains, ‘I shoot something and reshoot it again and re-edit it. It’s almost like a collage.’ For Platform, Song presents a handmade costume and lenticular print, through which a single image takes on multiple perspectives. Both objects are taken from a family outing; the latest chapter in an ongoing series of family portraits by the artist entitled Song Dynasty II. The print is the single image Song presents from the day, while the costume takes elements from the Chinese lion dance and the Lion Rampant of Scotland, but is very much its own animal. ‘It became unclassified,’ continues Song, ‘it’s something of it’s own culture, mirroring my identity – Scottish and Chinese and not fitting into either. But I’m interested in using those cultures as a starting point to create my own cultural language that I find personal meaning in.’ Annie Crabtree’s work takes a similarly personal starting point, taking her own experiences of pain and hospitalisation as a means to reflect on the broader political narrative around women’s bodies. ‘I had surgery to operate on one of my ovaries – there were so many presumptions around this, like that I wouldn’t want to have my ovary removed. This was never even discussed. There was little communication about what I can do with my own body,’ explains Crabtree. This experience has shaped a new film, which combines archived footage from her operation two years ago with more recent footage of her swimming; a pursuit she picked up to reclaim autonomy over her body. Over the film she reads extracts from Rebecca Solnit and Virginia Woolf as well as various medical journals and Wikipedia entries on pain. ‘Throughout the process of making the work, so many women have shared their own stories,’ says Crabtree. ‘I hope the exhibition inspires other people to speak out and feel they have a voice.’ That’s what this year’s edition of Platform does more broadly; it has created a space for four young voices among the cacophony of noise during the festival, and together they creatively and generously share ideas well worth listening to. Platform: 2018, City Art Centre, until 26 Aug, free.
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ADVERTISING FEATURE
2018 Once again we are honoured to introduce to an international audience four inspiring Taiwanese companies whose richly varied works highlight the achievements of Taiwan’s lively performing arts community. This year we are also pleased to carry on a rewarding collaboration with our two prestigious venue partners, Dance Base and Summerhall. These four innovative productions embrace the best of Taiwanese contemporary dance and theatre, while demonstrating the creative zeal and wide-ranging concerns of a new and culturally diverse generation of artists. MINISTER OF CULTURE, TAIWAN
In 2018 the Taiwan Season returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a fifth consecutive year with some of the best live performances being made on the island today. Drawn from an open call to practitioners of all art forms in Taiwan, this season of uniquely entertaining dance and theatre is curated by the key Fringe venues Dance Base and Summerhall. 20 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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ONCE UPON A DAYDREAM SUN SON THEATRE 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 2.40pm, £8 (£6). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £5. Suitable for ages 5+. In Once Upon a Daydream, a bouncy, colourful but lonely single female invites you into a lighthearted world of live action and hand-crafted animation. Originally created for Sun Son Theatre by a visual artist and actor, this disarming show is a 21st-century urban fairytale where the line between real life and fantasy is sweetly blurred and dreams can come true.
SUMMERHALL summerhall.co.uk 0131 560 1581 THE DELUSION OF HOME OUR THEATRE 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 3.55pm, £12 (£10). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £5. Suitable for ages 12+. The Delusion of Home is a strong, bitingly witty and original documentary-style depiction of everyday life refracted through one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. Oyster farming and Taoist funeral rites are as much of a touchstone as King Lear in Our Theatre’s character-driven study of displacement, poverty, homelessness and the search for meaning and renewal. Live performance and projected photographs of the declining villages of Taiwan’s southern coastline are skilfully integrated to illuminate sometimes harsh human truths.
BON 4 BON CHANG DANCE THEATRE AND EYAL DADON
DANCE BASE dancebase.co.uk 0131 225 5525
7–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 5pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5 Aug, £11 (£9). Suitable for ages 8+. Collaborating with the prize-winning Israeli choreographer Eyal Dadon, the four real-life brothers of Chang Dance Theatre take to the stage in a smart, fresh and engaging story of memories and mangoes. Bon 4 Bon is the first work in which the siblings perform together, using material that expresses their individual experiences of being related. The result? A touching and humorous look at the slippery rhythms and habitual behaviours of family.
VARHUNG – HEART TO HEART TJIMUR DANCE THEATRE 7–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 6.15pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5 Aug, £11 (£9). Suitable for ages 8+. Taiwan’s premier indigenous dance-theatre company presents an artfully patterned, open-hearted performance in which private feelings are always on the verge of being made public. Both physically and emotionally charged, Tjimur Dance Theatre’s evocative work embraces a bounty of intoxicating sensations. By doing so, they bring ancient Paiwan cultural traditions appealingly up to date. Every human heart holds profound secrets – an awareness that lends the impulses behind Varhung – Heart to Heart a distinctly universal resonance.
Taiwan Season 2018 invites audiences to experience a range of ideas, emotions and flavours in a hand-picked sampling of some the most stimulating contemporary performances from Taiwan. Whether the tone is playful or dramatic, and based in bubbly fantasy or stark reality, these four shows embrace a gamut of creative impulses, varied settings and complex themes. Taiwan Season 2018 is produced and managed collaboratively by Tai He Arts Production Co., Ltd., Taiwan and Step Out Arts, UK and funded by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.
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sites.google.com/view/taiwanseason-edinfringe 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 21
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Fri 3 - Sun 26 August 2018 Open daily | Free entry
Shop design-led, handmade objects from 37 Scotland-based makers. Book a craft workshop through the Edinburgh Festival Fringe website. Fringe venue 205 7IGSRH ¾SSV ;LMXI 7XYJJ 89 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 3ES @craftscotland | #edsummershow | www.craftscotland.org
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Five Telegrams | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO: 59 PRODUCTIONS
TAKE FIVE
After the success of last year’s opening event, the Edinburgh International Festival once again kicks off with an epic large-scale spectacle. Arusa Qureshi finds out more from the creative team behind Five Telegrams
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n the year that we mark the centenary of the end of WWI, communities around the UK and beyond have been actively contemplating the impact and significance of the Great War, engaging with cultural events and activities to look back at the stories and lives of those affected. With the centenary firmly in mind, this year’s Edinburgh International Festival aims to connect future generations with the past, opening with an epic outdoor performance created by composer Anna Meredith alongisde 59 Productions, in a co-commission between the Festival, 14–18 NOW (the UK’s arts programme for the WWI centenary) and BBC Proms. Featuring large-scale illuminations and projections on the Usher Hall and a new work for orchestra and chorus, Five Telegrams will kick off the city’s world-renowned festival season, while offering residents and visitors the chance to reflect on the thousands of young lives lost in the war. ‘Working directly with Anna has been a really fun way to collaborate,’ says Richard Slaney, managing director of 59 Productions, the company behind many of the festival’s recent opening spectaculars. ‘Previously we’ve either responded to a musical work (e.g. 2015’s Harmonium) or made a soundtrack to our imagery (as in Deep Time in 2016). This year we’ve been working closely from the start of the process, and Anna has been gracious enough to take our ideas and requests into her composition. We’ve also extended our partnerships for this project – working with young designers from Edinburgh College of Art on costumes for the performance, as well as working with our commissioners at 14–18 NOW to research the First World War thematic ideas.’ In addition to being co-designed by young creatives to mark Scotland’s Year of Young People, Anna Meredith notes: ‘There are a lot of young performers who are adding the live element to the event. I don’t want to say too much about it because I think it will be a nice moment in the piece but I do think it’s important because many are the same age as the soldiers would have been at the time. On a practical level, to have something that’s live is really good – it’s not just a recording, it’s living.’ The five movements of the performance are inspired by ideas
of communication, exploring pertinent themes that draw parallels with contemporary culture including censorship, propaganda and reconciliation. ‘We were trying to find a way into this huge, very delicate and complex subject to try and reflect the centenary in a way that felt current and relevant,’ Meredith explains when asked about her interaction with the five central movements. ‘We had these five themes: “spin” – the idea of news, hype and exaggeration; field postcards – little postcards that soldiers sent back from the front that were very controlled; redaction – where things were stripped back and removed, literally cut out or changed; codes – the idea of multiple overlapping number systems to try and make sense of numerical systems; and Armistice – this idea of how the end of the war was communicated and the heavy, weary feeling of the end of the war as opposed to flag-waving celebration.’ Five Telegrams will close Lothian Road on Fri 3 Aug, with audiences able to catch the show from a dedicated arena in Festival Square. Both Slaney and Meredith are hopeful that this year’s opening event, with its live performance element and inclusion of hundreds of local young people, will give spectators a moment to pause and think about how events of the past connect to our present. ‘I think some of it is quite bold musically and visually,’ Meredith says, ‘and I hope that people will enjoy it. But there is definitely space in the piece for things to think about, that are provocative, and that still raise questions about our society today. It’s not just a piece that looks backwards, it definitely still feels current to where we are at now.’ Standard Life Aberdeen Opening Event: Five Telegrams, Usher Hall, 3 Aug, 10.30pm, free but ticketed. Anna Meredith & Southbank Sinfonia, Leith Theatre, 11 Aug, 7.30pm, £20. Anno: Vivaldi, Anna Meredith, Eleanor Meredith, Pleasance at EICC, 17 & 18 Aug, times vary, £16 (£14.50). 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 23
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FESTIVAL FEATURES | Female double acts PHOTO: JAMES DEACON
SEE MORE OF THESE Q&AS AT LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
TWO’S COMPANY Lola & Jo (top), Norris & Parker (bottom), Maddie Campion & Lovedoll (opposite)
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Female double acts | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
Being in a comedy duo is a stern test of loyalty and requires a huge level of commitment. After throwing some questions at a bunch of female twosomes, we’re not sure whether the bonds have got stronger or if their partnerships are about to unravel . . .
LAZY SUSAN (Freya Parker and Celeste Dring) What one thing do you remember most about how you met each other? Freya: It was in a pub in south London and
we discussed making a very worthy, serious piece of theatre together. So cute! Celeste: We were introduced by a mutual friend and we all went for drinks together, so it was like going on a weird date.
What’s the worst thing about working with the other one? Freya: We can get really intense and lose our
grip on reality. Celeste: Because we are quite different, it’s sometimes not a straightforward process pulling in the same direction. If your comedy partner hadn’t become part of a double act, what do you think she would have done with her life? Freya: A tap dancing champion or undercover
What’s the best thing about working with the other one? Freya: Laughing ourselves into a stupor plus
cop or both if the schedule was workable. Celeste: Nothing. She owes me everything.
enabling each other’s habit of buying masks off eBay. Celeste: Probably that she is quite different from me, so I really enjoy what she brings and find her genuinely surprising. She’s just more of a natural oddball, as you can see from the fact that I’ve written these sincere mini-essays and I’m guessing that’s she’s just put short, daft answers.
If your current comedy partner was suddenly unable to work with you ever again, which famed comedian would you headhunt to replace them? Freya: Kermit the Frog: simply a great all-
rounder. Celeste: After a long period of mourning I’d probably dip into the pool of our peers and go for David Elms or Jordan Brookes coz I think
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FESTIVAL FEATURES | Female double acts
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they are really funny and unique. I’d wear black forever though. LOLA & JO (Lola Stephenson and Joanna Griffin) What one thing do you remember most about how you met each other? Lola: Jo had a really bad camel toe but a fantastic
smile. Jo: Lola had incredibly greasy hair but wonderful cheekbones. What’s the best thing about working with the other one? Lola: A shared appreciation of crisps and our
Two Together Railcard with 30% discount on train fares. Jo: Lola’s very needy, which is really good for my self-esteem. She replies to my WhatsApps before I’ve even sent her one. What’s the worst thing about working with the other one? Lola: No complaints here. It’s a perfect
partnership, well-balanced, productive and respectful. Jo: Lola can be quite controlling. For example, she’s actually answering this question for me right now. If your comedy partner hadn’t become part of a double act, what do you think she would have done with her life? Lola: Become a criminal or a social worker. Jo: The Mayor of London.
Róisín & Chiara
What’s the best thing about working with the other one? Maddie: We can bounce ideas off each other and
we make each other laugh! LD: Maddie brings out a lot of great qualities in
myself that I often forget I have.
female comedian! I’d love to work with them all, maybe at the same time, like a comedy Broken Social Scene. LD: I guess I could do great things with every comedian. I am undeniably talented. Beth Stelling is my current fave though, so I’d pick her.
If your current comedy partner was suddenly unable to work with you ever again, which famed comedian would you headhunt to replace them? Lola: Mae Martin, Katy Wix, Lou Sanders,
What’s the worst thing about working with the other one? Maddie: I mean, LD sometimes can often behave
NORRIS & PARKER
like she’s just a solo act.
Phoebe Walsh, Lolly Adefope, Rose Matafeo, Emma Sidi, Lucy Pearman, Helen Duff, Rosie Jones, Flo & Joan, Róisín & Chiara. Ideally one of those, but to be honest anyone really, so I don’t have to be on my own. Jo: I can’t even comprehend a world without Lola, so would prefer not to answer this question. No further comment. Thank you.
to everything. We did this preview in a church hall to a bunch of scouts and midway through, the leader stopped us and was like ‘can you stop swearing please and wrap this up with a clear anti-drugs message!’ Maddie said yes to that gig and yes to that scout leader.
What one thing do you remember most about how you met each other? Sinead: We met at drama school nine years ago
MADDIE CAMPION & LOVEDOLL (Maddie and LD) What one thing do you remember most about how you met each other? Maddie: We met at a speed awareness course
and on the first day LD had parked in front of the entrance to the community centre where it was being held. Someone asked her if she could move her car but she said ‘no’ so we all had to squeeze past to get inside. LD: I remember Maddie introducing herself and I was like ‘OK, you’re leading this speed awareness course?’ She was ‘no’. She just has that vibe.
LD: Maddie isn’t as wise as me, she just says yes
If your comedy partner hadn’t become part of a double act, what do you think she would have done with her life? Maddie: LD had an audition for The Cursed
Child but instead of sending them her self-tape, she accidentally emailed a vlog she’d made about Shrek 2. Maybe she could be on Broadway right now? LD: [after taking a long drawn-out breath from her vape pen] Selling soap. If your current comedy partner was suddenly unable to work with you ever again, which famed comedian would you headhunt to replace them? Maddie: I am pretty much obsessed with every
(Kate Norris and Sinead Parker)
and on the first group trip to the pub I watched Katie from afar. She was squeezed into a slutty New Look dress with her tits spilling out, caked in fake tan, cackling like a Somerset fishwife and I thought ‘not for me thanks’. Kate: I was absolutely gutted when I heard I shared a birthday with Sinead because I immediately realised this pathetic anaemic creature was going to attach herself to me like a whelk on a rock. I was correct and she has been draining the life out of me ever since. What’s the best thing about working with the other one? Kate: Getting to know Sinead’s father who I
really admire for his Stalin-esque leadership qualities as a businessman and a father. Not to mention the fact that he is incredibly fit. Sinead: Excuse me? Kate: I mean he goes to spin class every morning. Sinead: The other day our agent put half of
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Female double acts | FESTIVAL FEATURES
Katie’s pay for a job I had nothing to do with into my bank account. I had to return it in the end which seems unfair because as her wife I am entitled to half her earnings. What’s the worst thing about working with the other one? Kate: When we get writers block and then drink
too much wine resulting in either a massive row or a horrific sexual encounter. Sinead: Sadly not with each other but I live in hope. If your comedy partner hadn’t become part of a double act, what do you think she would have done with her life? Sinead: Katie would become the mother of
four boys. She would ban vulnerability and they would all grow up to be sociopaths just like her. Kate: It’s a toss-up between a law conversion course or a stint in an asylum. If your current comedy partner was suddenly unable to work with you ever again, which famed comedian would you headhunt to replace them? Kate: I long for this day, but sadly due to
Sinead’s severe abandonment issues I know this will never be the case. If my prayers were answered I wouldn’t bother replacing her as I would happily go solo. Sinead: What’s going on? Why wouldn’t we be working together? Katie, where are you going? Are we OK? Kate: Cheers, The List . . .
Sinead: Are you ill? Am I ill? I did think I had herpes recently, but it was actually just a trapped hair follicle but apart from that I think I’m fine? Kate: Apart from mentally . . . Sinead: If you are planning on leaving me I think it’s important that you give me some warning. Kate: Can you please shut the fuck up, I want to watch Love Island now.
RÓISÍN & CHIARA
wearing, nymphomaniacal criminal lawyer. Chiara: Exhibiting sculptures at the MoMA. If your current comedy partner was suddenly unable to work with you ever again, which famed comedian would you headhunt to replace them? Róisín: Someone who’d be willing to go
method: Adrien Brody in drag? Chiara: Paul Currie because of the physical resemblance.
(Róisín O’Mahoney and Chiara Goldsmith) What one thing do you remember most about how you met each other? Róisín: Chiara is two years older than me: ten
years ago this felt like 15 years. I thought she was effortlessly chic and dangerously continental. Chiara: Róisín’s clothes. What’s the best thing about working with the other one? Róisín: She’s my best friend. Chiara: Saves my bacon. What’s the worst thing about working with the other one? Róisín: She has a very loud and irritating voice. Chiara: Eats my bacon. If your comedy partner hadn’t become part of a double act, what do you think she would have done with her life? Róisín: The star of an Italian mafia drama
where she plays a smooth-talking, cargo pant-
Lazy Susan: Forgive Me, Mother!, Assembly George Square Theatre, 3–27 Aug (not 14), 4.20pm, £9.50–£10.50. Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £6.50. Lola & Jo: Focus Groupies, Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 4pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50. Maddie Campion: 20 Uses for a Lovedoll, Just the Tonic at The Caves, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 6.15pm, £5 (£4). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £4 (£3). Pay in advance or donation at the venue. Norris & Parker: Burn the Witch, Pleasance Courtyard, 5–26 Aug, 10.45pm, £8–£9.50 (£7–£8.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Róisin & Chiara: Back to Back, Heroes @ Boteco, 3–26 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 2.40pm, £5 in advance or donation at the venue.
PHOTO: BOBBY GOULDING
Lazy Susan
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First Snow / Première neige CanadaHub - King’s Hall, 1 – 26 August BSL signed performances on 3, 7, 16 and 23 Aug. Captioning on 19 Aug.
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A National Theatre of Scotland, Théâtre PàP and Hôtel-Motel production
Right
My Left Foot
T he M u s i cal
Assembly Roxy, 1 – 27 August Age guide 16+, strong language, strong humour! All performances offer integrated BSL (Natalie MacDonald), AD, Captioning and a loop system. Relaxed performance on 19 Aug. A Birds of Paradise Theatre Company and National Theatre of Scotland production
Book now for these unmissable productions nationaltheatrescotland.com 28 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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My Land | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND Hungarian company Recirquel are a long way from oldschool circus. Artistic director Bence Vági talks to Claire Sawers about his take on the art form and the strippedback, muscularity of My Land, the company’s new show
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t the grand old age of 36, Bence Vági is already more than ten years into his retirement. As a dancer, anyway. He’s now the artistic director and choreographer for the Hungarian circus company that he set up in 2012. There are no hulahooping seals or Krusty the Clown types in Recirquel though, a company spreading a new wave of circus from East-Central Europe. Instead, the set for My Land, a new show coming to the Fringe, is stripped back to a soil dancefloor and spotlights. The costumes are a
barely there collection of flesh-coloured underwear and Illuminati-style hoods, and the music is a sparse mix of folk song and moody classical melodies. With such a minimal setup – no safety nets, no tightrope, almost no props – there’s nothing to distract from the performers; seven freakishly strong, bizarrely weightless Ukrainian acrobats. ‘Ukraine produces world-class acrobats, but they are rarely the focus of a show. They are in the background, or behind masks,’ explains Vági, taking a seat after doing some TV interviews, and also looking pretty
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FESTIVAL FEATURES | My Land
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relieved as he eats dinner after My Land’s opening night in Budapest. His brand new show got a standing ovation from the crowd just an hour before. ‘I was so, so proud of them. It’s funny to me to watch these macho men, all under 25, getting up on stage and suddenly being so incredibly graceful and elegant. They train eight hours a day. They’re normal guys, Catholic boys, some with young families, they smoke. Sure, of course they smoke! I don’t tell them what to do – they know what’s best for their bodies.’ He laughs when he remembers one of the performers showing up for rehearsals one day with a big coloured tattoo of him and his girlfriend on his ribs. ‘I couldn’t believe it! He performs with a bare chest. But it’s cool – he just spends extra time in hair and makeup before the show.’ Vági found tonight’s stars while looking for 90 performers for the opening ceremony of the World Swimming Championships. He’s made a name for himself in Hungary for mixing contemporary dance, physical theatre and traditional circus skills and was asked to choreograph last year’s huge, bells and whistles show on the banks of the Danube, where lasers and fireworks went crazy in a massive spectacle underneath Budapest’s Royal Palace. Vági couldn’t find enough acrobats for it in Hungary though, so he went looking for talent over the border. Vági’s own family left Hungary during the communist era when he was a child, relocating to Germany. He then settled in the UK, studying dance and becoming a graduate choreographer and director of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, before returning to Budapest. He was originally looking just for male acrobats in Ukraine, but couldn’t leave Yevheniia Obolonina behind after he watched her performing with her contortionist partner, Roman Khafizov. The pair perform a jaw-dropping (occasionally eye-watering) routine in My Land where Obolonina tiptoes delicately on Khafizov’s arched solar plexus or drops casually into the splits over his elastic-looking ribs. Vági also signed up twin brothers, Andrii and Mykola Pysiura, who do a staggeringly precise routine of delicate hand acrobatics, spinning one’s
torso around the other’s head, counterbalancing in handstands and human towers, all with a serene expression on their faces, while presumably hoping the veins in their neck aren’t about to pop. Another highlight is the opening act, who looks like a slowmotion Rudolf Nureyev in training for the Olympic men’s gymnastics. It would be rude to reduce Andrii Spatar to a six-pack, but there’s clearly a reason Vági has put him first on the bill, with his top off. His lean torso is ridged like a medical diagram of muscles, and he works through gymnastic poses in a balletic, controlled way, keeping a glacial, rather than breakneck pace for his fluid routine. There are also impressive jugglers who battle in a Streetfighter-style scene and a solo dance finale, balancing on top of a ladder and synchronised with folk music. ‘Ukrainian acrobats start training from a very young age and the standards are incredibly high,’ says Vági. ‘But often these exceptional performers end up working on cruise ships, or for touristy audiences in dinner clubs that aren’t even paying attention.’ Vági wrote the show especially for the performers and looked into Ukrainian myths and folklore while creating it – although any narrative arc is pretty vague, besides references to the land and soil where they are from. Vági also went to extreme lengths to find traditional Ukrainian, Tatar (an ethnic minority group in Ukraine) and Moldovian music for the score, visiting villages to learn about local instruments and folk songs. A beautiful male chant that is heard in the background of one of the scenes, where the performers slink about in Assassin’s Creed cloaks, was recorded especially by monks in a remote mountain monastery, after Vági heard them singing on YouTube and got in touch with them. It’s both a butch ballet and a circus in slow motion, with no traditional strongman with a dumbbell and striped singlet in sight, just raw talent from Ukraine, writhing in the dirt, taking stripped-back circus to new heights. My Land, Assembly Roxy, 3–26 Aug (not 8,13, 20), 8.10pm, £12–£14 (£11–£13). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10.
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A DESTINATION VENUE Venue 277 @ RIDDLES COURT, ROYAL MILE
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Diversity | FESTIVAL FEATURES
list.co.uk/festival
Is the world of theatre truly progressing in terms of representation or is there a thin line between multiculturalism and tokenism? Arusa Qureshi speaks to four companies at this year’s Fringe exploring themes that affect diverse communities
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ack in 2016, when Paapa Essiedu was cast as Hamlet, making him the first black actor to be given the role in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50-plus-year history, there was an outpouring of positivity about the strides being taken in tackling issues of diversity in British theatre. But despite the changes in the wider theatrical landscape and the increased rhetoric surrounding accessibility, race and class continue to be factors in the exclusion of artists and audiences. As Essiedu himself summarised in an interview with The Guardian, ‘It is all very well to talk about colour-blind casting. But you can’t keep saying that because you cast a black actor as Darcy in Pride and Prejudice you’re making progress – it is tokenism.’ With thousands of acts descending upon Edinburgh each year from countries all over the world, the Fringe is a haven for exciting and innovative productions. But even at the world’s
biggest arts festival, where audiences seek out unique stories and companies boast of their focus on lesser-known perspectives, there is a danger of falling into tokenistic practices. Touring theatre company LUNG’s Trojan Horse explores the story of a community torn apart by racial division and the culture of Prevent, the government strategy aimed at countering extremism. It uses real-life testimonies from those at the heart of the 2014 government inquiry into the suspected Islamisation of state schools in Birmingham. ‘There has been some noticeable shifts in the stories we’re seeing on stage,’ creative director Helen Monks explains, ‘but the audience coming to see those stories is still very white, very middle class and very middle-aged. Theatre needs to not just be about educating well-meaning white people on the stories of “others” but actually reflecting people’s lives back to them.’
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Top to bottom: Underground Railroad Game, Closed Doors, Cry God for Harry, England and St George!; previous page: Trojan Horse
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Artistic director Matt Woodhead says LUNG ‘have always been proud to amplify a wide and diverse number of voices in all our productions. We are proud that Trojan Horse will be following this tradition and we’re excited to be working with an incredibly talented cast, all with South Asian heritage, to make this happen.’ Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R Sheppard of the Obie Award-winning Underground Railroad Game, which takes on the debased legacy of slavery, agree that theatre has a tendency to misuse diversity and multiculturalism. ‘The theatre should continue to find ways to be a platform for the entire population it serves,’ says Sheppard. ‘We’ve pretty much failed on that one. Right now, theatre is a rarefied art form, and institutions, artists, governments and theatrergoers need to make radical shifts in what they make, fund and see to revise this assumption.’ ‘Perhaps theatre should ask itself what multiculturalism and diversity mean to an art form that, by its nature, comes out of people,’ co-creator Jennifer Kidwell adds. ‘Meaning, if we are people making theatre, why are issues around multiculturalism and diversity even issues at all? They’re issues and they’re leveraged because theatre has yet to free itself from a Euro-centric patriarchal value system as evidenced by the way decisions get made about what’s produced, as evidenced by the concept of production, as evidenced even by the way the audience is situated in the room, and so on. ‘The main mechanism for [Underground Railroad Game] is a critique of the narrativisation of history,’ Kidwell continues. ‘If history is a retelling of the past, we cannot trust that exists outside our own subjectivity, we cannot trust that our telling of it is true or just.’ Novasound and Belle Jones’ Closed Doors is ‘inspired by the reality of a multicultural neighbourhood in Glasgow’, but with a cast comprised of three white women, it may be easy to accuse Closed Doors of appropriation. They took steps to address this, however. ‘Once we had developed the story we wanted to tell, we were driven to write and perform it with respect and understanding,’ says Jones. ‘While the three of us on stage fit the same cultural profile, Closed Doors is a storytelling
piece. We never see any of the characters faces at any point. The designs use silhouettes to create a sense of who these people are without identifying them by appearance. This creative decision was important to us as it ensures our audience can’t judge these characters based on what they see – one of the underlying messages of the piece. ‘Theatre, as a medium, exists to tell us stories,’ she adds. ‘It should be a true reflection of the world we live in and everyone should be able to see a bit of themselves in a character on stage or find an affinity with a particular story.’ Mulberry Theatre Company’s Cry God for Harry, England and St George! is an example of a production that not only tackles pertinent subject matter, but does so without appropriating the idea of multiculturalism. Originally inspired by Phyllida Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare productions at the Donmar Warehouse, the company set out to make a play about young women taking ownership of Shakespeare.
‘I do think that “diversity”, in particular, has become a buzzword within the theatre industry in a way that can be problematic,’ says Sam Maynard, director of arts at Mulberry Schools Trust. ‘For us, though, our mission is not about diversity, but about representation. We work with young people who simply do not see themselves or their stories reflected either on stage or within the industry more broadly, and this can be a huge barrier to them becoming more involved in theatre, either as audiences or as makers. We strongly believe that if you can see it, you can be it. ‘We are proud to have an all-female cast of young women from British Asian backgrounds, with a majority coming from British Bangladeshi heritage. Central to our mission as a company is to ensure that these young women, who are hugely under-represented on both stage and screen, have opportunities to showcase their abilities and to tell stories that are relevant to their lives. ‘Part of our reason for choosing a play involving Shakespeare was to demonstrate that our cultural “crown jewels” can be accessed and owned by anyone, no matter their background, gender, religion or ethnicity,’ says Maynard. ‘The play that we have created is really about celebrating the resilience, spirit and energy within our community, and showing that a great leader can really come from anywhere. Most of all, though, it’s about a group of people standing up for what they believe in – has there ever been a more important time for us to do that?’ Trojan Horse, Summerhall, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 3.15pm, £12 (£11). Preview 1 Aug, £5. Underground Railroad Game, Traverse, 5–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20, 25), times vary, £21.50 (£16.50). Previews 2, 4 Aug, £15 (£9). Closed Doors, Summerhall, 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 7.45pm, £10. Preview 1 Aug, £5. Cry God for Harry, England and St George!, theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 4.35pm, 6–11 Aug, £8 (£5). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £5 (£3).
34 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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ASSEMBLY ROOMS GEORGE STREET
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FOOD & DRINK Faulty Towers: The Dining Experience
A MOVABLE FEAST Squeezing in a meal during festival season can sometimes feel nigh on impossible – who has the time when there’s world-class art happening in every corner of the city? So why not feed two birds with one scone and check out a show with a meal attached, or a food-themed performance that’ll inspire the epicurean within? Deborah Chu rounds up a few food and drink goodies that’ll surely whet the appetite this August
IS ASTRONAUT FOOD THE FUTURE?
EATEN
The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 20 Aug, 8.10pm, £10 (£8). With food production placing increasing pressure on our planet’s natural resources, space technology researcher Matjaz Vidmar explores which of the processes involved in lab-made food – the type astronauts eat in space – might be carried over into the mainstream. Dehydrated ice-creams, anyone?
Scottish Storytelling Centre, 3–19 Aug (not 8, 15), 12.30pm, £9 (£7). Preview 2 Aug, £6. Mamoru Iriguchi’s colourful children’s show returns for a victory lap after its celebrated Fringe run last year. When Mamoru the human is eaten – but as of yet undigested – by Lionel the lion, they decide to take the opportunity to teach young’uns about their digestive tracts and food chains, which begs the question: what should we eat? And what should eat us?
COMFORT FOOD CABARET
A YEAR OF SCOTLAND IN A MEAL
C at New Town Cookery School, 15–26 Aug (not 19–21), 7pm (also 9.30pm, 17 & 18, 24–26), £14.50–£16.50 (£12.50–£14.50) After several lauded runs at the Adelaide Fringe, Michelle Pearson has come from Down Under to serve up hearty and heart-warming plates of homemade cooking to a Scottish audience. She’ll be dishing out the apricot chicken alongside powerful renditions of Bublé, Guns’n’Roses and anecdotes from her personal life.
Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Queen Street, 3–25 Aug (not 5 & 6, 8, 12 & 13, 19 & 20, 22), 1pm & 8pm, £35 (£32). Experience the hallmarks of the Scottish calendar – Hogmanay, Burns Night and St Andrew’s Day – distilled into one three-course meal, interwoven with whisky, folk songs, traditional storytelling and much laughter.
AFTERNOON TEA WITH KATE YOUNG Charlotte Square Gardens, 20 Aug, 3pm, £25. Kate Young will recreate any dish she reads in a book,
whether it’s treacle tart from Harry Potter, or The Godfather’s spaghetti and meatballs, and then write about it on her recipe blog. Sit down for a classic afternoon tea and learn a few tricks.
NIGEL SLATER’S TOAST Traverse, 8–26 Aug (not 13, 20), times vary, £21.50 (£15–£16.50). Preview 7 Aug, 10am, £15 (£9). From the crunch of buttered toast to waging a cake war against his wicked stepmother, food writer Nigel Slater’s acclaimed memoir is brought to the stage, as told through the evocative tastes and smells of his childhood in 1960s England.
FAULTY TOWERS: THE DINING EXPERIENCE The Principal, 2–27 Aug, times vary, £49.50–£55. Sit down to an elegant three-course meal served by the bumbling staff of the much-loved classic sitcom, with all the mayhem and chaos you’d expect. Every evening is improvised so there’s no telling what hijinks will ensue, but the food and the company is guaranteed to be good.
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FESTIVAL FOOD & DRINK
ADVERTISING FEATURE
MAKING ITS DEBUT AT EDINBURGH FESTIVAL FRINGE
G
lengoyne Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky will make its debut at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month, with an interactive new event series exploring the traditions behind Scotland’s slowest whisky stills. Taking place on selected dates from 3-26 August at Cannonball Restaurant & Bar on Castlehill, ‘Unhurried – Glengoyne’s Inefficient Tradition’ will use cutting-edge projection mapping technology to take whisky enthusiasts on an immersive journey into the heart of Scotland’s slowest stills. Hosted by Fringe veteran, ex-BBC broadcaster and comedy writer,
Gordon Dallas, this 50-minute-long event looks deep into Glengoyne’s dedicated traditions, adding a healthy splash of humour and, of course, a generous measure or two of whisky. During the show, whisky aficionados and beginners alike will have the chance to taste the superb results of Glengoyne’s unhurried traditions in three distinct drams of single malt whisky, each paired with delicious Scottish taster dishes by Cannonball Restaurant & Bar. Q ‘Unhurried – Glengoyne’s Inefficient Tradition’ will be hosted in The Glengoyne Room within Cannonball Restaurant & Bar. Tickets cost £20 per person and are on sale now at list.co.uk/glengoyne
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VENUE 26
FESTIVAL PROGRAMME 2018
“Summerhall isn’t just an extraordinary place to see theatre with a programme of unequalled dimension, but a village, a community, a place to feel - however fancifully - that you belong, among all the madness.” The Stage, August 2017
PERFORMANCE Duckie - Le Gateau Chocolat Status - Chris Thorpe Flight - Darkfield Maz & Bricks - Eva O’Connor … and many more … Image: Duckie
VISUAL ARTS
11-18:00 Exhibitions are FREE
John Keane - Life During Wartime The Drawings and Paintings of Orson Welles Free The Pussy! The Demarco European Art Foundation … and many more …
Image: John Keane, Perfect Explosion (1), Courtesy of Flowers Gallery
MUSIC
Imags: Pussy Riot: Riot Days
Pussy Riot Meursault - Crow Hill The Kevin Rowland DJ Show Wye Oak … and many more …
FOOD AND DRINK The Royal Dick Summerhall Cafe ´ The Courtyard Bar Rost ` Fire & Dough Pizza … and plenty more … Image: The Royal Dick / Peter Dibdin
Box Office
0131 560 1581
1 Aug - 26 Aug
www.summerhall.co.uk Photography - Highland Cow - Anon
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CABARET
For m info gootroe
LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
COURTNEY ACT Activist drag queen and CBB winner gets under the covers this Fringe When Courtney Act was announced as the winner of this year’s Celebrity Big Brother, following a nail-biting head-to-head with former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, there was a collective sigh of relief that permeated from members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community. ‘Imagine if you were some young gay boy who’s fourteen years old, who hasn’t told anybody that he likes boys, and then he sees Ann. Think about that. Think about the message that sends out,’ she told fellow CBB contestant Wayne Sleep, in a bid to highlight the harm of Widdecombe’s bigoted rhetoric. Although known chiefly for her stint on season six of Drag Race, Courtney’s online following has exploded in recent years, largely down to
her insights on topics ranging from politics to sex, which she discusses with an intelligence that encourages debate and introspection, something that was visible during CBB. She may be stunning and sickeningly talented, but Courtney Act is a firm fan-favourite for more than that just her looks and vocals, which will undoubtedly become clear during the upcoming Fringe run of her latest show, Under the Covers. As drag heads further into the mainstream, it’s encouraging that queens like Courtney Act continue to use their position to fight inequality and challenge homophobia, racism and sexism wherever they go. (Arusa Qureshi) ■ Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 3–18 Aug (not 7 & 8, 13), 6pm, £18–£21 (£17–£20).
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FESTIVAL CABARET | Hitlist PHOTO: PETER LESLIE
CABARET HITLIST Arusa Qureshi picks the best cabaret to check out in week one GINGZILLA: GLAMONSTER VS THE WORLD Join the 7ft drag queen in the setting of a 1950s drive-in movie as she subverts the distinction between masculine and feminine, tackling gender norms while making you question your orientation with every number. See feature, page 41. Assembly George Square Theatre, 3–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 21), 8pm, £13 (£11). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10. COURTNEY ACT: UNDER THE COVERS Drag superstar Courtney Act returns to Edinburgh hot on the heels of her big win on Celebrity Big Brother, where she succeeded in shifting the public mindset on gender and sexuality. Under the Covers is an intimate affair packed full of cover versions of well-known songs. See preview, page 39. Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 3–18 Aug (not 7, 8, 13), 6pm, £18–£21 (£17–£20). ANYA ANASTASIA This year’s South Australia & Adelaide Cultural Ambassador in Edinburgh presents what she
describes as ‘a satirical millennial neo-cabaret’. Anya Anastasia’s musical-comedy takes a knowing look at the 21st-century landscape. See feature, page 14. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 8pm, £11–£13 (£10–£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8. JONNY WOO’S ALL STAR BREXIT CABARET Jonny Woo teams up with Olivier Award-winning composer Richard Thomas for a musical satire that takes on the headlines, with a cast that includes Jayde Adams as Boris Johnson and Le Gateau Chocolat as Nigel Farage. Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–27 Aug (not 13, 20), 6pm, £14–£15 (£13–£14). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8. HOT BROWN HONEY The Honeys are back and they’re amping things up with their riotous mix of dance, poetry, comedy, circus, striptease and song. Expect feminist discourse, hip hop politics and plenty of fierce fun. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–27 Aug (not 8, 15, 23), 7.30pm, £15.50–£16.50 (£14.50–£15.50). Preview 3 Aug, £12.50.
Hot Brown Honey
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rom behind, Gingzilla looks like your run-of-the-mill drag queen, albeit on the taller side at 7ft. But twirl her around and a glorious ginger beard immediately unmasks her aesthetic. After starting her drag career with self-confessed clown-ish makeup, her look has become much more polished, which is why clinching the deal with a beard strikes such a chord with both audiences and passers-by. ‘When I started becoming more feminine and pretty, people had to stop and go: “Okay, how do I feel about what I’m seeing now? You are equally beautiful as you are masculine,”’ she explains. ‘I very much wanted to be a man, but with both sides – really teetering on that feminine/masculine edge.’ In Gingzilla: Glamonster vs the World, she explores the idea of embodying all sides of this gender-fucking coin, through heroes of 50s and 60s B-movies as well as self-actualisation and becoming one’s true self through overthrowing subjection. ‘The show is an origin story of Gingzilla,’ she says. ‘It’s set around a character who’s oppressed by the world and the patriarchy and she’s trying to conform. In the second half of the show, she throws it all off and goes: “I’m not the pretty thing you want me to be. I’m a monster, whether you like it or not.”’ Rejoice in your weirdness and let your freak flag fly: that’s the integral message here. Gingzilla is obsessed with interweaving the glamorous and the monstrous – why lip sync a perfect rendition of ‘It’s Raining Men’ when you could put on a queer anthem and then spend
it slowly devouring a whole chicken? It’s the absurdity that fascinates Gingzilla. ‘My inspiration comes from turning the concept of being aesthetically pleasing on its head and being as gross and as fun as I possibly can,’ says Gingzilla. ‘So the illusion is always dismantled.’ While Glamonster vs the World is the perfect showcase for Gingzilla’s vocal aerobics – as a former corporate singer, she really does have a great voice – she’s also host of a twice-weekly midnight party, Late Night Lip Service, which has a distinctly different vibe. ‘It’s very much your wild drag show. Each night we put on the best queer acts in the Fringe. They’re two completely different shows: Glamonster is a theatrical cabaret piece, my late-night show is party good times.’ What unites both of Gingzilla’s shows is authenticity. Ingrained in all her work is a sense of truth, taking on – in a way – modern day social media ideals. ‘You get to see the polished, beautiful facade,’ she says, ‘but you don’t get to see behind the scenes: people being tucked and pulled and squished. I want viewers to see both sides. I want you to see the glamorous and gorgeous side, but I can also be grotesque and in-your-face. You don’t know what you’re going to get in what moment.’
RED HOT
PHOTO: SCOTT CHALMERS
Drag star Gingzilla is back with not one, but two shows at this year’s Fringe. As Kirstyn Smith discovers, the skyscraping bearded wonder is all about letting her freak flag fly
Gingzilla: Glamonster vs the World, Assembly George Square Theatre, 3–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 21), 8pm, £13 (£11). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10; Late Night Lip Service, Gilded Balloon Rose Theatre, 4 & 5, 10 & 11, 17 & 18, 24 & 25 Aug, midnight, £12.50. Preview 3 Aug, £10. 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 41
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TOP TIPS: WEEK 1 The best Some of the cabaret best and comedy variety in the in the first week of the Fringe, arranged in Fringe’s first week. Written by: handy chronological order Brian Donaldson
10AM 5PM MAUREEN THE RED SHOES LIPMAN IS ‘UP FOR IT’ Assembly George Square Theatre, King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6– 3–12 £17.50 (£16.50). Sat 10Aug, Jun,5.45pm, edtheatres.com/kings Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £13.50. After a Mathew Bourne’s highly acclaimed career that encompasses thirty-odd new dance production, based on West End plays TV, the classic 1948together film. Seewith our 5 star radio, magazine columns review,films, pagebooks, ??. and BT ads, Maureen Lipman presents an evening of rave, rollick MILONGA and rant – with musicTheatre, from Jacqui Edinburgh Festival Tue Dankworth and Charlie Wood. 13 & Wed 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ festival Celebrated choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a piece inspired by the late-night milonga scene in the intimate COURTNEY ACT: UNDER bars of Buenos THE COVERS Aires. See preview, page ??. Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 3–18 Aug (not 7, 8, 13), 6pm, £18–£21 SURGE (£17–£20). It’s time to get tucked Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– in, lay30back enjoy the caress of Sun Jul, and surge.scot A festival those satintosheets as performance, Courtney strips dedicated physical songs down and flips others on their incorporating outdoor, site-specific back show you and just indoor how gendereventstofor all ages fluid and genre-fluid a greatart. song can showcases of performance be. See preview, page 39. Workshops and masterclasses are also provided for those wanting to JONNY WOO’S ALL STAR develop their talents. BREXIT CABARET Assembly George Square Gardens, BARD IN THE BOTANICS 4–27 Aug (not 13, Glasgow, 20), 6pm, Wed Botanic Gardens, £14–£15 Previews 2 & 21–Sat 29(£13–£14). Jul, bardinthebotanics. co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on
6PM
3 Aug, £8. Drag Shakespeare featuring superstar female Jonny Woo and Olivier performers. With Award-winning performances of composer Richard Thomas Taming of the Shrew?, Timonbring of Athens you sequin-spangled musical and this Queen Lear. ripped straight from the headlines. With a star-studded cast including FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO Jayde Adams as Boris this La Bodega Tapas Bar,Johnson, Sat 3 Jun, glittering musical satire packs big of labodegaglasgow.com An evening laughs and passion emotional punch. Andalucian with performances from international flamenco guitarist AARON CALVERT: Andrew Robinson, singer Danielo DECLASSIFIED Olivera and the rhythmic footwork and Gilded Balloon at the Museum, expressive choreography of El Fuego 4–26 Aug, 6pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). de la Noche. Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Urban legends contained within declassified files are recreated live on stage by master HE REDhypnotist SHOES Aaron Calvert, who combines his astounding skills in 6– King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue hypnosis, magic and mind reading to Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings demonstrate inexplicable feats. Mathew Bourne’s highly acclaimed new dance production, based on ALI MCGREGOR: the classic 1948 film.DECADENCE See our 5 star Assembly review, pageHall, ??. 4–12 Aug (not 8), 6pm, £12–£13 (£11–£12). Preview 2 & 3 Aug, £10. Accompanied by MILONGA a trio of impeccable musicians, Ali Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue will through torch songs, 13 &guide Wedyou 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ jazz reworkings andchoreographer trash mash-ups, festival Celebrated celebrating over a decade of cabaret Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a piece excellence. inspired by the late-night milonga scene in the intimate bars of Buenos MICHELLE MCMANUS: Aires. See preview, page ??. RELOADED The Stand Comedy Club 3 & 4, SURGE Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 13,Fri 14,28– 20, Merchant City, Glasgow, 21), £12 (£10).ASinger Sun 6.10pm, 30 Jul, surge.scot festivaland presenter brings her second dedicated Michelle to physical performance, incorporating outdoor, site-specific
11AM
one-woman events for all show ages and to the indoor festival. From ‘Let’s of Get the Party Started’ to showcases performance art. ‘A Little Respect’, it features some Workshops and masterclasses are of her all-time for favourite songs, with also provided those wanting to stories life over the past 14 developfrom theirher talents. years since winning Pop Idol. BARD IN THE BOTANICS ADAM BROWN MAGIC BotanicPATEL: Gardens, Glasgow, Wed Sweet 2–12 Aug, 21–Sat Grassmarket, 29 Jul, bardinthebotanics. 6.40pm, £8.50. Street magician co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on Adam Patel takes to the stage Shakespeare featuring female for the first time showcase hisof performers. Withto performances skills of of sleight of hand,Timon perceptual Taming the Shrew?, of Athens manipulation and mind-hacking while and Queen Lear. relating magic to stories from his life. FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO La Bodega Tapas Bar, Sat 3 Jun, labodegaglasgow.com An evening of BRIEFS: AndalucianCLOSE passionENCOUNTERS with performances Assembly Hall, 4–26 Aug (not 8, from international flamenco guitarist 13, 20), Robinson, 7.15pm, £17.50–£19.50 Andrew singer Danielo (£16–£18). interstellar Olivera and Expect the rhythmic footwork and aerials, incredible artistry,ofsharp expressive choreography El Fuego social commentary and warp-speed de la Noche. strippers from outer space, as Briefs present their OF iconic brand of circus, THE LIONS LISBON drag, Celticburlesque Park, Tueand 6 & comedy. Wed 7 Jun, celticfc.net Ian Auld and Willy Maley’s HOT BROWN HONEY play about a group of Celtic supporters Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–27 who head to Lisbon in 1967 forAug the (not 8, 15,Cup. 23), 7.30pm, £15.50– European £16.50 (£14.50–£15.50). Preview 3 Aug, £12.50. Hot Brown Honey turn MODERN BALLET GRADUATION up the heat with lashings of sass and PERFORMANCE a hot pinch of empowerment in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, smash-hit, genre-defying, awardThu 8–Sat 10 Jun, rcs.ac.uk winning firecracker a show that’s Showcase from finalofyear students on taken the world by storm. the Conservatoire’s BA Modern Ballet Programme, run in conjunction with
7PM
PHOTO: PETER LESLIE
LE GATEAU Scottish Ballet.CHOCOLAT: See preview, page ICONS ??. Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 7.30pm, CASABLANCA £13–£14 (£12–£13). 2 Òran Mór, Fri 7–SunPreviews 23 Jul, oran& 3 Aug, £8. Le Gateau mor.co.uk Gavin MitchellChocolat stars in this seamlessly weaves through adaptation of the classic film.pop, opera and rock from Whitney to Pavarotti, his own LA CAGEinvestigating AUX FOLLES objects of worship through King’s Theatre, Tue 25–Satthe 29songs Jul, and music of his personal icons. atgtickets.com/venues/kingstheatre Bill Kenwright’s production BROKEN ROMANTICS: sees Eastenders’ star JohnAPartridge UNICORN’S QUEST LOVE take on the role of AlbinFOR alongside Greenside @ Infirmary Street, Broadway actor Adrian Zmed as 8–25 Augin(not 12, 19), 7.35pm, Georges this witty musical number £10 (£8). Previews 3–5 Aug,values, £6 about drag artists and family (£5). Jointhe internationally acclaimed in which characters are forced to songstress Emma Dean in her thrilling cover up their vibrant lifestyle. cabaret about heartbreak, healing and unleashing PROJECT Y your inner unicorn. Featuring music, an array of Platform, original Sat 29 Jul, tramway.org covers, vocals, captivating YDance,soaring Scotland’s national youth storytelling and divine dance.four dance organisation, presents new contemporary dance works BUGLE BOYS – A SALUTE TO from choreographers Alan Greig, THE ANDREWS Hagi Yakira, StevenSISTERS Martin and Theo Assembly Clinkard. Hall, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 7.40pm, £13–£14 (£11–£12). Previews & 3 Aug, £9. Before The PAISLEY 2INTERNATIONAL Spice Girls, before The Supremes TANGO FESTIVAL there wasCoats The Andrews Sisters. Thomas Memorial Church, Frocked up 27 to the nines in faux Fri 25–Sun Aug, coatsmemorial. military costumes, Bugle Boys org.uk Tango dance festival helddance and lip-sync) some of their over sing three(not days, with workshops, most beloved songs including ‘Pistol performances and parties. Packin’ Mama’, ‘Rum And Coca Cola’ and more. LA BOHEME Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 1– DUSTY LIMITS: MANDROGYNY Sat 10 Jun, eif.co.uk Puccini’s tale of The Voodoo Rooms, 3–12 Aug (not young Bohemians in love.Also touring, 6), £8–£10. for ‘The king of see7.50pm, list.co.uk/theatre details. cabaret’ sings songs about love and death, GLORYself-pleasure ON EARTHand radical social policy, and tells his life story, most Royal Lyceum Theatre, Thu 1–Sat of is probably lies. Bawdy, 10 which Jun, David Greig directs Linda hilarious, andre-imagines melancholy. Maclean’sscathing story which the historic meetings between Mary Queen of Scots and John Knox.
8PM
NAME HERE Some YANA of the ALANA: best comedy BETWEEN in the Fringe’s THE firstCRACKS week. Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy Fringe’s week.boobs Written by: Australia’s favourite cabaretby: anarchist and neo-punk diva Yana Alana baresinallthe in this nightfirst of blues, and Brian Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’sand first week. Written Brian Donaldson. blame,Donaldson exploring mental health, sexual politics, feminism identity. Assemblyby: Checkpoint, 4–26 AugDonaldson (not 8, 13, Some 20), of the £12–£13. best comedy in the2Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson 8pm, Previews & 3 Aug, £10.
ANYA SHACKLETON ANASTASIA Gilded Balloon Teviot, Traverse Theatre, Wed 4–26 7–SatAug 9 Jun, (not 13), 8pm, £11–£13 (£10–£12). traverse.co.uk Blue Raincoat Theatre Previews Aug, £8. Alongside present the1–3 story of Shackleton and his musical partner-in-crime, voyage on the Endurance. Gareth Also Tron Chin, award-winning musical-comedy Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 14–Sat 17 Jun, maverick tron.co.ukAnya Anastasia stalks the 21st-century landscape launching thrilling on ecological screwDouglasattacks Community & Library ups, techno and selfCentre, Thu obsessives 1 Jun, dundeecity. congratulatory slacktivist keyboard gov.uk/communitycentres/ warriors. See feature, douglascentre Arturopage Ui is a14. witty and savage parable of the rise of Hitler GINGZILLA: GLAMONSTER VS – recast by Brecht into a small-time THE WORLD Chicago gangster’s takeover of the Assembly George trade. Square Theatre, city’s greengrocery 3–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 21), 8pm, £13 (£11). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10. Gingzilla is on a mission to conquer the world, presenting gender equality and femininity from the 1950s to now. Smashing together 1950s films like Godzilla, Swamp Monster and King Kong, Glamonster subverts the
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PHOTO: THE STUDIO PENICUIK
COLIN CLOUD: PSYCHO(LOGICAL) Cloud’s astounding deductions and outrageous stunts have stunned audiencesHERE worldwide. Psycho(logical) is a thrill ride where your thoughts NAME and imaginations guideinand revealing Some of the best will comedy the mislead Fringe’syou firstbefore week.ultimately Written by: Brian the truth. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27 Aug (notin14), £13.50–£17 (£12–£15.50). Donaldson Some of the best comedy the8pm, Fringe’s first week. Written Previews Aug, £9. Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. by: Brian1–3 Donaldson Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson. Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s week. Written Donaldson idea thatfirst Gingzilla can onlyby: beBrian either Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Featuring glamorous or monstrous. See feature, songs from Shirley Bassey to Duke page 41. Dumont, Cazeleon fights for liberation and freedom in this theatrical mashLITTLE DEATH CLUB up of the past and present. Winner Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 4–25 of the Adelaide Fringe Best Emerging Aug (not 13), 8pm, £12.50–£15 Artist weekly award. (£11.50–£14). Preview 3 Aug, £10. A Weimar-punk jazz band soundtracks THE HUMMINGBIRD EFFECT a night of dangerously funny cabaret, C Too, 2–27 Aug (not 14), 9.10pm, breathtaking circus and fire-breathing £8.50–£10.50 (£6.50–10.50). sideshow at its most inappropriate, Intimate solo cabaret featuring provocative and hilarious best. Join multi-award-winning Bernie Dieter for a night of debauchery.
Deborah Brennan as storyteller and songstress, based on an unlikely true story of a chance encounter with a stranger that sets in motion lifechanging events.
medley of humour, music, seduction and song from the star of ITV1’s The Voice, who returns to her first love: the stage, and her second love: talking about herself.
ICONIC – A BRIEF HISTORY OF DRAG Assembly Checkpoint, 3–26 Aug (not 8, 14), 9.30pm, £12–£13. Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10. A triple threat of heavenly vocals, theatrical swagger and razor-sharp wit. Direct from sell-out performances, Velma Celli celebrates the iconic drag moments of film, stage and popular culture. Join Velma, her backing singers and band for an electrifying cabaret featuring the music of Queen, Bowie, Lady Gaga, Tina Turner and more.
THE MISS BEHAVE GAMESHOW Gilded Balloon Teviot, 8–18 Aug, 10.30pm, £12.50–£14 (£10.50–£12). Direct from Las Vegas and a smashhit season at Sydney Opera House, Gameshow is back for only 11 shows. Featuring new games, new acts and new prizes, it’s a fun and frenzied trip full of anarchy and chaos.
YUMMY Assembly Roxy, 4–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 21), 9.40pm, £13–£14. Previews 1–3 Aug, £10. Yummy is the Melbourne powerhouse of drag, dance, circus and music, featuring an all-star cast: Karen From Finance, Valerie Hex, Jandruze, Zelia Rose, Hannie Helsden and Benjamin Hancock. Winner of Best Production and Best Ensemble (Cabaret) at the 2018 Greenroom Awards and Best Cabaret at Adelaide Fringe Weekly Awards 2018. HANS – LIKE A GERMAN Assembly Rooms, 4–19 Aug (not 12, 13), 9.50pm, £11–£13 (£10–£12). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8. The boy wonder of Berlin serves up an allsinging, all-tap dancing, accordionpumping, glittering blitzkrieg of cabaret backed by his three-piece band, The Ungrateful Bastards.
10PM IVY PAIGE: SEDUCTION Assembly George Square Theatre, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 10.40pm, £10–£12 (£9–£11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £7. Brace yourself for an electrifying
SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION Fireside, 2–26 Aug, 10.15pm, free. Paradise Palms’ infamous late-night showcase of provocative performance and queer cabaret, down in the arches on East Market Street. Hosted by Pollyanna and Shoot Your Shot plus a few more surprises, alongside street food, cocktails and music.
11PM SMUT SLAM CABARET: WHERE SEX AND STORYTELLING COLLIDE Sweet Grassmarket, 8 & 9, 15 & 16, 22 & 23 Aug, 11pm, £8 (£6). Cameryn Moore wrestles this international cult sensation into place, with music, burlesque, occasional clowns and a phone-sex-operator host. Told by the people who lived it, with one open-mic spot per night for brave audience members to tell their own smutty tales.
MIDNIGHT MARGARET THATCHER QUEEN OF CLUB NIGHTS Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4 & 5, 9–11, 16–18, 24 & 25 Aug, midnight, £12.50–£14. Former PM and cabaret superstar Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho is back and this time she’s hosting a club night. Expect non-stop 80s hits, dance-offs, lip-sync battles and more from the Iron Lady.
BEN HART: THE NUTSHELL Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 8.15pm, £10.50–£12.50 (£9.50–£11.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £7. West End star and multi awardwinning magician Ben Hart returns to Edinburgh with a brand-new show that shines a light on magic, life, the universe and the darkest corners of your imaginations. Total Fringe sell-out show 2014 and 2017. Best Magic Show, Adelaide Fringe Weekly Awards.
9PM CAZELEON: THE MOVIES IN MY MIND Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–27 Aug (not 14), 9pm, £11–£12 (£9–£10).
LADY RIZO: RED, WHITE AND INDIGO With sharp humour and a soulful, soaring voice, the New York chanteuse delivers a deeply personal musical eulogy, unpacking the feelings for her country with belting songs and her trademark wit. Assembly Hall, 4–19 Aug (not 8, 13), 9.10pm, £14–£15 (£12–£13). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £10.
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REGINALD D HUNTER 20th anniversary of this rabble-rousing American’s Fringe debut You could say that Reg D Hunter’s 20 years at the Fringe have been, at the very least, eventful. He’s slept in for his own gig (which was due to start at 8pm), been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award twice, and was branded by a cage-rattling columnist as ‘the black Bernard Manning’. Arriving in the UK from his Albany, Georgia home at the age of 27 in order to pursue a career in acting, it was the comedy bug he contracted after doing his first gig as a dare. Reaching the So You Think You’re Funny final in 1998 (also in that lineup was Dan Antopolski, Alex Zane and winner Rob Rouse) gave Hunter the impetus to plough forward and his 2018
show will be his 13th full Fringe hour. An American Facing the Beast and Niggas continues his trend of contentious show titles which began with 2004’s A Mystery Wrapped in a Nigga and led to the poster for his 2006 Edinburgh and touring show, Pride and Prejudice and Niggas, being banned from the London Underground. Love him or not, the preacher-man from the Deep South is always going to find an adoring audience in the Athens of the North. (Brian Donaldson) ■ Pleasance at EICC, 4–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 20), 8.30pm, £15.50–£17 (£14.50–£16). Previews 1–3 Aug, £9.
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COMEDY HITLIST Brian Donaldson picks some comedy highs as the Fringe kicks off ROB KEMP After proving to be the cult late-night hit of 2017, Midlands man Kemp returns with the show which merges the King of Rock’n’Roll with the comedically gory Sam Raimi movie. The Elvis Dead will have you all shook up. See interview at list.co.uk/festival Pleasance Courtyard, 4–25 Aug (not 6 & 7, 13 & 14, 20 & 21), 10.20pm, £10–£12 (£9 £11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £7. SARA BARRON It’s been a long time coming, but New York-based author and live storyteller Barron is finally at the Fringe with her debut show. For Worse looks at motherhood, middle age and modern media matters. See feature, page 51. Just the Tonic at The Tron, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 3.40pm, £5 in advance or donation at the venue. ALEX EDELMAN Just for Us is the third Fringe hour from this talented Boston comic, as the Best Newcomer Award winner from 2014 looks at the darker
recesses of social media and does not like what he sees. But did he really then need to head into the lions’ den of a Nazi meeting? See feature, page 17. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, 8pm, £10–£14. Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. JAMALI MADDIX Another guy who has gone toe to toe with bigots for his Hate Thy Neighbour cable show, Maddix is taking a relaxed step back with a month of Vape Lord. See feature, page 48. Monkey Barrel, 3–26 Aug (not 13), 6pm, £8. Preview 2 Aug, £6 (£5). Tickets in advance or donation at the venue. JIM TAVARE Reputedly the favourite comic of one Prince Charles, Tavaré almost died last year after an awful car accident. From Deadpan to Bedpan covers much of his comedy life and that scary scrape with death. See feature, page 59. Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 4.15pm, donation. REGINALD D HUNTER It’s been a very memorable two decades at the Fringe for our favourite living Southern stand-up, and Reg
Rob Kemp
celebrates in the only way he can: with a provocative show title. Ladies and gents, we give you An American Facing the Beast and Niggas. See
preview, page 45. Pleasance at EICC, 4–26 Aug (not 8, 14, 20), 8.30pm, £15.50–£17 (£14.50–£16). Previews 1–3 Aug, £9.
Theatre Mime
Puppetry Clown
Dance
@InstitutFrancaisEcosse
www.ifecosse.org 0131 285 6030 Institut français d’Ecosse West Parliament Square Edinburgh EH1 1RF
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Podcasts | FESTIVAL COMEDY
POD ALMIGHTY
Confine thousands of comedians anywhere for a month and they’re liable to podcast. And if you can’t stop them, why not join them? Jay Richardson picks some of the best at this year’s Fringe
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wo experienced podcasters, the thoughtful Carl Donnelly and the more dubiously informed Seann Walsh are pairing to launch Who The F#ck is Barbara?, in which they snoop through a guest’s phone and project its contents onto a screen. Other seasoned podders experimenting this year are Sofie Hagen and Alison Spittle, with the first week of Sofie Hagen Tries Something given over to the duo just chatting. Hagen does psychiatric-style inquiry while Spittle’s interviews are more easy-going but they’re firm friends and it ought to be an intriguing meeting of minds. Sure to be rather frothier is Happy Mondays in which two old school friends, the camp Brennan Reece and even camper Stephen Bailey, are appalled by the state of the world and try to lighten the mood with blether. Bringing the same relaxed, cynicism-free curiosity to his interviews on Off The Grid With Russell Hicks as he does to his freewheeling stand-up, the open-minded American hasn’t revealed who his comedian guest is yet, but it’s sure to be a notable one for his birthday on 13 August. More wide-ranging and concerned with great reads, Book Shambles features comedians, writers and others revealing the authors who inspire them, with Robin Ince hosting solo while Josie Long is away on maternity leave. Similarly, Aidan Goatley’s 10 Films With . . . finds the amiable Goatley teasing some passionate opinions from those he invites on to talk about the movies they love and hate. Politics and current affairs junkies are particularly well-served, with both Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd: Reasons to Be Cheerful and Sarah Millican’s In Conversation With Standard Issue trading on their bigname creators to secure impressive guest lineups. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast has already scored on this front, with Deputy First Minister John Swinney and another high-profile Scottish political figure already confirmed as interviewees. Gráinne Maguire: What Has the News Ever Done for Me? is a lighthearted panel show that tends to live or die depending on how depressing the news is, with chairperson Maguire managing the tricky balance of being both perky and knowledgeable. Meanwhile, Deborah Frances-White recently landed a late-night satirical pilot with Channel 4 off the back of The Guilty Feminist which seamlessly slots in a revolving cast of co-hosts and makes the audience almost as big a part of the show as the comics. Regular listeners appreciate what a consistent outlet for Andy Zaltzman’s satirical silliness The Bugle Live has become, and he’s joined by one of his regular co-hosts, Alice Fraser, for its two dates. The under-appreciated, coolly intelligent Australian has also chosen this festival to record her last three shows for antipodean broadcaster ABC, with Trilogy a chance to catch some increasingly assured hours of stand-up. Further debating the issues of the day but with lots more going on besides, the high-concept institution of Sunday Service With Ola is taking place outside London for the first time, with ‘hymns’, confessionals and Ola himself unseen on the ‘God mic’, plus all the live stand-up they cut from the edit. Even more niche perhaps, and all the more popular for it, All Killa No Filla features Rachel Fairburn and Kiri Pritchard-McLean combining whatever’s on their minds with in-depth discussion of a particular serial killer. So successful is this format that post-Fringe, the pair are off to America – spiritual home of the homicide spree – for a mini-tour.
From top: Andy Zaltzman (The Bugle Live), All Killa No Filla, Sunday Service With Ola
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A relaxed fan of the simple things in life, Jamali Maddix still managed to put himself in dangerous situations for his cable TV show. Arusa Qureshi finds a comic at peace with himself and calmly avoiding the Fringe heat
O
nce you’ve come face to face with neo-Nazis, members of the EDL and swastika-wearing militants, it may be hard to retain a sense of humour. But Jamali Maddix is relatively chilled out for a guy that has come up against all this and more. As the host of Viceland’s Hate Thy Neighbour, Maddix has been sent around the world to meet with controversial groups in a bid to understand, and in some cases confront, the nuances of hatred. ‘It was all quite a horrific shitty situation,’ he says about filming the show. ‘You learn bits and pieces here and there, different perspectives and how people come to adopt extreme ideas. But I think I learned more about showbiz than I did about the world and about social issues.’ As a former Chortle Student Comedy Award winner, Maddix is popular on comedy circuits, despite becoming more known in the public eye lately for his encounters with the alt-right. But even with the tough experiences of Hate Thy Neighbour under his belt, he is largely nonchalant about how this has changed his overall approach and attitude to comedy. ‘I guess it’s like with anything that you do, it probably affects the work. I wouldn’t say Hate Thy Neighbour had a massive effect but when I was making that show, I didn’t really have a lot of time to write stand-up. So it’s made my turnover speed faster and it’s helped me work on my storytelling structure. You can say what you want up there though. If you want to go up there and preach, you can. It’s up to you, that’s your prerogative. I still see it as comedy. There might be some bits where I’m talking about heavier topics but it’s probably for my own ego than for the art form. I don’t see it as this world-changing bastion; I’m quintessentially still telling jokes and I’m there to entertain people.’ Maddix is returning to the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as to stand-up itself, with his new show Vape Lord, which has the comedian reflecting on his travels and the state of the world in a typically frank and largely incredulous fashion. But having taken this short break from stand-up, he intends to use Edinburgh to find his comedic voice again. ‘I’ve been filming for the last two months, and before that I was filming a TV show, so I haven’t really fully structured my new show yet. It’s a weird one because I’m doing Edinburgh with the intention of trying to develop the show while I’m up there. I haven’t done stand-up in a hot minute and this is like me coming back to what I love doing. It’s basically going to be me trying to work out where I am and what I want to talk about.’ Maddix has done his time at the Fringe, both as part of package shows and later, as a solo act, but even though his relaxed outlook suggests otherwise, he is all too familiar with the work involved in progressing through the world of comedy. ‘When you’re doing package shows,’ he says, ‘that’s like the fun time because you’re with a couple of mates and just running around, doing your slot and having fun doing 20 minutes a night. Then when you start doing solos, that’s when the work starts in trying to progress as a comedian and trying to work on structure.’ Maddix may be ready for his return to stand-up with Vape Lord, but his attitude to his upcoming run at the Fringe is refreshing, highlighting a sense of contentment in what he has accomplished over this past year. ‘Success is a weird thing. This will be one of the few times I’ve come to Edinburgh where I’m not thinking about it. I’ll be honest with you, when I’ve had a more structured show, I’ve been more nervous going up but I’m really quite laid-back about it this time. I just want to do stand-up; I’m not worried about this perceived notion of success. It’s not my purpose this year. My purpose is really just to do some stand-up.’ After his appearance in Edinburgh, Maddix will be taking Vape Lord around the UK, followed by dates in Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Lithuania and the USA. So with such a wide range of cultures, environments and audiences still to come, what does he hope that people will take from the show? ‘For me, they take what they want to take. If they’re upset with me, if they’re happy with me, if they agree with me, if they disagree with me, that’s on them. I just want to do stand-up. It’s not some weird altruism either, I just like doing it and I hope people like to hear what I’ve got to say. And I’m happy with that. I’m a man of basic needs, really.’ Jamali Maddix: Vape Lord, Monkey Barrel, 3–26 Aug (not 13), 6pm, £8. Preview 2 Aug, £6 (£5). Tickets in advance or donation at the venue.
INSTINCT 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 49
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50 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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Sara Barron | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival
SCREEN TEST Adapting to the digital age is an impossible task for some. Storytelling stand-up Sara Barron tells Craig Angus that her Fringe debut was a long time coming
>> 1â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 51
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FESTIVAL COMEDY | Sara Barron
>>
TALES IN THE CAPITAL CITY This quintet are also putting stories at the heart of their comedy
JOHN PENDAL Everyone’s family tree will throw up tales and secrets, but not many can tell them like Pendal, with We Are Family featuring mutinies, fire-raising and serious mental health issues. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 5.30pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. WIL GREENWAY The classic word-of-mouth hit, Greenway makes his debut in the comedy section with Either Side of Everything featuring stories and live musicians. Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 2.50pm, £10.50–£11.50 (£9.50–£10.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50.
T
he detailed documentation of a life lived well on social media is a curious thing. Day to day existence is now screened and filtered so it resembles something almost entirely glamorous and exciting; a phenomenon that, while no doubt entertaining millions, is bound to foster feelings of inadequacy in others. It’s something that’s played on the mind of comedian Sara Barron, whose debut Edinburgh show For Worse offers truth as a counterpoint to careful curation. Barron is preparing for her first visit to the Fringe as a stand-up, after previous trips for recreational and research purposes hammered home a desire to bare her soul on stage for a month. ‘What I’ve realised about myself as I’ve got older is that I would sit down with anyone and tell them anything about myself. I’m a real warts and all person, which I think is just a healthy way to live.’ The show’s thematic parameters stem from Barron’s own specific experience of becoming a mother for the first time in 2016, which she says left her shellshocked. ‘I thought motherhood was smothering an adorable infant, smiling into a selfie and putting that shit up online. Anyone who takes an attractive photo of themselves and puts it online while dealing with a newborn is feeding so many other people’s post-natal depression, you know?’ The disparity between the difficulty of coping, and the idealised presentations she found herself confronted with was striking, and forms the basis of For Worse. ‘I’m trying to talk about advancing towards middle age in a way that’s real, what it’s actually about, and not the whitewashed version that ends up on social media.’ Barron’s own journey to the Fringe has been a long one. Moving from the Chicago suburbs to New York as a 17-year-old, she enrolled at NYU with dreams of becoming an actor, before realising just days after graduation that it had been a huge mistake. ‘I sorta knocked around for ten months, waiting tables, trying to figure out what to do and what I was interested in.’ At that point Barron gravitated towards New York’s
thriving comedy scene. ‘We’re talking 15 years ago,’ she qualifies. ‘I tried stand-up for like six months and thought “this is the most terrifying, horrendous thing I’ve ever done”. If I had a gig that night I’d be sick with fear the whole day.’ She kept up with the writing side of things, publishing two comic essay collections (People Are Unappealing and The Harm in Asking) that brought comparisons to David Sedaris, and got involved with The Moth, a non-profit collective in New York dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling. Now a popular podcast, it began as a series of live shows in New York that Barron would occasionally host. Through The Moth, Barron met her future husband (a podcast and radio producer) who assumed she was a performing comedian. Finding out she hadn’t got up on stage in a decade, he encouraged her. ‘Something clicked second time round. I got it in my head that when I was done working on this second book that I was writing, maybe I would try and put my toe in the water again,’ she says. ‘I immediately fell in love and got the bug, an addiction I couldn’t find at 22.’ For Worse is the culmination of a lengthy journey for Barron, a talented performer with a fanbase that includes gonzo journalist and storyteller extraordinaire Jon Ronson. You sense her debut Edinburgh show is something she believes in with every fibre of her being, a show that will resonate with audience members at a time when openly talking about mental and physical health is so important. ‘I wanted to write a stand-up hour that had the momentum of a story-based show. I’ve tried to keep in mind the goal of telling the truth. That’s the northern star I return to: is it true, is it real? The more you can talk and be honest (and air what is painful and hard with your life, even in the context of a relationship with a friend) the better. It’s a valuable service.’
CHARLIE PARTRIDGE I Can Make You Feel Good. By Comparison. certainly might win the award for the most grammatically intriguing title of the month (though check out John-Luke Roberts’ for commitment to the cause) and we hope its creator can match it with his actual show about falling in love with the wrong person. Just the Tonic at The Caves, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 4.50pm, £5 in advance or donation at the venue. MARJOLEIN ROBERTSON This rising Shetland stand-up announces that It’s Time as she interweaves her own story into traditional folk tales from her home community. Bar Bados Complex, 4–25 Aug (not 14), 8.30pm, donation. EDD HEDGES The young chap with the eyebrows and jumpers won So You Think You’re Funny in 2013 and made his Fringe debut last summer. His follow-up, For Eva, From Forever Ago, explores three events over the course of three decades which may or may not be connected (they probably will be). Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 4pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.
Sara Barron: For Worse, Just the Tonic at The Tron, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 3.40pm, £5 in advance or donation at the venue.
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‘Hugely entertaining! Peerless impersonations’ Daily Mail
‘Pretty much perfect feats of mimicry’ The Times
DAD’S ARMY A A Sockful Sockful of of Custard Custard By and with Chris Larner and Jeremy Stockwell A celebration of the life, work and trousers of Spike Milligan
Venue 23 - Pleasance Ace Dome
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1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 53
Untitled-2 53
27/07/2018 15:12
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Political offspring
DADDY Kids naturally get embarrassed about their parents. But how would you feel if your dad happened to be a high-flying politician? Jay Richardson talks to some Fringe acts whose fathers have wandered the corridors of power
F
inishing third in Britain’s Got Talent transformed Daliso Chaponda from a journeyman circuit comic to a touring act overnight. But that wasn’t his craziest 2017 experience. ‘That was the death threats in Malawi,’ he recalls. Even while preparing for BGT, his father, George T Chaponda, tipped to become Malawi’s president, was sacked as agriculture minister of the impoverished nation amid a corruption scandal relating to maize imports from Zambia. His exoneration finally came in June, while his son is now ‘writing like a maniac, because it was totally surreal and I can finally talk about it. There was an explosion at my dad’s office. We had a year of abuse but at least I got some good jokes out of it. African politics makes British politics look positively boring.’ Russian politics, meanwhile, make waves everywhere. Olga Koch’s Fringe debut, Fight, has all the elements of a Cold War thriller. It hinges on a trip her father, Alfred (Russia’s former deputy prime minister and an outspoken critic of President Putin) tried to take to Moscow in 2014. His daughter, who began comedy in New York, introduces the FSB (Russia’s latter-day KGB) and explains exactly why her family went into exile. There’s a yarn at the heart of Benet Brandreth’s A Hero for Our Times too, a loosely autobiographical account of finding love in middle-age. As the son of former Tory whip and fellow Fringe performer Gyles, Benet attended St Paul’s public school and Cambridge University, and soldiered in the Black
Watch: ‘a posh-boy living cliché,’ he volunteers. ‘My entire life has been spent in places with quadrangles and tea at four.’ ng his seat in parliament, Benet believes On losing his fatherr found refuge in performing. Gyles was cautious about his son, a barrister and rhetoric coach oyal Shakespeare Company, following him for the Royal on stage but set ‘a great example of never being afraid to fail’. Indeed, his support extended to recently enet and his actor wife, Kosha Engler, in casting Benet mental Hamlett with Benet as the prince and an experimental d Gyles playing all the other parts. Kosha and dn’t have been human if having my father ‘I wouldn’t and wife do a romantic scene together didn’t make me feel slightly queasy,’ the younger Brandreth till, seeing the former honourable member admits. Still, er in such a situation, ‘probably gave the for Chester audience a head start on appreciating what we were trying to bring out, as they must have been aware of ardness.’ the awkwardness.’ George Chaponda had similar misgivings about emic son becoming a comedian. Those his academic ments only intensified when Daliso risked disagreements upsetting Malawi’s censorship board. ‘I had to tell him that I couldn’t stop ripping apart the government use he was in it. Gradually, he accepted just because s.’ And when the English tabloids who I was.’ gleefully revealed that George had once proposed a public ban on farting, his son was thrilled ‘as it meant ring back the jokes I’d I could bring ree years before’. written three
54 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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Political offspring | FESTIVAL COMEDY
list.co.uk/festival
ISSUES Returning to Malawi in November, Chaponda got a VIP welcome. Everyone on the flight shook his hand, a hundred people wore Daliso t-shirts and a score of bodyguards were borrowed from his father’s trial. ‘That was partially excitement but partially his paranoia,’ the comic says. ‘He gets real threats: people threatening a comedian aren’t the same.’ Such high office would delight Benet Brandreth. ‘But I suspect it’s probably a good thing that a power-hungry man like myself is kept away from it. There’s something unfortunate about the way politics is
structured in this country. c The professionalism of the political classes can ca be very limiting in terms of who it selects and who it allows to advance. I don’t have much interest in pplaying that particular game.’ Chaponda concurs. concu After witnessing horrific deaths in refugee camps while accompanying his father, stand-up redeemed him. ‘I was a very angry kid, very ove the place. Finding comedy as a depressed, all over Th vent saved me. There are things I want to talk about t on stage that will take more skill, because it’s not just engage emotional engagement, it’s your ability to deal with r it. I’m not quite ready, but every year the scope of ab what I can talk about is growing. On Britain’s Got o version of me.’ Talentt I was just one Daliso Chaponda Chaponda: What the African Said, Gilded Balloon a at the Museum, 19–26 Aug, 7.30pm, £15–£1 £15–£16 (£13–£14). Olga Koch: Fight Fight, Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 7.1 7.15pm, £7–£9 (£6.50–£8). Previews 1–3 Au Aug, £6. Benet Brandreth Brandreth: A Hero for Our Times, Gilded Balloon Tevio Teviot, 4–22 Aug, 11.15am, 23–27 Aug, 4.15p 4.15pm, £9.50–£10.50 (£8.50– £9.50). Pr Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Gyles B Brandreth: Break a Leg!, Pleasa Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 13 13), 4.30pm, £16–£19 (£14.50– £17.50 £17.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £10.
A LITTLE BIT MORE POLITICS Here’s another set of shows that tackle (in their diverse ways) some of the issues du jour LOLLY JONES A finalist in Burlesque Idol (you didn’t know such a thing existed, did you?), Jones paints a satirical picture with Fifty Shades of May, in which she mercilessly lampoons political figures including the PM, Angela Eagle, Arlene Foster and Nicola Sturgeon. Assembly Roxy, 3–24 Aug (not 13), 8.50pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £5. MATT FORDE The true successor to Rory Bremner’s mimicry crown, Forde marks his final Fringe as an EU citizen (presumably) with the cunningly named Brexit Through the Gift Shop in which this stridently New Labour man takes off as many of the leading politicos as he can in a single hour. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, 8.30pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8. KIERAN HODGSON In his last two critically adored shows, he’s tackled disgraced cyclists and the world of classical music, and here the talented Mr Hodgson is back with a new hour which recalls the time when Britain initially joined Europe to become part of the Common Market. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, 8.15pm, £8–£12 (£7–£11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. LUISA OMIELAN Like many people, Omielan was passionately anti-politics until an issue touched her personally. In this case, her mum’s illness and death triggered a questioning of the government’s health policies. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–26 Aug (not 14, 23), 9pm, £14–£15 (£12– £13). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £9. OLEG DENISOV With Russia never far from the news headlines (Putin, poison and Pussy Riot for three), the time is truly ripe for another comic from that land, with Doublethink acting as a vessel to analyse progaganda, democracy and the truth behind Trump’s notorious pre-presidency trip to Moscow. Just the Tonic at The Tron, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 11.40pm, £5 (£4) in advance or donation at the venue.
From left: Olga Koch, Benet Brandreth, Daliso Chaponda 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 55
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FESTIVAL COMEDY | Jessie Cave
HERE COMES THE SUN In the process of being positive after a painful break-up, Jessie Cave has delivered her most honest show to date. She tells Kirstyn Smith that playing the underdog comes naturally to her
I
t’s hard to pin Jessie Cave down to just one genre: even if you gloss over the fact she appeared in the Harry Potter films as Lavender Brown, she also shines as a writer, comedian and illustrator. Her work is exposed and relatable, dealing in motherhood, dating, and being both vulnerable and annoying in relationships and friendships. Her Fringe show, Sunrise, is about trying to keep up with everything, something her varied career proves she’s pretty good at.
How do illustrations fit into your work?
How did the transition from acting to comedy happen for you?
Relatability is a big thing in your work: why did you decide nothing was offlimits?
I never really considered myself an actress. I would have gone into some form of performance art if I hadn’t got Harry Potter. After that, I was suddenly labelled an actress, when that wouldn’t have been what I would have said I was going to do with my life. I would have gone into comedy much quicker if I hadn’t been put into that pigeonhole. For a long time, I didn’t really know what to say when people asked what I do, but now I feel a bit more secure in saying I write and I perform. My shows are an extension of my illustrations, it’s all very organic.
My dream was to be a children’s illustrator, and I’ve always spent every moment when I wasn’t acting just drawing. In the last few years, it’s become something I would consider part of my livelihood. Getting my book published was a dream come true. The internet has given me this massive lease of life because I’m able to share them and get a response, and that keeps me going. That’s actually how I got published, because of the following I got from my drawings online.
I made it that I was going to do a drawing every day and post it on Twitter; the only reason I did this was because I was trying to get a guy who was rejecting me to notice me. I thought if he saw my doodles which are all about love and stuff, he would fall in love with me. But I didn’t realise that all my drawings are really sarcastic and pessimistic, and not really ‘fall in love with me’ drawings. Now I don’t even remember the guy. So, when people share stuff it’s the best thing; it shows that unrequited love and rejection are things you want to talk about with your friends.
The underdog mentality is a recurring theme. I am chronically self-deprecating. Even when I know I’ve done something quite well, I go ‘God, I’m disgusting. Don’t look at me.’ That’s kind of my persona on stage: I can’t look into the audience’s eyes. I feel like I’ve got to speak as fast as possible and get the hell off the stage. What can audiences expect from your Edinburgh show?
My last show was after the birth of my first child, which I had after a one-night stand, and it was about the struggles of finding peace in a relationship when I couldn’t help but think I trapped him because I got pregnant. That fear of him leaving me in the end because I’m being so neurotic that I actually push him away. Anyway, this show kind of answers that question because, turns out, I did push him away! It’s a positive story about a break-up that’s for the best and how you deal with the messiness of it all when you have two very young children. It’s disgustingly honest, and there are lots of sexual things I’ve never gone that far onstage with. Almost the whole show is about sex. Just, not in a sexy way. Jessie Cave: Sunrise, The Stand IV, 3–26 Aug (not 13), 2.25pm, £10.
56 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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01-27 AUGUST 2018 27/07/2018 12:28
FESTIVAL COMEDY | Jim Tavaré
‘JUST GOING ON STAGE CAN HELP DEPRESSION’ Dying in front of an audience means little to Jim Tavaré after he almost perished for real in 2017. Jay Richardson talks to this returning 90s Fringe star who numbers a possible future monarch among his fans
L
ying in his car, with a broken neck, 15 broken ribs, punctured lung g and a hand detached from the wrist, surveying an exposed bonee sticking through his leg, Jim Tavaré pondered ‘is there a show in this?’ He chuckles at the memory, one of only a few he retains from the crash in March last year that almost killed him. ‘Isn’t it weird?’ the Los Angeles-based British stand-up marvels. ‘Comics have a simplistic way of looking at everything as a joke. It’s what we do isn’t it? Looking at life that way, you miss out on some important things but it’s certainly a great survival mechanism. Just going on stage can help depression.’ After last appearing at the Fringe 20 years ago, Tavaré recalls with pleasure how he persuaded Ronnie Corbett to stand in for him one night in 1996. The 55-year-old had no plans to return though, with ‘Edinburgh the farthest thing from my mind’. He’d made his name as a circuit comic with gags around his trademark double bass, before co-writing The Jim Tavaré Show on Channel 5 with Ricky Gervais and starring in ITV’s The Sketch Show with Lee Mack, Tim Vine and Ronni Ancona. In 2008, he became the first non-US act to reach the final of TV talent contest Last Comic Standing, finishing fourth, prompting a move Stateside the following year where he’ss since developed a successful career as a character actor. ked ‘You get known for your skillset in Hollywood,’ reflects Tavaré, who booked eeper an entire US college tour off the (hunched) back of being Tom the Innkeeper in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. ‘“This guy’s scary, he’s nott goodlooking”. Lately, I’ve been playing up the Englishness again. There are so many things y won’t know.’ to draw on. You can walk into an audition and tell them you’re Scottish. They In hospital, he was told he’d never play the double bass again. Of far greater reater concern cathed to bite was the fate of Mr Kippy. His dog was also in the crash but emerged unscathed the paramedics. Comedy rallied round Tavaré, with benefit gigs in the UK and US raising funds for his medical bills. Recording a short video for one, he began to contemplate addressing his experience more fully. ‘I probably did three gigs in LA, forcing myself
58 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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Jim Tavaré | FESTIVAL COMEDY
RETURN TO EMBRA to do it, desperately wanting to talk of what happened. I did some jokes, then got into it. It was very awkward and rather too much for the audience.’ Undeterred, he began thinking about relating it as a single narrative, the first time he’d tried storytelling. ‘When you’re a comedian, it’s quite intellectual, but something like this, it’s emotional.’ Guided by his director, Henry Normal, and Scottish writer and story coach, Lynn Ferguson, he simply shared the facts of his accident, removing anything tangential. ‘My previous life as a comic was worrying about where the next joke was coming from. But when you start with something serious, it’s easy to subvert. l the story So I held back from my usual instincts and let tell itself. Vulnerability, again, is a nnew departure for me.’ There are several quirky details d in the tale, from the premonitory adver advert he shot just before the crash, to Willie N Nelson appearing at his hospital bed. Long L held to be Prince Charles’ fav favourite comic, Tavaré actually g got to know Princess Diana a few years before his Royal Va Variety bookings, after appearin appearing alongside her brother Earl Spencer, Rupert Everett Everett, Colin Firth and Boris Johnson, no less, in the ultra-Etonian 1984 film film A Another Country. ‘It’s amaz amazing how we had the same car accident, 20 years apart with remarkably simi similar injuries, though unfo unfortunately she . . . ’ he pauses. ‘I realised this on one day and just didn’t kn know what to do with th the information: it was so much to process.’ Tavaré speculates tthat he might develop comic motivational lectures for others who’ve experienced intense trauma. ‘It feels more useful than selfish comedy. I’m not an ego person at all.’ Throughout his rehabilitation, he found himself ‘really missing the UK, so II’d only watch British T TV and wear tweeds al all day. But I really ha haven’t been out much and haven’t connected wit with UK comedy at all and don’t know the new comics. I’m like this strang strange mammal developing in the antipodes without any influence. It’s a privilege at this late stage of my career to return to the Fringe.’
It might not be exactly like riding a bike, but these comics are firmly back in the Fringe saddle after all these years
HELEN LEDERER Finger Food in 2004 was when Lederer was last at the Fringe, in a spoof cookery show alongside a certain Miranda Hart. I Might As Well Say It has her revealing all about the comedy biz. Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–25 Aug (not 13), 5.05pm, £10.50–£11.50 (£9.50– £10.50). Preview 3 Aug, £7. JOHN MOLONEY Acting in consort with Fred MacAulay, the man who was once dubbed the Bentley of stand-ups (in a world where all comedians were comparable to cars), Moloney will perform half an hour of straight-down-the-line comedy. The Stand, 3–26 Aug (not 13), 8.05pm, £14 (£12). ARNAB CHANDA In 2007, Chanda performed a split show with Greg McHugh and his future looked bright. A little while later, personal reasons had him fleeing the comedy scene with his return only now secured. Stories from Arnab will be exactly that. Banshee Labyrinth, 4–26 Aug (not 12, 19), 5pm, donation. PAUL MAYHEW-ARCHER You have to go all the way back to 1975 for Mayhew-Archer’s previous Fringe appearance, beside Andy Hamilton in one of those revue shows you got back then. For Incurable Optimist, he’s chatting about his determination to not let his Parkinson’s get him down. Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 5.15pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. MILES JUPP 2010 was the last time Archie the Inventor from Balamory (oh come on, no one thinks of him hanging around a pink castle anymore, surely?) had a full show on the go at the Fringe, and here he’s hosting daily interviews with the likes of Les Dennis, David Gower, Jess Phillips and John McCarthy. The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 3–12 Aug, 3.40pm, £14 (£12).
Jim Tavaré: From Deadpan De to Bedpan, Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 4.15 4.15pm, donation. 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 59
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FESTIVAL COMEDY | Jayde Adams
DIVINE COMEDY Hiding pain and being fabulous are the twin ambitions of Jayde Adams at the Fringe, as Claire Sawers finds out
‘I
’ve been hanging out with drag queens for almost 10 years, back when it was punk, and before it became mainstream. It was only a matter of time before I became a gay icon!’ laughs Jayde Adams. After being nominated for Best Newcomer in 2016’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards then having a hit Fringe show with Jayde Adams Is Jayded, she’s back with a new hour. The Divine Ms Jayde takes its title from a 2017 List review describing her as, ‘a deadpan cross between the Divineinspired Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Adele’. Last year’s show explained an epiphany she had after tragically losing her older sister. That trauma seven years ago spurred her into action, and she’s been racking up telly appearances since, including 8 Out of 10 Cats, Russell Brand’s Stand Off and Good Omens, alongside David Tennant and Michael Sheen. ‘I’ve got my trauma, we all do. I miss my sister. I’ve got four #MeToo stories. But the audience doesn’t want them. People are so self-obsessed these days. This year, I just want to be fabulous. But not too happy either: everyone remembers Only Fools and Horses, it was rubbish when they became millionaires. Comedy gets lost when you become a winner. Luckily I’m my own harshest critic so I know when to undercut myself.’ She describes her onstage persona as ‘a funny, clowny diva’ with plenty of punchlines and songs. ‘Edinburgh encourages you to hide behind your pain, and be vulnerable and confessional. I’ve done that and I’m in a better place now. You can’t get up there and be surrounded by clapping and say “I feel like an outsider”. It doesn’t ring true. Plus the drag queens remind me to focus on entertaining people. Rather than harping on about my woes, they’re like “not here, love, our fathers all hate us for being gay. Move on babe”.’
Jayde Adams: The Divine Ms Jayde, Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27 Aug, 9.30pm, £10–£13 (£8.50–£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £7.50. 60 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
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CO-PROMOTION
D I S COV E R THEATRE | DANCE | PHYSICAL THEATRE KIDS SHOWS | CIRCUS
Pleasance, Summerhall and ZOO showcase some of the most exciting work at the Fringe – and 2018 looks set to be another great year. To give you a head start, we’ve picked out 75 essential shows to see before September in the Southside. You’ll find new writing from award-winning theatre-makers, dazzling acrobatics from acclaimed circus troupes, shows for children that will entertain and educate, and unforgettable offerings from masters of dance and physical theatre. Whether you want to challenge yourself and stray from your comfort zone or you’re looking for a fun show for all the family, you’ll discover it at Pleasance, Summerhall and ZOO. So take your pick – and happy festival-ing!
B OX O F F I C E
pleasance.co.uk
summerhall.co.uk
zoofestival.co.uk
0131 556 6550
0131 560 1581
0131 662 6892
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c irc u s PHOTO: LUKE EVANS
What the Moon Saw
PLEASANCE
SUMMERHALL
ZOO
CIRQUE BERSERK! Cirque Berserk! Pleasance @ EICC, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 22), 6pm (& 1.30pm Thu–Sun), £13–£19.50 (£10–£15). Preview Fri 3 Aug, £12. Cirque Berserk! celebrates the 250th anniversary of the invention of circus by bringing this jawdropping spectacular to the Fringe for the first time. Combining contemporary cirque-style artistry with adrenaline-fuelled stunt action, the international troupe includes over thirty acrobats, aerialists, dancers, drummers and daredevil stuntmen, also featuring the world’s most hairraising circus act; the legendary motorcycle Globe of Death.
NOTORIOUS STRUMPET & DANGEROUS GIRL Love Is the Drug Summerhall, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 13, 20), 9.55pm, £14 (£12). Previews Wed 1 & Fri 3 Aug, £9. The latest solo work from award-winning circus virtuoso Jess Love tells a strikingly truthful tale of one woman’s voyage to recovery through connection with her convict past. Step into this unassuming Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where twisted storytelling and spectacular circus skills are shaken and stirred. Notorious Strumpet won the New Original Circus Award at the Melbourne Fringe in 2016 and the Circus and Physical Theatre Award at last year’s Adelaide Fringe.
WHAT THE MOON SAW 2Faced Dance Company ZOO Southside, Mon 13–Sun 26 Aug (not 15), 11am, £9 (£7). Preview Sun 12 Aug, £7. A dance and circus performance for little ones and their families from the Hereford-based 2Faced Dance Company. Scared of the dark, young Jack opens his bedroom window to find a familiar friendly face, The Moon. The Moon shining bright, teaches Jack how to be brave by taking him on an amazing adventure of dragons, boats and rooftops; showing him all that he sees and teaching him all that he knows.
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k i ds PLEASANCE MAMABABAME Starcatchers and Curious Seed supported by Made in Scotland Pleasance @ EICC, Fri 3–Fri 17 Aug (not 6, 13), 10.30am & 1.30pm, £8. Previews Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £6. MamaBabaMe is a beautiful dance, physical theatre and live music experience created especially for babies and children aged 0–3 and their grown-ups. With the soothing sounds of live cello and intimate lighting and set design, the show explores the profound connection between parent and child and how this eternal bond evolves and grows. Part of the Made in Scotland showcase 2018. ANIMALPHABET: THE MUSICAL Hit The Mark Theatre Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13), 10.40am, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £7. Join Colin the Country Cockatoo, Hip-Hop Donkey and Geoff the Geordie Jazz Giraffe on a fantastic family musical adventure that features high-energy actors, colourful puppets, and amazing characters. AnimAlphabet is funny, fast-paced and bursting with witty songs by Al and Sam of platinum pop band The Hoosiers, with Kerry Ingram (Free Rein, Game of Thrones, Matilda The Musical) as the voice of Metro The Gnome. Supported by Arts Council England. WILDE CREATURES Tall Stories Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21–23, 25), 2.50pm, £9–£11 (£8–£10). Preview Thu 2 Aug, £6. A motley crew of storytelling musicians bring Oscar Wilde’s classic fairy tales to life in Tall Stories’ magical new show, direct from London’s West End. Characters
from The Happy Prince and other stories spring to life as the pompous mayor, the petulant princess and the love-sick student compete to become the new town statue. Hauntingly beautiful tales for everyone aged 5–105, told with live music and a generous dash of comedy. MICHAEL MORPURGO’S KENSUKE’S KINGDOM WildChild Productions Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13), 12.30pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6.50. Off on the adventure of a lifetime, Michael, his parents and their faithful dog Stella set sail around the world. Then, the night before his 12th birthday, disaster strikes and Michael finds himself stranded on an island in the Pacific. Stuart Paterson brings Morpurgo’s classic children’s book to life in this captivating adaptation with storytelling, puppetry, music and a voiceover recorded by Jenny Agutter. Join Michael, Stella, a buffoonery of orangutans and Japanese war survivor Kensuke in their fight to protect the Kingdom.
SUMMERHALL KATIE & PIP Tin Can People Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 12 Aug, 1.20pm, £10 (£7). Previews Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £5. Katie & Pip celebrates the relationship between Katie, a 15-year-old Type 1 Diabetic girl and Pip, her fiveyear-old border collie, trained by Katie to save her life on a daily basis. Led by performance-making duo Charlotte and Rob alongside Katie (Rob’s little sister) and Pip, the performance explores compassion and companionship between humans and dogs. On a journey of extreme highs and extreme lows, the cast celebrate freedom and living life to the full despite life’s
significant obstacles. Watch dogs be humans and humans be dogs as this chaotic and unpredictable collision of youth unfolds. DUCKIE Le Gateau Chocolat Summerhall, Wed 1–Sun 12 Aug (not 2), 2pm, £12 (£10). Critically acclaimed cabaret star Le Gateau Chocolat breaks out of his shell in his first work for children, a classic tale of identity and belonging. Duckie is a reimagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling with a message of tolerance and self acceptance at its core. Set in an animal circus, we join him on an adventure of self-discovery, asking questions that celebrate difference. Walking a little differently? Sounding a bit strange? Watch Duckie triumph by realising these are his strengths. WOOGIE BOOGIE BRUSH Theatre LLC Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 13, 20), 10am, £9 (£8). Preview Thu 2 Aug, £6.50. BRUSH Theatre, last seen at Summerhall with The Overcoat, are back with another vivid and inventive show for younger audiences. A lonely boy Woogie and his troublemaking pet turtle Boogie experience their first sea adventure. What will happen to them in this beautiful but scary new watery world, and will they return home safely?
PHOTO: MANUEL VASON
THE BALLAD OF THE APATHETIC SON AND HIS NARCISSISTIC MOTHER 21Common Summerhall, Tue 14–Sun 26 Aug (not 20), 1.45pm, £12 (£8). This high-energy performance features real-life mother Lucy and her 15-year-old son Raedie. Not much connects them anymore, but they both love the singer Sia. They love her music, her videos and her hair, especially when it moves in a choppy, black-onplatinum swivel. They decided to use the iconic motifs of this Australian pop superstar to make a show about their relationship. So, hold on for dear life through this all-singing, all-dancing journey of rejection, nurture, transforming, hurting and becoming. For ages 12+.
ZOO
Duckie
STOEL (CHAIR) Nyash ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Tue 14 Aug, 1pm, £12 (£10). Previews Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £6. Using a set made of chairs and the rhythm of cello and voice, two dancers revisit these familiar objects. They organise, transform and move around the space and as it gets installed and shared in various ways, the chair becomes a playground, a place for fancy, an opportunity for meetings. Be it stable or unstable, light or brutish, between building and undoing, dance appears. Recipient of the Minister for Children and Media award during the Rencontres Théâtre Jeune Public de Huy in 2015 and Critics’ Prize for Best Young Audience Play 2015–2016.
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& physica l theatre PLEASANCE INFINITA Familie Flöz Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13), 1.30pm, £13.50–£15.50 (£12.40–£14.50). Previews Thu 2 & Fri 3 Aug, £9. After the success of Hotel Paradiso and five-star hit Teatro Delusio, Germany’s mask theatre masters return to the Fringe with their next visual comedy. In Infinita, a cast of irresistible, larger than life characters are seen both as warring children and as residents of an old people’s home. The wily games of nursery one-upmanship seem hardly to change with the passage of time. Survival of the craftiest is still the rule of the day. Infinita plays out in a succession of increasingly hilarious scenes, combining poignancy, astute observation and some superbly skilled slapstick. Suitable for ages 5+. FEED Theatre Témoin in co-production with The Lowry and Everyman Cheltenham Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 15), 2pm, £9–£12 (£8–£11). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £7. See preview, left.
SUMMERHALL
FEED
Heading for the heart of the horror
‘F
eed has been created in reaction to a moment in time when we were experiencing empathy burnout,’ says director Ailin Conant, ‘when victim-driven news items were flooding our Facebook feeds and we felt ourselves shutting down to the plight of humans living the various crises of our time.’ While Theatre Temoin has always explored profound ideas including post-traumatic stress and bipolar through a distinctive aesthetic, ‘using visual theatre to flip the human mind inside-out and show a protagonist’s mental journey through the tangible world’, Feed confronts the dominant ideology of the contemporary age: capitalism. ‘It’s about the attention economy,’ Conant continues, ‘and how our focus as consumers – our engagement, our emotional arousal, and the time we spend with our eyeballs drinking in content – is the greatest commodity on the current market.’ Trump and the constantly shifting political landscape may appear, but Feed targets the consumer experience. ‘Anything that provokes emotion – humour, scandal, outrage, sensationalism – rises to the top while nuance and deep thinking are pushed out the picture,’ Conant adds. ‘Fake news and social divisions are a part of that, but they are a tangential by-product of a much darker and more insidious thing.’ Temoin’s approach, Conant concludes, is to confront that darkness. ‘The attention economy is capitalism unleashed on the human mind; it is addiction, it is manipulation, it is deception, and it’s completely devoid of any ethics or monitoring. It’s a world in which every human experience is a commodity. Making this play has made us all feel a little bit less sane.’ (Gareth K Vile)
Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 15), 2pm, £9–£12 (£8–£11). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £7.
TAIWAN SEASON: ONCE UPON A DAYDREAM Sun Son Theatre Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 2.40pm, £8 (£6). Previews Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £5. Sun Son Theatre welcomes you to a light-hearted world of live action and handcrafted animation, where the line between real life and fantasy is sweetly blurred and dreams can come true. Originally created by visual artist/actor Liu Wan Chun, this disarming show conjures up home as a safe but possibly confining place of salty tears and sugar water, bathroom karaoke and a mermaid alter ego who isn’t at all as ugly as she might sometimes feel. CEZARY GOES TO WAR Polish Cultural Institute Army @ The Fringe in Association with Summerhall, Thu 16–Sat 25 Aug (not 20), 7pm, £10 (£8). Memories of the director’s own experiences of military recruitment assessments are used to redefine existing concepts to create a queer fantasy system. Written for four actors and a pianist, Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun comes to life in the men’s dressing room, along with Moniuszko’s patriotic Polish folk songs, and Shostakovich’s Battle Symphony soundtracks aerobic exercises. Winner of the Best Artistic Team award at the 2017 Divine Comedy Festival (Krakow). FESTIVAL 2018 | PLEASANCE | SUMMERHALL | ZOO 65
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Autoctonos II
BACKUP Chaliwaté Company and Focus Company Summerhall, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 13, 20), 10.50am, £9 (£7). Preview Fri 3 Aug, £7. North Pole, 4am. Under a snowstorm powerful enough to wrestle with a sequoia, a used-up van finds its way across the icecap. Three reporters land on the ice as if stepping on the moon for the first time. The Focus Company and the Chaliwaté Company collaborate for the first time to write and create a surprising and touching performance, which grows from the personal and intimate experience of daily life, to reach out to the universal. THE TROTH Akademi Army @ The Fringe in Association with Summerhall, Sat 11–Sat 25 Aug (not 12 & 13, 19 & 20), 8.30pm, £12 (£10). Preview Fri 10 Aug, £10 (£8). A gripping story of love and loss set during World War I, blending dance, original music and archive film. Moving from rural Punjab to the Belgian trenches where young Indian men have been brought to fight for the Allies, we learn about the secret promise made by one soldier, Lehna Singh, as he makes the ultimate sacrifice to save another. Direction and choreography by Gary Clarke. Music by Shri Sriram. VOID V/DA and MHz, in association with Feral Summerhall, Wed 15–Sun 26 Aug (not 20), 7pm, £10 (£8). Preview Tue 14 Aug, £8 (£6). Based on JG Ballard’s cult novel Concrete Island, Void meshes experimental dance and abstract
glitch-video landscapes. Taking in typically Ballardian themes of dystopian worlds, liminal spaces and urban paranoia, Mele Broomes performs risk-taking choreography to the backdrop of an industrial soundscape. Part of the Made in Scotland showcase 2018. EAST BELFAST BOY Prime Cut Productions Summerhall, Tue 14–Sun 26 Aug (not 20), 9pm, £16 (£12). Pumping techno, pulverising movement and street sharp poetry. Fintan Brady’s East Belfast Boy is a cliché-free zone. Meet Davy. The things he sees. His streets. His mates. His girl and . . . the boys. It is what it is. It’s hard to say what it is. It’s just, you know, what it is. Directed by Emma Jordan, with choreography by Oona Doherty and sound design by Phil Kieran.
ZOO AS FAR AS WE ARE CieLaroque / Helene Weinzierl ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Fri 17 Aug (not 6, 8, 10, 12, 14–16), 6.25pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Preview Fri 3 Aug, £6. Austrian company CieLaroque was founded in 1995 by choreographer Helene Weinzierl, with many of their productions focusing on socio-political issues. As Far As We Are is an interactive performance where you’re welcomed to the laboratory test of life and society. Are we the crash-test dummies of the 21st century and if so, why? Dummies need walls. No dummy without a wall, and one question remains: How far will we fly? As far as we are.
AUTÓCTONOS II Ayelen Parolin Cie ZOO Southside, Tue 21–Mon 27 Aug (not 23), 6pm, £14 (£12). Previews Sun 19 & Mon 20 Aug, £12. A quintet between pianist/composer and four dancers, Autóctonos II questions belonging to a group, in this society of endurance, indifference and productivity. Both abstract and mathematical at first sight, the piece bases its writing on the physical tenacity and commitment of its performers. A power that is highly sensitive, held together by an ever finer thread. BLUFF CieLaroque / Helene Weinzierl ZOO Southside, Mon 6–Sat 18 Aug (not 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17), 6.25pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Preview Sat 4 Aug, £6. ‘Our world is in order, a world in which there are unchangeable truths that are valid to everybody.’ Or maybe not? Bluff is an intelligent and pointed piece of performance art. With great attention to detail, Helene Weinzierl and her company stage a unique experience looking at the question: how real is reality? DEP Van Huynh Company ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Sat 18 Aug (not 8, 15), 4.45pm, £15 (£12). Preview Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £7 (£6). With his latest dance work, the UK-based choreographer Dam Van Huynh explores influences from his South East Asian heritage. Dep is the Vietnamese word for beautiful. In Vietnamese culture,
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The Troth
A dynamic multimedia production from the National Theatre of China, recreating the epic journey from east to west along the historic Silk Road. In a collaboration with French theatre makers, digital projection and an electronic soundtrack complement a cast of 16. Following the success of their 2017 Edinburgh Fringe production Luocha Land, this new production by celebrated choreographer Zhao Miao once again combines Chinese mythology with powerful visuals and contemporary physical theatre. PARADISO Our Theatre ZOO Charteris, Sun 19–Mon 27 Aug, 11.30am, £12 (£10). Paradiso is a wordless physical piece presented by renowned Georgian puppetry company Our Theatre. A stunning production with creative use of puppetry and music, it tells a story of happiness and sorrow across whole lives in three old men’s last days, with a fantastic cast who will move the audience to laughter and tears. PIE EQUALS SQUARE GT Artistry ZOO Southside, Thu 16–Wed 22 Aug, 1pm, £14 (£12). Pie Equals Square is a structural feat that constantly evolves and folds in on itself, challenging the timeline of our shared existence. Choreographer Paula Mann’s idiosyncratic, whimsical post-modernist movement combined with composer Hans Kruger’s soulful sound score provides the perfect counterpoint to our rollercoaster world. STEP INTO AFRICA IV 34/18 Youth Dance Company ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Sat 11 Aug, 11.25am, £14 (£12). Back at the festival for the fourth time, 34/18 Youth Dance Company bring 14 dancers, six fresh young choreographers and the experience of the artistic director, Wendi Abrahams, to perform a reboot of modern dance. This young company will show their versatility in contemporary, gumboot, pantsula and hip hop styles. Experience the vibe, energy and talent found in Cape Town, South Africa. 5 DAYS OF FALLING TrashDollys ZOO Charteris, Sun 19–Sun 26 Aug, 3.40pm, £10 (£9). Sam Amos (TrashDollys) explores solitude and man’s inability to articulate emotion in 5 Days of Falling. Encompassing the freedom and expressive nature of b-boying and contemporary dance while highlighting the ever-growing crisis of male suicide, this one-man show blends breathtaking physicality with words and music to magnify the final stages of a young man’s journey through isolation.
Infinita
death is also a form of rebirth. The dancers in Dep are nude for a purpose. Fragile and vulnerable, their nudity literally strips them bare. The movement invites the audience to let go, reaching ever closer to the feeling of being alive.
ZOO Venues in conjunction with DanceXchange and Dance4 present a series of new choreographic works from emerging artists in the Midlands. Don’t miss the chance to see new voices in British dance. Full programme at ZOOfestival.co.uk
DISTINCTION ZOO Venues ZOO Southside, Sun 19–Mon 27 Aug, 4pm, £12 (£10).
A LIFE ON THE SILK ROAD National Theatre of China ZOO Southside, Mon 13–Fri 24 Aug (not 15), 8.15pm, £14 (£12). Preview Sun 12 Aug, £10.
ZUGUNRUHE MECHANIMAL ZOO Southside, Thu 9–Sun 26 Aug (not 15), 1.45pm, £10 (£9). Previews Tue 7 & Wed 8 Aug, £7. Zugunruhe explores the incredible flight of a marsh warbler, the world’s only bird whose song echoes its migration route. Rehearsing among birds in the wetlands of Somerset, performer Tom Bailey creates a feast of bird behaviour alongside a digital sound map of the marsh warbler’s journey, made by composer Rowan Evans. Developed in residence at UCL Migration Research Unit. Supported by The Leverhulme Trust, Arts Council England and Red Brick Building. FESTIVAL 2018 | PLEASANCE | SUMMERHALL | ZOO 67
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theatre PLEASANCE NO KIDS Ad Infinitum Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 8, 13, 21), 3.40pm, £10.50–£13.50 (£9– £12.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6.50. No Kids explores the personal journey that real-life couple Nir and George embarked upon when they asked the question: as a gay couple, should we go out of our way to have children? Gender-bending musical cabaret and verbatim theatre marry to conceive a distinctly queer piece that asks: should we be making more babies in an increasingly overpopulated world? And is our society truly open to the idea of two dads? FREEMAN Strictly Arts Theatre and The Pleasance Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 10), 5pm, £8–£11 (£7–£10). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. Inspired by the first man in America to plead insanity as his defence, award-winning writer Camilla Whitehill and Strictly Arts examine the unspoken link between mental health and systemic racism. Throughout time and across waters, from William Freeman to Sarah Reed, six true stories are threaded together and told through physical theatre, spoken word, gospel singing, shadow puppetry and more.
THE FLOP Clown fun facing a stiff challenge
D
oubtless destined to launch a thousand headlines with penis-related puns, The Flop emerged from inclusive company Hijinx’s exploration into the potential of clowning as a vehicle for the discussion of sex and vulnerability. ‘One of the cast stumbled upon a mine of information about the impotence trials in 17th-century France,’ explains director Ben Pettit-Wade, ‘when the church and the state tied themselves in knots over the need for everyone to be able to consummate their marriage. If you could not, for whatever reason, you could be brought to trial and forced to prove your virility at a public trial.’ The strangeness of these laws was too good to ignore, and the story of the Marquis and Marquise de Langely ‘has it all – love, pride, a fall from grace, failure, manipulative relatives and plenty of idiocy,’ Pettit-Wade says. ‘We saw two characters at its centre who do not conform to societal expectations, who were outsiders. I think this is a very clown theme.’ With Hijinx’s previous Fringe success Meet Fred having gleefully subverted theatrical conventions, The Flop continues the company’s enthusiasm for disrupting the predictable through a dynamic dramaturgy and sardonic humour. For Pettit-Wade, clowning is joyous, a chance to ‘approach everything through play and finding the game’ and a chance to ‘break all the conventions of traditional theatre: there is none of the stuffiness and bullshit.’ And unlike in 17th-century France, ‘you can acknowledge and embrace your mistakes, your flops at any moment.’ (Gareth K Vile) Summerhall, Wed 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 13, 20), 4.55pm, £12 (£8). Previews Wed 3–Sun 5 Aug, £6.
PROPELLER The Network and Pleasance Theatre Trust Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13, 21), 1pm, £7–£9 (£6–£8.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. So you want to change the world? Really? You? You Instagram-checking, avo-smashing, coconut-flat-white-sipping loser? Yeah, the world sucks sometimes – OK, a lot. But you can’t do anything about it. Can you? This show says yes, yes you can. Maybe. If you ever feel frustrated about the way things are but don’t know what to do about it, this is the show for you. A devised piece about power and the possibility of change, directed by double Fringe First winner Caitlin Skinner and co-created by The Network Ensemble. LIGHTS OVER TESCO CAR PARK Poltergeist Theatre Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 15, 22), 10.50am, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£9). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. A docu-comedy for the post-truth age. Robert reported lights over the Tesco car park, then said an alien was coming to stay in his spare room. With the help of some historical abduction stories, a latex alien mask and a bucket of flying saucers, we’re working out whether to believe him. Maybe this is a good place to believe him? Samuel French New Play Award winner 2018.
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PHOTO: ALEX BRENNER
ALABAMA GOD DAMN Hippana Theatre Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 13, 21), 11am, £8.50–£10.50 (£7.50–£9.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. An electric performance influenced by S-Town, True Detective and Seasick Steve. Frank returns to his hometown and has a riot with the casual criminals, the enlightened rednecks and a snake-wielding pastor. Overwhelmed with humour and dark beauty, Frank rediscovers the Deep South in all its profanity, its charm and its humanity. Live music and untamed characters animate this fast-paced bittersweet comedy. FINDING FASSBENDER Lydia Larson Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13), 11.45am, £8–£10.50 (£7–£9.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. Eve’s leaving Wolverhampton to work in the big smoke because it’s something you should do. But the capital’s charm quickly wears off and Eve decides to pack her bags and head home to her boyfriend Rich and cat, Steve Bull. Until she receives a letter addressed to a famous film actor. Finding Fassbender follows one woman’s misadventure as she tries to carve out a life on her own terms, and Michael’s too. NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE YOU This Noise Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug, 12.30pm, £8–£10.50 (£7–£9.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. An insomniac is watching TV in a language he doesn’t understand; a woman is standing in a garden stretching her arms to the sky. The whole world is asleep and something extraordinary is about to happen. No One Is Coming to Save You is the hypnotic story of two young lives lived in social, political and economic fear. IN LOYAL COMPANY Lab Rats Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug, 1pm, £9–£11.50 (£8.50–£11). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. The incredible true story of missing -II soldier Arthur Robinson by David William Bryan and Sascha Moore. Declared missing after his ship is sunk during the Battle of Singapore in 1942, this epic untold tale of survival is a one-man powerhouse performance presented by the team behind Trashed in 2017. SIGNALS Footprint Theatre Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13), 1.10pm, £8–£10.50 (£7–£9.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. Alone on the night shift, two data analysts monitor for signs of alien contact. Every shift is the same. But tonight is different. Tonight is the night they’ve been waiting for. The award-winning Footprint Theatre presents Signals, a show about human connection, space exploration and Jaffa Cakes. A new dark comedy that asks how it feels to be lost in the cosmic ocean with only each other for company. Shortlisted for the Untapped Award 2018. WEIRD Some Riot Theatre Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 14), 1.45pm, £10–£12 (£9–£10). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. Critically acclaimed company Some Riot Theatre return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Based on the writer’s experiences, WEIRD explores the
highs and lows of what it is like for a sufferer, and a sufferer’s family, to live in the shadows of obsessive compulsive disorder. A moving one-woman play about the effects of one person’s mental health on a whole family. Sell-out Arcola show, winner of SlamSoaps 2018. VELVET work.Theatre Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 14), 2pm, £11–£12.50 (£9–£10.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £8. Set against the backdrop of the 2017 #MeToo movement, VELVET explores the complex realities of harassment within the industry and how far a person is willing to go to achieve their dreams. However, when most creatives are riding the wave of change, will Tom’s opportunity slip through his fingers? VELVET is written and performed by Tom Ratcliffe. UNCONDITIONAL ThisEgg, Stefanie Mueller and Hoipolloi in association with The Pleasance Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 14), 2.15pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6.50. What Josie wants for her mother and Steffi wants for her daughter is the same – a better world. UNCONDITIONAL is about fighting the fight that needs to be fought. It’s about slaying the monsters and standing your ground. Both touching and laughout-loud hilarious, this show is a joyous celebration of equality and liberation between a mother and her grown-up daughter. REVENANTS The Pleasance in association with Bill Kenwright Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 8, 15), 5pm, £11–£12.50 (£9.50–£11). Previews Wed 1–
Fri 3 Aug, £8. A new play by Olivier Award-winner Nichola McAuliffe. Twenty-five years after the murder of the Romanovs and 25 years before the murder of Martin Luther King, a group meet in an English birch wood. Actor Ernest Thesiger, Queen Mary and her chauffeur Walcott commemorate the death of the Russian royal family. Into their midst comes Waverley Monk, a young black GI whose experience of segregation has him ready to wreak revenge on a whitesonly barracks. As the group battle with notions of persecution and bravery, it’s clear that violent revolutions must have unforeseen consequences. SIRENS Zoo Co Pleasance Courtyard, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13, 20), 3.35pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6. Three Greek sirens find themselves washed up on Hastings beach. It’s 2018, and sitting around naked on rocks is no longer en vogue. But the sirens are still cursed: any man who hears their voice dies instantly. It’s a bit of a drag. Award-winning Zoo Co returns to stick two fingers up at gender expectations with their trademark visual storytelling, stunning projections and electro-folk soundtrack. Sirens is creatively captioned and BSL inclusive. STARDUST Blackboard Theatre Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 20), 4.20pm, £9–£11.50 (£8–£10.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £6.50. Stardust shines an unflinching light on Colombia’s heart of darkness. Mixing new writing by Immersive Ensemble founder Daniel Dingsdale, with physical theatre and hand-drawn animation, Colombian artist Miguel Hernando Torres Umba and Blackboard Theatre bring you an irreverent, entertaining and FESTIVAL 2018 | PLEASANCE | SUMMERHALL | ZOO 69
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impassioned investigation into the human cost cocaine production and consumption has in Latin America and further afield. Winner of VAULT Festival People’s Choice Award 2018.
occasionally alarming minutes, audiences are invited to share Ken’s idiosyncratic perspective on life, and to muse on how one might live it.
MEDEA ELECTRONICA Pecho Mama Pleasance Courtyard, Tue 14–Sun 19 Aug, 6.30pm, £9–£11.50 (£8–£10.50). Pecho Mama exploded onto the theatre scene this year with their bold, imaginative and genre-defying debut: a heart-stopping story of a family caught in the brutal throes of a marriage unravelling. This is a powerful and deeply moving retelling of the Greek tragedy set in 1980s rural England and staged amid an electrifying live gig.
SUMMERHALL
UNSPOKEN Bravo 22 Company Pleasance Courtyard, Wed 22–Mon 27 Aug, 3.15pm, £9.50–£12.50 (£8.50–£11.50). Preview Tue 21 Aug, £7. From the team who brought you the winner of the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award for the groundbreaking The Two Worlds of Charlie F, Bravo 22 Company’s new drama, Unspoken, brings to light the lives interrupted and forever changed by war, on a heart-wrenching and hilarious journey of love, loss, loneliness and hope, performed by exservice personnel. KEN Pleasance and The Showstoppers present a Hampstead Theatre Production Pleasance Dome, Sat 4–Mon 27 Aug (not 13, 20), 3.20pm, £11–£14.50 (£10–£13.50). Previews Wed 1–Fri 3 Aug, £7. Terry Johnson returns to the boards with his interrupted monologue KEN: a freewheeling reminiscence of his turbulent and inspiring relationship with the truly original and unclassifiable theatre maverick Ken Campbell. Aided and abetted by Jeremy Stockwell, Terry pays tribute to the legendary seeker, fearsome goader and unique comedic thinker. For 90 intriguing, amusing,
ALMA, A HUMAN VOICE Nina’s Drag Queens Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 11.50am, £10 (£8). Previews Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £5–£8. The Italian company Nina’s Drag Queens spearhead drag queen philosophy into the modern age, blending songs, film extracts and lip-syncing with live performance. In Alma, two characters are driven mad by love: Oskar Kokoschka who turned his lover Alma Mahler into a life size doll, and the nameless woman on the phone in Cocteau’s The Human Voice. Intertwining their stories with an ironic touch, a male actor in drag investigates femininity. VALERIE Last Tapes Theatre Company Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 2, 13, 20), 9.15pm, £12 (£10). Preview Wed 1 Aug, £5. Named Stand-Out Cabaret of the Year by the NZ Herald, Valerie is an intergenerational, interdisciplinary and interrupting piece of theatre reaching into the guts of family mythologies. Music, genetics and storytelling combine to unravel one family’s history. A love letter from grandson to grandmother, this celebration of resilience is gig theatre at its finest. HUFF Cliff Cardinal CanadaHub @ King’s Hall in association with Summerhall, Fri 3–Sat 26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 4.15pm, £11 (£9). Previews Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £9. Huff is a daring solo show by award-winning indigenous playwright Cliff Cardinal, which tells the wrenching yet darkly comic tale of indigenous brothers caught in a torrent of solvent abuse and struggling with the death of their mother. With his
signature biting humour and raw, vivid imagery, Cardinal expertly portrays over a dozen characters in his captivating solo performance. LOVE SONG TO LAVENDER MENACE James Ley Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 12.55pm, £12 (£10). Previews Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £5–£7. After a sell-out run at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland’s 80s gay romantic comedy hit is back. So are nostalgic bookseller Lewis and party-boy Glen, in this funny, celebratory play about Scotland’s radical, lesbian, gay and feminist bookshop that began in the cloakroom of Scotland’s first gay nightclub and became the beating heart of Edinburgh’s LGBT+ community. COCK, COCK . . . WHO’S THERE? Samira Elagoz in association with From Start to Finnish Summerhall, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 8, 9, 20), 6.45pm, £10 (£8). Preview Fri 3 Aug, £5. Samira Elagoz takes us along on her personal research project across three continents. From online platforms to close encounters, she showcases gender relations in their brutal and wonderful ambivalence and takes the audience on her journey of regaining power, reinventing autonomous expression of sexuality and attempts to relate back to men after being raped. An award-winning performance about violence and intimacy. THE FLOP A Hijinx production in association with Spymonkey Summerhall, Wed 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 13, 20), 4.55pm, £12 (£8). Previews Wed 3–Sun 5 Aug, £6. See preview, page 68. PUSSY RIOT: RIOT DAYS One Inch Badge Summerhall, Fri 10–Sun 19 Aug, 7pm, £17.50. Pussy Riot need little introduction. The Russian protest art collective gained global notoriety in 2012 when three members, Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were imprisoned for ‘hooliganism motivated by religious hatred’ for their performance inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The accompanying piece to Alyokhina’s memoir of the same name (Penguin Books), this touring play merges punk, electronica, theatre, documentary footage and protest. THE MIDNIGHT SOUP Making Room Summerhall, Tue 14–Sun 26 Aug (not 20), 7pm, £15 (£12). The Midnight Soup is a piece of theatre during which the audience prepare a meal that they share at the end. Starting as a monologue and gently opening out to become a conversation, it tells the story of an unremarkable woman who every day sat down to meticulously record the facts of her life in a diary, until one day she chose her own death. The Midnight Soup is the love letter of a grandson to his grandmother. It is also an edible memorial, celebrating a life lived to the rhythm of the seasons.
Tetra-Decathalon
DOLLYWOULD Sh!t Theatre and Show And Tell Summerhall, Tue 14–Sun 26 Aug, 6.25pm, £10. Sh!t Theatre return with their 100% sell-out show from 2017. It’s about Dolly Parton and they still f*cking love her. It’s also about cloning, branding, immortality and death. Becca Biscuit and Louise
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Mothersole are Fringe First award winners, Total Theatre award winners, Arches Brick award winners and Amnesty International award nominees. BABYFACE Katy Dye Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 5, 13, 20), 1.30pm, £9 (£7). Preview Wed 1 & Thu 2 Aug, £5. A daring exploration into the paradox of living in a society that continues to infantilise women. Paedophilia is not OK yet fetishised images of women as prepubescent girls are. In this brave and outlandish performance, a grown woman attempts to be your baby to discover if innocence really is as sexy as we’re told it is. Winner of the Autopsy Award 2018. ORPHEUS The Flanagan Collective and Gobbledigook Theatre Summerhall, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 20), 2.50pm, £11 (£8). Preview Thu 2 Aug, £5. A modern telling of an ancient myth, woven from hair raising spoken word and soaring soul music, from the creators of Fable and Beulah. Dave is single, stood with his mates at the bar, and is turning 30 next week. Eurydice is a mythical dryad – a tree nymph. Orpheus is a tale of side streets, dive bars and ancient gods. Winner of the VAULT Festival Summerhall Award and Adelaide Fringe Best Theatre Award. TROJAN HORSE A LUNG and West Yorkshire Playhouse coproduction Summerhall, Thu 2–Sun 26 Aug (not 13), 3.15pm, £12 (£11). Preview Wed 1 Aug, £5. Trojan Horse was a local story that hit the national press, accusing ‘hardline’ Muslim teachers and governors of plotting extremism in Birmingham schools. Adapted from the real-life testimonies of those at the heart of the government inquiry, critically acclaimed theatre company LUNG (E15, The 56 and Chilcot) investigate what really happened. STATUS Chris Thorpe, Rachel Chavkin, China Plate and Staatstheater Mainz Summerhall, Sat 4–Sun 26 Aug (not 13), 7.55pm, £15 (£10). Preview Wed 1 & Fri 3 Aug, £5–£10 (£5). We all have a nationality. Or almost all of us. Status is a show about someone who doesn’t want his any more. About running away from the national story you’re given. About who is responsible for that story and what might happen to it if you try to give it up. Springing from globe-spanning conversations about nationality, Status is a journey of attempted escape – with songs. A new show from the multiple Fringe First award-winning team that created Confirmation. TETRA-DECATHLON Showroom Summerhall, Tue 14–Sun 26 Aug (not 20), 11.55am, £12 (£10). The Tetra-Decathlon is a gruelling 14-event athletics competition, requiring a unique combination of skills to complete. Having never before set foot on a running track, Lauren Hendry decided to sign up for the event, joining only a dozen other women in the World Championships. This audacious solo show directed by double Fringe First winner Jenna Watt charts Lauren’s journey as she trains for and competes in this most taxing of sporting events while asking pertinent questions about the psychology of sport and what drives us to compete.
ALL THESE THINGS A Break from the Fringe’s Norm
A
ll These Things at ZOO Venues is a mini festival of experimental and transgressive performance featuring more than 20 artists from across the UK and Europe. ‘The focus is to provide a platform for performance work that may struggle to find a venue at the Fringe, maybe due to form, length or content,’ says co-director Adam Young. Running at 12 hours, this project from the Live Art Bistro (LAB) crosses two venues under one ticket and is closer to a grassroots performance happening than the Fringe’s familiar arrangements. Financial risk – for both artists and audience – has been replaced by aesthetic experimentation. LAB refined the format in events across the UK to champion live art – a more flexible and personal variation on traditional theatre. All These Things, as Young explains, ‘gives the room for audiences to stay with the work rather than trying to capture an idea in a black box theatre and push the audience out to the next performances.’ Featured artists include Sara Zaltash and her exploration of the presence of Islam in contemporary performance, Naked Balloon Party and Shit Theatre’s creche for adults who need to be pampered. As Young concludes, this is a unique event which ‘will include experiences you won’t find anywhere else’. (Gareth K Vile) ZOO Venues, Wed 15 Aug, 5pm, £20 (£17). FESTIVAL 2018 | PLEASANCE | SUMMERHALL | ZOO 71
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ZOO [INSERT SLOGAN HERE] YESYESNONO ZOO Charteris, Sun 5–Sun 19 Aug, 6.10pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £7. In 2016, Volvo launched their Human Made marketing campaign. New adverts focused on individual human lives; school children, explorers, factory workers. Global sales increased by 20%. This is an attempt to do the same. A show about objects, the objects we use, the stories we tell about them, the way we consume them. With live music and video artistry, award-winning YESYESNONO return with [insert slogan here]: a fevered excavation of adverts, objects, memory and identity. ALL THESE THINGS Live Art Bistro ZOO Southside, Wed 15 Aug, 5pm, £20 (£17). See preview, page 71. CENTURY SONG Volcano (Canada), Richard Jordan Productions in association with CanadaHub ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Sat 18 Aug (not 8, 15), 3pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £9. Volcano, the original co-producers of global hit White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, return with a new work of visceral beauty. Exploring 100 years of black women’s unspoken history, Century Song takes us on a journey through performance, music, and animated art. Created by powerful Dora Awardwinning soprano Neema Bickersteth, and Dora Award-winning collaborators Ross Manson (direction) and Kate Alton (choreography).
from accounts all over the world, Istanbul is about Scousers, football, class and gender. The ultimate underdog story told by the fans. JET OF BLOOD Civil Disobedience ZOO Charteris, Sun 5–Mon 27 Aug (not 15), 2.10pm, £10 (£9). Previews Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £8. Brought to you by Civil Disobedience, Jet of Blood is the docudrama/ballet/opera/performance art/ musical/protest piece you haven’t been waiting for. Trigger warnings include but are not limited to: rape, graphic pornography, excessive drug use, violence, the musical styling of Miley Cyrus, self-mutilation, corruption, anorexia/bulimia and the not-so-unique true story of one 14-year-old boy in the oldest and most prestigious prep in North America. But in all seriousness, Jet of Blood is not for the faint of heart.
Century Song
FIVE ENCOUNTERS ON A SITE CALLED CRAIGSLIST YESYESNONO ZOO Charteris, Mon 20–Thu 23 Aug, 6.10pm, £14 (£12). Sam wants to tell you about five encounters he had on Craigslist. Sam’s anxious about how he gets to know people. This is a chance to get to know him. In exploring one person’s attempts to know others, the show considers how a group of people in a darkened room can ever get to know each other. Desperately hilarious and achingly bleak, YESYESNONO’s smash debut returns to ZOO for a limited final run.
DON’T KILL YOUR DARLINGS Det Andre Teatret / The Other Theatre ZOO Charteris, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug, 1.15pm, £10 (£9). Award-winning actor Ingvild Haugstad from Det Andre Teatret tells the story of a person who retreats from the world after losing a soulmate to a freak raspberry accident. Puppetry, sketches and improvisation make up this heartfelt silly show by one of Norway’s most unique performers. Nominated for Best Show at Bergen Fringe 2017.
THE FORECAST Limbik ZOO Charteris, Tue 14–Sun 26 Aug, 6pm, £10 (£9). Preview Mon 13 Aug, £7 (£6). In a backyard near you, in the not too distant future, four women from four corners of the globe float in mid-air. Fleeing war, poverty and environmental destruction they now have a new job: human garden ornaments. Inspired by George Saunder’s short-story The Semplica Girl Diaries, The Forecast teems with stories, songs, secrets, shadows, giant dresses . . . and women hanging by a thread.
ELSIE THATCHWICK CharliefromGroundforce Productions ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Mon 27 Aug (not 15), 6.30pm, £10 (£9). Previews Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £8. A new play written by Skye Lourie. Armed only with an address, a pack of Jammy Dodgers and a Scottish sense of humour, Elsie heads from Glasgow to Manchester in search of her father. Two actors and 20 characters drive this fast-paced dark comedy.
ISTANBUL: YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE From the Gut Theatre ZOO Southside, Sun 5–Sat 18 Aug (not 15), 7.45pm, £10.50–£12 (£8.50–£10). Previews Fri 3 & Sat 4 Aug, £7. It’s 2005 and somehow Liverpool are back in the European Cup Final. From the Mersey to Turkey, the Reds will their team to glory. But can this ragtag Liverpool side topple giants AC Milan? Drawn
A MODERN GUIDE TO HEROISM AND SIDEKICKERY Michelle Zahner ZOO Charteris, Fri 3–Mon 27 Aug (not 13), 4.50pm, £10 (£8). Michelle Zahner joyfully mixes storytelling, comedy and poetry to work out how being a superhero in the real world really works. How do you rescue people from depression or broken friendships? How do you fight cyclones, rabid llamas or the patriarchy? What do you call a boy damsel? And shouldn’t there be a villain somewhere? A new hero finds herself dealing with media hype, impossible expectations and protest groups. PASSIONATE MACHINE Rosy Carrick ZOO Charteris, Sun 5–Mon 27 Aug, 3.30pm, £10 (£8). Preview Fri 3 Aug, £6. Featuring a diverse cast of real-life characters including David Bowie, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Rocky Balboa, and set against the questionable theoretical framework of your favourite time travel movies, fact and fiction blend to create an exhilarating story about letting go, having the courage to take the untrodden path, and finding yourself – literally. Writer, performer, poet and translator, Carrick has toured the world and now makes her Fringe debut. WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING Det Andre Teatret / The Other Theatre ZOO Charteris, Fri 3–Sun 26 Aug (not 7, 8, 13, 15, 20–22), 2.15pm, £10 (£9). Fresh from selling out the National Theatre in Oslo, award-winning poet Fredrik Høyer from Det Andre Teatret tells his critically acclaimed story about life, marathon, ultra-runners and the rom-com The Holiday. All while running for his life on a treadmill!
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TOP TIPS: WEEK 1 Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week
NOON SANDERSON JONES: THAT’S THE SPIRIT! Heroes @ Boteco, 2–25 Aug, noon, £5. Join social entrepreneur and comedian Sanderson Jones for an immersive hour of mindfulness, movement, laughter and song. Reset your soul with a dose of Pentecostal well-being (contains zero crystals). ELVIS MCGONAGALL: FULL TARTAN JACKET Voodoo Rooms, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 12.20pm, free. Join BBC Radio 4 regular and walking shortbread tin Elvis McGonagall as he bellows into the void of our post-truth world.
ADVENTURES OF THE IMPROVISED SHERLOCK HOLMES Just the Tonic at La Belle Angele, 3–26 Aug (not 13), 2pm, £9 (£8). Preview 2 Aug, £7. Stars of Racing Minds and Impromptu Shakespeare take you on a thrilling new adventure each day through the underworld of Victorian Britain, packed with shady villains, red herrings and the brilliant deductions of London’s great detective. AHIR SHAH: DUFFER Laughing Horse @ Cabaret Voltaire, 2–26 Aug, 2.15pm, free. Mr Shah returns to Edinburgh with a new
hour of stand-up about life and what comes after, death and what comes before, and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. TAMAR BROADBENT: BEST LIFE Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 2.20pm, £9 (£8). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50. Award-winning musical comedy about ambition, anxiety and avocados that asks, how do you know if you are living your best life? STUART GOLDSMITH: END OF The Liquid Room, 4–26 Aug (not 16), 2.50pm, free. Stu’s back with some thoughts on how it all works out in the end and whether anyone
cares. A comic odyssey through future selves, rare diseases and the chance to convince your son you’ve got some sort of backbone.
3PM GARETH WAUGH: OH BOY . . . ! Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 Aug, 3pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Sequel to 2017’s debut about honesty, this one’s all about the law of the playground, travelling companions from hell and accidentally fulfilling your teenage bucket list (if you exclude the failed rap career).
PHILL JUPITUS: FREEVIOUSLY Bannerman’s, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 12.30pm, free. Very much doing what it says on the poster, Freeviously is the revival of last year’s show, Up the Stand. Think of it as watching a DVD of Phill with a shoddy memory, and the commentary track on all the time.
1PM DAD’S ARMY LUNCH HOUR Pleasance at EICC, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18 Aug, 1.30pm, £27.50 (£17.50). Preview 2 Aug, £22.50 (£12.50). Two actors play 25 characters in this Edinburgh and London hit transplanted to a specially created 1940s-style venue unique to this show, celebrating the 50th birthday of Croft and Perry’s quintessentially British sitcom. Enjoy two classic episodes and indulge in a hot lunch created by Prue Leith. JEN BRISTER: MEANINGLESS Monkey Barrel, 2–26 Aug (not 15), 1.45pm, £5. Ever wanted to know the meaning of life? No, neither has Jen, she’s too busy trying to stop her twins from using her shoes as a toilet. Still, we’re only on this planet for a finite time, wouldn’t it be good to find a bit of meaning in your otherwise pointless existence?
2PM SUSAN HARRISON IS A BIT WEEPY The Voodoo Rooms, 4–25 Aug (not 13), 2pm, free. Susan Harrison’s latest multiple-character show, featuring a lonely woodland creature and a weather girl reporting on the Apocalypse. Her characters are inspired by sadness but performed with joy.
DANIEL COOK They’re everywhere from the internet to missing posters. Sometimes they might even be curled up in your lap. The wonderfully daft Daniel Cook is here this August to tell us all about his own cat. Who is called Carpet. Prepare to be beguiled by the former Delete the Banjax guy. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 6.45pm, £7–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.
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5PM LUKE MCQUEEN: MONSTER Heroes @ The Hive, 2–26 Aug (not 15), 5pm, £5. A fifth stab at surreal anti-comedy from the stand-up who once had a working relationship with Jack Whitehall. TESSA WATERS: FULLY SIK Heroes @ The SpiegelYurt, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 5pm, £5. Turbo-charged physical comedy kween Tessa Waters packs a non-stop rollercoaster ride of LOLs into one high-octane hour of sketch and improv. PAUL MAYHEW-ARCHER: INCURABLE OPTIMIST Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 5.15pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. Paul has Parkinson’s, but he’s still laughing. Following an award-winning BBC documentary, Parkinson’s: The Funny Side, here’s a one-man show about the therapeutic power of comedy. VIGGO VENN: PEPITO Underbelly Cowgate, 4–14 Aug, 5.20pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. After full runs at Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival, award-winning Norwegian, Viggo Venn, is back with a new version of last year’s show.
JOANNE MCNALLY In case you hadn’t noticed, the Irish are still churning out comedians by the churn-load. With plenty charm and much verve, McNally follows up last year’s Bite Me with Wine Tamer, a show about the fibs we can’t stop telling ourselves. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 6.45pm, £7–£10 (£6.50–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.
TANIA EDWARDS: NOT MY DOG Just the Tonic at The Mash House, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 3.15pm, £5. A dark exploration of modern life and our need to (mis)represent it, from stand-up Tania Edwards who has written for Mock the Week, Stand Up for the Week and Twit of the Year. TESSA COATES: WITCH HUNT Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, 3.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. After a sell-out debut, one third of Massive Dad returns with another show about how we got here – and where we’re supposed to go next. Armed with an absolutely useless degree in Anthropology, she combines storytelling with very intense academic research. Which is surely what everyone wants from their comedy.
4PM PHIL KAY: LIGHTER HOUR Heroes @ Boteco, 2–12 Aug, 4pm,
£10 (£8). See Phil nail all today’s major issues in his fast not furious, voice-based show. Master of mirth and energy, skipping from one thing to the next: a wheelbarrow display team, dog bites in Bangkok, and being a swineherd. VIV GROSKOP: VIVALICIOUS Underbelly Med Quad, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 4.10pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. A show about self-help in the coming age of President Oprah. In this era of reinvention, Viv wants to be the best possible version of herself. So why is that so hard? ARTHUR SMITH: SYD Pleasance Dome, 4–19 Aug, 4.10pm, £10–£12.50 (£9–£11). Following the success of Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen, the comedian, again accompanied by the mellifluous Smithereens, tells the story of his own father in this brand-new show. Syd Smith fought at El Alamein, became
a POW and ended the war in the notorious Colditz Castle in Germany. WILLIAM ANDREWS: WILLY Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 4.45pm, £9–£12 (£8–£11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £7. A return to stand-up for this cult idiot. William is wholeheartedly embracing the Willy he always was, telling stories with a beguiling blend of daft creativity and ingenuity. PAUL SINHA: THE TWO AGES OF MAN The Stand, 3–26 Aug (not 6 & 7), 4.55pm, £12 (£11). Preview 1 Aug, £5. After last year’s sell-out run, Paul returns to Edinburgh with his life, seemingly, still bordering on disarray. Having spent two decades juggling disparate careers, loneliness, heartbreak, a multitude of vices and an overwhelming urge to show off his general knowledge, he finds that just as one problem disappears, another suddenly emerges.
IMRAN YUSUF: SAINT, SINNER, SUFI The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13 & 14, 20), 5.30pm, £10 (£9). Preview 2 Aug, £9 (£8). Everyone is offended, everyone is a victim, no one is happy. A show for bleeding heart liberals and angry disenfranchised victims. A show for good guys, bad guys and those who know better. ZOE LYONS: ENTRY LEVEL HUMAN Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 Aug, 5.45pm, £11.50–£12.50 (£9.50– £10.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. The popular comic returns to the Fringe with a fresh crop of quick-fire observational gags, delivered with utter conviction.
6PM HENNING WEHN: GET ON WITH IT Just The Tonic at the Caves, 2–26 Aug (not 6 & 7, 13 & 14, 20 & 21), 6pm, £12.50. Surely the German Comedy Ambassador hasn’t bosched out yet another new show? Henning’s most recent television and radio appearances include Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News for You and Would I Lie to You. ROSE MATAFEO: HORNDOG Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 6.20pm, £10–£11 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Join Rose for a brand-new hour of critically acclaimed stand-up, sketch and mid-20s angst. As seen on W1A and Have I Got News for You.
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FIVE KERRY IPEMA PHOTO: IDIL SUKAN
Ahead of her One-Woman Sex and the City extravaganza, this Chicago-born actor and improviser picks her fave moments from the TV show that broke all the rules
CARRIE AND BIG’S ‘MEET-CUTE’
OLAF FALAFEL Still one of the great Fringey names, Mr Falafel aka ‘Sweden’s eighth funniest comedian’ tells us something we probably didn’t know (given the evidence and all that): There’s no i in idiot. Whatever it means, we’ll be the judges of that. Laughing Horse @ The Pear Tree, 2–20, 26, 2.45pm, 21–25 Aug, 12.15pm, donations.
JAY LAFFERTY: WHEESHT! Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–27 Aug (not 20), 6.30pm, £10 (£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. With a colourful history of never knowing when to shut up, Jay has managed to get herself into – and occasionally out of – more than a few tricky situations. After a lifetime of being told to pipe down, Jay never expected the trouble that would come from holding her tongue.
‘Best of the Fest’ International Award, presents his latest show.
AMSTERDAM UNDERGROUND COMEDY COLLECTIVE Assembly George Square Theatre, 4–26 Aug, 6.40pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Preview 3 Aug, £5. This show sees 12 of the best Dutch comedians and new talents performing during the festival.
THEA-SKOT THROUGH THE HEART AND YOU’RE TO BLAME Voodoo Rooms, 4–26 Aug (not 15), 7.20pm, free. Alison Thea-Skot presents a sizzling explosion of chaotic character comedy. A high-octane solo sketch show featuring a lovelorn Oyster card.
ELF LYONS: CHIFFCHAFF Pleasance Dome, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 6.50pm, £9.50–£10.50 (£8.50–£9.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. The 2017 Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee presents her one-woman musical about the economy. The queen of clown is back and she’s making the dismal science fun with a whole orchestra and an Invisible Hand.
PHIL ELLIS IS READY FOR THE BIG TIME Heroes @ The Hive, 2–26 Aug (not 15), 7.40pm, £5 (£3.50). After winning the Edinburgh Panel Prize in 2014 with Funz and Gamez, Phil’s ready to bring his unique, anarchic and unreliable comedy to the masses. He doesn’t mean to brag but he’s been involved with no less than five failed pilots and over 20 unread TV show ideas.
7PM DANIEL SLOSS: X Pleasance at EICC, 3–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 7pm, £12.50–£17.50 (£10.50– £15.50). Previews 2, 5 Aug, £9.50. The Scottish comedian, and recent recipient of the 2016 Sydney Comedy Festival
PAUL FOOT: IMAGE CONSCIOUS Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 7pm, £10.50–£12.50 (£9.50– £11.50). Previews 2 & 3, £7.50. Ever considered the unique predicament of the soft-shell crab? Paul has. The multi award-winning comedian presents his tenth solo Edinburgh show.
ALICE FRASER: ETHOS Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 7.55pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. Humans have always been fascinated by non-human minds. Alice Fraser explains our society of contradictions to a new robot mind.
8PM ASHLEY STORRIE: ADULTING Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 2–26 Aug, 8pm, free. Scotland’s funny girl and viral internet sensation Ashley Storrie returns to Edinburgh with a brand new show about not growing up. JAMIE MACDONALD: BLINKERED Assembly Rooms, 4–26 Aug (not 11), 8.25pm, £10.50–£11.50 (£8.50–£9.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. Gender is becoming one homogenised dull sex, and disabled people are being made to score points to get their benefits like they’re on some horrendous game show. Blind Jamie is taking a long hard look at this blinkered world. ROSIE JONES: FIFTEEN MINUTES Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 8.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Rosie Jones is a comedian with a penchant for being mischievous, and her cerebral palsy doesn’t slow her down in the slightest. EMMA SIDI: FACES OF GRACE Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 25), 8.30pm, £7.50–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Critically acclaimed character comedian and contemporary somatic movement enthusiast Emma Sidi brings her third hour of comedy gymnastics to the Edinburgh Fringe. A show of graceful heroes who are having a tough time.
Carrie’s strutting down a Manhattan sidewalk, per usual, when she trips and drops her condoms all over the sidewalk and who’s there to help her? MR BIG. If I tripped and dropped condoms everywhere, the chances of me meeting my future on-again / off-again love interest for six years are preeeeetty low.
CARRIE’S MARRIAGE ANNOUNCEMENT Anyone who’s single and has attended countless bridal / baby shower / bachelorettes will understand the sweet joy when Carrie registers for the exact pair of shoes that were stolen and announces her marriage . . . to herself.
SAMANTHA DATES MARIA I love this moment in the series. The show was quite progressive for the 90s and the fact that Samantha dates a woman and we get a hint at a sexual spectrum . . . I’m here for it.
WHEN THE GIRLS ATTEND THE TANTRIC SEX WORKSHOP The whole thing’s utterly ridiculous right down to the grand finale when Miranda gets a faceful. And of course it happens to Miranda, but the absurdity of it all is so extra.
THE OPENING CREDITS The opening credits were exclusively the four women. It never changed to accommodate one of their boyfriends or husbands. The show always honoured that the women were the central characters and their friendship was the focus. One Woman Sex and the City, Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 6.55pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8.
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TOP TIPS: WEEK 1
CHRIS WASHINGTON: YOU BEAUTY! Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug, 8.30pm, £8–£10 (£7–£9). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Edinburgh Best Newcomer nominee Washington debuts his Some ofChris the best comedy in the brand-new show aboutWritten the bestby: year Fringe’s first week. of his life. A feel-good underdog story Brian Donaldson about a Wigan postman who used all his annual leave to take a show to the world’s biggest arts festival and got lucky.
10AM
THE RED SHOES King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6– Sat 10 DOHERTY: Jun, edtheatres.com/kings JACK MIEKELSON AND MCGLASHAN – SERIOUS MEN Mathew Bourne’s highly acclaimed new Gilded dance Balloon production, at the Museum, based on 4–27 Augclassic (not 13, 20),film. 9pm, £15.50– the 1948 See our 5 star £16.50 page (£14.50–£15.50). Previews review, ??. 1–3 Aug, £9. Fresh from filming the fifth series of hit BBC One show Scot MILONGA Squad, Edinburgh’s Docherty Edinburgh Festival Jack Theatre, Tue returns to the for the first time in 13 & Wed 14 Fringe Jun, edtheatres.com/ 25 years.Celebrated This show choreographer unites two of his festival best-loved comedy creations: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents aChief piece Commissioner inspired by the Cameron late-night Miekelson milonga scene in the intimate bars of Buenos Aires. See preview, page ??.
9PM
SURGE Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot A festival dedicated to physical performance, incorporating outdoor, site-specific events for all ages and indoor showcases of performance art. Workshops and masterclasses are also provided for those wanting to develop their talents. BARD IN THE BOTANICS Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, Wed 21–Sat 29 Jul, bardinthebotanics. co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on
and the fiercely patriotic McGlashan from Absolutely.
BOB SLAYER IS BOB SLAYER (THE EPONYMOUS SHOW) Heroes @ Thefeaturing SpiegelYurt, Shakespeare female2–26 Aug (not 8, 15, 9pm, £5. This performers. With22), performances of year Bob’s gotShrew?, a new toy made Taming of the Timon of in Athens Russia by a Lear. man called Sergey. and Queen Anything can happen if you let it. FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO JASON BYRNE: La Bodega TapasYOU Bar, CAN Sat 3 COME Jun, IN, BUT DON’T STARTAn ANYTHING labodegaglasgow.com evening of Assembly Hall, 3–26 Aug (not 13, Andalucian passion with performances 20), 9pm, £17–19.50. Preview 2 from international flamenco guitarist Aug, £10. Fringe legend Byrne Andrew Robinson, singerJason Danielo is opening again for more Olivera andthe thedoors rhythmic footwork and comedy chaos. Everyone of is welcome expressive choreography El Fuego (unless you’re under 14). Strap in as de la Noche. Jason takes you on a trip of mad routines alongside some proper bonkers stunts. HE RED SHOES King’s SUZI RUFFELL: Theatre, Edinburgh, NOCTURNAL Tue 6– Pleasance 4–26 Aug (not Sat 10 Jun,Courtyard, edtheatres.com/kings 13), 9.45pm, £8.50–£11 Mathew Bourne’s highly (£7.50–£10). acclaimed new dance production, based on the classic 1948 film. See our 5 star review, page ??.
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MILONGA Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 13 & Wed 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ festival Celebrated choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a piece inspired by the late-night milonga scene in the intimate bars of Buenos Aires. See preview, page ??. SURGE Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot A festival dedicated to physical performance, incorporating outdoor, site-specific
Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Suzi is worried about everything – from someone breaking into her flat, to human rights across the globe, to her cat’s quality of life – and it’s keeping her awake. events for all ages and indoor showcases of performance art. Workshops and masterclasses are also HOTprovided GAY TIME for those MACHINE wanting to Underbelly develop theirCowgate, talents. 4–26 Aug (not 13), 10pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews & 3 BOTANICS Aug, £6.50. After BARD IN 2THE their multiGardens, award-winning debut at Botanic Glasgow, Wed last year’s Fringe, the hot 21–Sat 29 Edinburgh Jul, bardinthebotanics. gays are back, covering all the co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on most important moments in afemale gay man’s life, Shakespeare featuring from comingWith out to your mum to of trying performers. performances not to look at certain in theoflocker Taming of the Shrew?,bits Timon Athens room. and Queen Lear.
10PM
ROB KEMP: THE FLAMENCO DEL ELVIS FUEGODEAD Pleasance (not La BodegaCourtyard, Tapas Bar,4–26 Sat Aug 3 Jun, 6 & 7, 13 & 14, 20 & 21), 10.20pm, labodegaglasgow.com An evening of £10–£12 (£9–£11). 1–3 Aug, Andalucian passionPreviews with performances £7. The multi award-winning Fringe from international flamenco guitarist cult hit isRobinson, back. Rev singer up the Danielo Delta and Andrew come onand a trip a cabin in Tennessee Olivera thetorhythmic footwork and to witness the classic horror The expressive choreography of movie El Fuego EvillaDead 2 as reinterpreted through the de Noche. songs of Elvis Presley. THE LIONS OF LISBON THRONES! Celtic Park,THE Tue MUSICAL 6 & Wed 7 PARODY Jun, Assembly George Square, 4–26 celticfc.net Ian Auld and Willy Maley’s Aug,about 10.30pm, £14–£15 (£13–£14). play a group of Celtic supporters Previews 2 Aug,in£8. Updated who head 1to&Lisbon 1967 for the with new deaths European Cup. and sexcapades from the seventh series, this hilarious, gory parody features nudityGRADUATION (maybe), laughs MODERN BALLET (definitely), and incest (no, it won’t). PERFORMANCE Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, ZAZUTINANY Thu 8–Sat 10 Jun, rcs.ac.uk Underbellyfrom Bristo Square, 4–12 on Showcase final year students Aug,Conservatoire’s 10.35pm, £9–£10 the BA (£8–£9). Modern Ballet Previews 1–3run Aug, £6.50. AwardProgramme, in conjunction with winning comedy troupe zazU present an absurdly silly comedy game show incorporating live acts, games, a quiz and even some cheeky prizes.
11PM THE FREE ASSOCIATION: JACUZII Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 11pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£7.50–£9.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. The Free Association – London’s leading improv comedy theatre and school – returns with their smash-hit show *3Jacuzii*2. Every night, a guest comedian will share stories and anecdotes from their lives, inspiring an all-star team of improvisers to create a completely spontaneous and hilarious show.
MIDNIGHT WILL SEAWARD’S SPOOKY MIDNIGHT GHOST STORIES V Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–27 Aug (not 13, 22), midnight, £10–£10.50 (£9–£9.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. The legendary late-night, vampireflavoured, torch-wielding storytelling NAME HERE LAUREN PATTISON ghoststravaganza returns for ainfifth After Someaof glorious the best Fringe comedy debut in the hour Fringe’s last August first week. (we only Written wentby: andBrian gaveDonaldson her Some of the best comedy the Join Edinburgh’s favouriteby: five Fringe’s stars!), first the week. risingWritten Geordie by:star Brian is back Donaldson and this Some yearof is the feeling bestPeachy. comedy in theyear. Fringe’s first week. Written comedian forDonaldson another fiendish Can Brianthat Donaldson difficult second Some ofshow the best live up comedy to theinhype? the Fringe’s Pleasance first Courtyard, week. Written by:spooky Brian Donaldson. Some new hour of extremely silly ghostly 4–26 of theAug best(not comedy 13), 7pm, in the£9–£12 Fringe’s(£8–£11). first week. Previews Written 1–3 by: Brian Aug, £6.50. Donaldson tales.
FIVE SHORT RUNS
Scottish Ballet. See preview, page ??. CASABLANCA Òran Mór, Fri 7–Sun 23 Jul, oranmor.co.uk Gavin Mitchell stars in this adaptation of the classic film. LA CAGE AUX FOLLES King’s Theatre, Tue 25–Sat 29 Jul, atgtickets.com/venues/kingstheatre Bill Kenwright’s production sees Eastenders’ star John Partridge take on the role of Albin alongside Blink andactor you might these Broadway Adrianmiss Zmed as big Fringe shows. Catchmusical them while Georges in this witty number you can so forth . . . values, about dragand artists and family in which the characters are forced to KATHY cover up theirLETTE vibrant lifestyle. For her Girl Talk business, the antipodean PROJECT Y raconteur (pictured) discusses love and teen Platform, Sat 29and Jul,lust, tramway.org daughters and toy national boys, asyouth well as YDance, Scotland’s musing upon her son Jules whose dance organisation, presents four existence on the autistic spectrum new contemporary dance works means he certainly hasn’t had from choreographers Alan Greig, his Yakira, troublesSteven to seek. Underbelly Hagi Martin and Theo George Square, 4–11 Aug, 3.30pm, Clinkard. £15–£16 (£13–£14). PAISLEY INTERNATIONAL TANGO MARK FESTIVAL STEEL Thomas Every Little Coats Thing’s Memorial GonnaChurch, Be assures the coatsmemorial. man who FriAlright 25–Sun 27 Aug, continues to dance channel Bob Marley org.uk Tango festival held withthree his stand-up over days, withmessage. workshops, But with local, national and performances and parties. international politics turning the world topsy turvy, is it Mark? Is LA BOHEME it really? Assembly Rooms, 4–12 Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 1– Aug, £13–£14 (£12–£13). Sat 10 9.30pm, Jun, eif.co.uk Puccini’s tale of Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £10. young Bohemians in love.Also touring, see list.co.uk/theatre for details.
PAT CAHILL GLORY After last ONyear EARTH telling us all about the joys of fishing, Cahill’s Clagnut Royal Lyceum Theatre, Thu 1–Sat a show ‘neo-music 10promises Jun, David Greigofdirects Linda hall entertainment’, the Maclean’s story whichwhatever re-imagines devil that might be. between Heroes @Mary Bob’s the historic meetings BlundaBus, 2–6 Aug, 12.10am, Queen of Scots and John Knox. £5 in advance or donations at the venue. SHACKLETON Traverse Theatre, Wed 7–Sat 9 Jun, traverse.co.uk JULIETTEBlue BURTON Raincoat Theatre present When the Burton’s story therapist of Shackleton told her and his to ‘be on kind yourself’, she wasn’t voyage thetoEndurance. Also Tron entirelyGlasgow, sure whatWed that 14–Sat would entail. Theatre, 17 Jun, So, she opted to treat others nicely tron.co.uk instead. Butterfly Effect looks at the results of that shift&inLibrary attitude. Douglas Community Gilded Thu Balloon Teviot, 4–15 Aug, Centre, 1 Jun, dundeecity. 4.15pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews gov.uk/communitycentres/ 1–3 Aug, £6. Arturo Ui is a witty douglascentre and savage parable of the rise of Hitler – recast by Brecht into a small-time JOHN KEARNS Chicago takeover of the To date,gangster’s still the only act to win bothgreengrocery the Best Newcomer city’s trade. Award and the main prize (in successive years, too, the clever boy), Kearns proves in Don’t Worry They’re Here that he’s still a force to be reckoned with. Pleasance Dome, 4–12 Aug, 8.20pm, £11–£13 (£10–£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £9.50.
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The Scotsman
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Scotland’s national dance centre captures the zeitgeist this Fringe Every August, buildings across Edinburgh are transformed from ordinary halls, hotels and lecture theatres into theatrical spaces – but one venue in particular is true to its genre year-round. Dance Base, Scotland’s National Centre for Dance, is a regular home to classes and workshops – and during the Fringe, productions celebrating dance in all its glorious forms arrive from around the world. From energetic tap to narrative ballet, flamenco to African, there are 24 shows to choose from at Dance Base, created in Scotland, Taiwan, Australia, Finland, Ireland, South Africa and more. And the woman responsible for travelling far and wide to cherry pick this basket of dance delights, artistic director Morag Deyes, spotted a commonality she hadn’t initially noticed was there. ‘Programming can be quite a magical thing,’ she says, ‘because you make all these decisions based on what you’re seeing, and then you realise there’s something that binds all of them together. And I discovered that the programme is a conglomeration of what the zeitgeist is at the moment, especially in young artists’ lives. It’s definitely about history in the making, about big changes and what people believe in and feel passionate about.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ Dance Base, 3–26 Aug, times and prices vary, see dancebase.co.uk for full programme
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FESTIVAL DANCE | Hitlist PHOTO: ALEXANDRE GALLIEZ
DANCE HITLIST Kelly Apter picks some dance highlights as the Fringe gets moving COLD BLOOD Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been to the cinema to see a film, and youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been to the theatre to see a dance show â&#x20AC;&#x201C; nowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your chance to do both at the same time, with Michèle Anne De Mey and Jaco Van Dormaelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique production. See feature, page 83. Kingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theatre, 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;6 Aug, 8pm (5 Aug matinee 3pm), £7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;£32 GISELLE Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no shortage of contemporary dance, flamenco and other forms of dance in Edinburgh each August â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but a professional ballet company staging a full-length narrative work is a rare thing indeed. So lap up this traditional production from Ballet Ireland, choreographed by former Royal Ballet dancer Ludovic Ondiviela. Dance Base, 17â&#x20AC;&#x201C;19 Aug (not 13), 8.45pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;5 Aug, £11 (£9). INFINITA In recent years, German physical theatre company Familie Flöz has won the hearts of Fringe-goers with such spectacular 5-star hits as Hotel
Paradiso and Teatro Delusio. Now the masters of mask are back, with a show centred on the beginning (infancy) and end (dotage) of our lives. Pleasance Courtyard, 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;27 Aug (not 13), 1.30pm, £13.50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;£15.50 (£12.50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;£14.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, 1.30pm, £9. MY LAND Last year they got hot and steamy with Paris de Nuit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this year, Budapestbased company Recirquel is back with equally strong circus skills, but a personal narrative exploring tradition, freedom and love. See feature, page 29. Assembly Roxy, 3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;26 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 8.10pm, £12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;£14 (£11â&#x20AC;&#x201C;£13). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10. TABARNAK In 2015, Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cirque Alfonse rocked our world with Barbu, a circus show like no other, packed with incredible skill, an original live soundtrack, captivating film footage and a whole lot of hilarious surreality. So hopes are high that Tabarnak will blow us away with equal strength. Underbellyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Circus Hub, 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;25 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 7pm, £17.50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;£19.50 (£16.50â&#x20AC;&#x201C; £18.50).
Tabarnak
VERTICAL INFLUENCES Dance and ice skating have had a close relationship for years, but it wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Le Patin Libre came along that we saw its true potential. Forget anything you may have seen on TV,
at the Olympics or via Disney â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this is dancing on ice with a beautiful, thrilling, clever and unforgettable edge. Assembly at Murrayfield Ice Rink, 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;25 Aug (not 13 & 14, 20â&#x20AC;&#x201C;23), times vary, £17.50 (£15).
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Cold Blood | FESTIVAL DANCE
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H A ND IN HAND Kelly Apter finds a husband and wife duo bringing both their skills to bear in Cold Blood, a unique combination of choreography and film
‘S
ometimes you have to be careful not to speak about work when you’re at home, because life can become boring,’ says choreographer Michèle Anne De May with a laugh. But, she points out, there are plenty of other topics for her and her filmmaker husband, Jaco Van Dormael to talk about: ‘children, cats, love.’ That last subject finds its way into every corner of their lives, because although Cold Blood – the show De May and Dormeal are bringing to this year’s Edinburgh International Festival – includes seven ‘stupid deaths’, it’s full of human connection. ‘The show is about the last image you see before you die, what you remember just before it happens,’ explains De May. ‘So there is a lot about smell, about the feel of skin, music and sensibility – life and love. That’s why it’s such a touching performance.’
Both hailing from Belgium, De May and Dormeal were giants in their own fields before merging their talents. De May started her career dancing with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (her last visit to Edinburgh was to perform De Keersmaeker’s Fase in the 1980s), before moving into choreography and becoming artistic director of Charleroi Danse in Brussels for 12 years. Dormeal is an acclaimed director and screenwriter, best known for the multiaward winning feature film, Mr Nobody. Then, in 2012, they formed Kiss and Cry Collective with a group of other talented creatives working in the fields of writing, cinematography, design and lighting – and built something entirely new and unique. Casting two human hands in the starring roles, they produced a show where a love affair, with all its associated emotions, is danced purely with digits. A tiny set for the hands / characters to live in was designed, and cameras caught and projected the action onto a big screen. The result was so popular, the show played 350 performances in nine different languages. And it was while they were touring the world with this first endeavour, that De May and Dormeal
came up with Cold Blood. Technology had moved on, new possibilities emerged and in 2016 a whole new storyline was born, in which the characters die seven times through a number of vaguely ridiculous scenarios. ‘We didn’t speak about the narrative for a number of weeks – we were waiting for the story to come to us,’ recalls De May. ‘We improvised and chatted a lot about catastrophes. But Cold Blood doesn’t speak about death, it speaks about life and the sensations of life. It’s sort of a joke that we talk about seven stupid deaths, because we’re actually talking about life – and what is beautiful in life.’ Having focused so intently on fingers, hands and arms in Cold Blood, does De May find that returning to her usual choreography helps her appreciate what the rest of the body can do? ‘No, what changed the most for me was working with other people,’ she says. ‘It made me more open, and able to see other disciplines differently. It also opened my mind to the possibilities of using a script and how we can work with narrative in dance, to imagine another world – all of that has really helped me as a choreographer.’ Cold Blood, King’s Theatre, 4–6 Aug, 8pm (5 Aug, matinee 3pm), £7–£32.
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TOP TIPS: WEEK 1 Some of the best dance shows in the Fringe’s first week, in our handy hour by hour guide
10AM BACKUP Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 10.50am, £9 (£7). Preview 3 Aug, £7 (£4.50). Belgian companies Chaliwaté Company and Focus Company join forces for this blend of physical theatre and film, capturing three reporters who encounter a bear in the North Pole.
11AM ANCHOR Greenside @ Nicolson Square, 6–11 Aug, 11.30am, £10 (£8). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £7. A light and playful duet from choreographers Elsa Couvreur and Mehdi Duman, travelling through conflict, joy and heartbreak.
NOON (MES)DAMES INFINITA French Institute, 7–27 Aug (not 15), Familie Flöz, the incredibly talented company behind previous Fringe hits Hotel Paradiso and Teatro Delusio, is times vary, £7 (£5). Previews 3–5 back with a new show inspired by the beginning and end of life. Based in Germany, Flöz’s funny and poignant use Aug, £5. AHERE dancer with Scottish Ballet, of masks has been known to produce both laughter and tears, sometimes at the same time. Pleasance Courtyard, NAME Constant turns his hand (notWritten 13), 1.30pm, £13.50–£15.50 (£12.50–£14.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £9. Some of Vigier the best comedy into the Fringe’s4–27 firstAug week. by: Brian choreography with this work for comedy three Donaldson Some of the best in the Fringe’s first week. Written female dancers, exploring notions of best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. by: Brian Donaldson Some of the womanhood and equality, set toSome the of the Written by: Brian Donaldson best comedy in the Fringe’s first novella, Notes from Underground, CASUS: YOU & I DJUKI MALA music Christine the Donaldson. Queens. week.of Written by:and Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Australia’s Company 2 fuses acrobatic Assembly Roxy, 4–26 Aug (not 13, Assembly George Square Theatre, Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson skill and live music in an abstract 20), 3.10pm, £10.50–£12. Previews 3–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 4.10pm, £15– expedition through human desires, 2 & 3 Aug, £10. Australian company £16 (£13.50–£14.50). Previews 1 & 2 motives and drives. Casus celebrates love, circus and Aug, £12.50. This high-energy fusion friendship in this new production of traditional dance, pop culture and GIBBON highlighting the love story between storytelling from Australian company Assembly Rooms, 4–25 Aug (not two male circus performers. Djuki Mala had everyone wearing huge 7–9, 15, 21), 1.30pm, £10.50–£12.50. smiles at last year’s Fringe. Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8. Gandini SOWHERETO AFRICA BLUE SCAR Juggling’s surreal hodgepodge of Dance Base, 7–26 Aug (not 13, 20), C, 1–27 Aug, 3.20pm, £8.50–£10.50 THE ARTIST juggling, choreography and theatre, 2.30pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5, (£4.50–£8.50). Avant Cymru’s hip hop Assembly Roxy, 3–27 Aug (not 14), explores the connections between £11 (£9). Live music, energetic dance, dance tale is inspired by childhood 4.20pm, £12–£13 (£10–£11). Previews human behaviour, the cycle of nature street footage and performance poetry memories in the South Wales valleys, 1 & 2 Aug, £9. Thom Monckton, the and the journey into ourselves. meet to pay tribute to South Africa’s featuring Welsh hip hop musicians, captivating physical theatre performer legends and cultures. beatboxers and rappers, with behind the hugely successful The CIRQUE BERSERK! animation by Welsh graffiti artists. Pianist, returns to the Fringe with this Pleasance at EICC, 4–26 Aug (not new solo show about an artist who has 22), times vary, £17.50–£19.50 lost inspiration. (£13–£15). Preview 3 Aug, £12. A fastTOUJOURS ET PRÈS DE MOI paced mix of remarkable acrobatics and Assembly Roxy, 4–27 Aug (not 13, BREAK FREE aerial work, plus unique motorcycle act, 20), 3pm, £12.50–£15. Previews 2 & 360 ALLSTARS Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 ‘The Globe of Death’ which you may 3, £10. A holographic puppet opera Assembly Hall, 4–27 Aug (not 13), Aug (not 13), 4.35pm, £11–£12 want to watch through your fingers. in which two actors interact with 4pm, £15–£16 (£13–£14). Previews (£10–£11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £7. virtual representations of their past 2 & 3 Aug, £10. Exciting urban Japan’s Wasabeat Crew is made up selves, in a fractured tale of absence circus exploring all forms of rotation, WRONGHEADED of champion breakdancers, each with and regret. including a champion BMX flatlander, Dance Base, 7–19 Aug (not 13), a world title to their name, and are breakdancers, a basketball freestyler 1.30pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5, £11 heading to the Fringe with a fusion of CIRCUS ABYSSINIA: ETHIOPIAN and a Cyr wheel artist, performing (£9). Driven by the words of poet Elaine dance skill and technology. DREAMS against striking video projections. Feeney, choreographer and performer Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 4–25 Liz Roche confronts the stark realities Aug (not 13, 20), 3pm, £14–£16 SUSHI TAP SHOW faced by women in Ireland through film, 8 SONGS (£13–£15). Two brothers’ dream of Greenside @ Nicholson Square, 4–25 music, voice and movement. Assembly Roxy, 4–27 Aug (not 7–9, joining the circus becomes a reality as Aug (not 12, 19), 4.10pm, £15 (£13). 15, 21), 4.40pm, £12–£14. Previews they plunge into a world of daredevil Preview 3 Aug, £7.50 (£6.50). A big SEDIMENT 1–3 Aug, £10. The latest show from wonders in this joyful mix of juggling, hit at previous Fringes, this eccentric Assembly Roxy, 4–26 Aug (not 8, hugely popular company Gandini, acrobatics, dance, contortion and dance show from Japan combines 13, 20), 1.40pm, £13–£14 (£11–£12). features wild juggling combined storytelling, from the Konjowoch quality tap dancing and with physical Previews 2 & 3, £10. Inspired by with cult rock’n’roll in this tribute to Troupe. comedy. excerpts from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s popular music.
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PHOTO: ALICIA CLARKE
VERTICAL INFLUENCES If prising yourself away from the city centre and heading to Murrayfield feels like too big an ask, think again – this show is more than worth the journey. Canadian ice skating company Le Patin Libre has reinvented the ice dance show, blending contemporary moves and clever theatricality with exciting skills. Don’t miss it. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 1.30pm, £13.50–£15.50 (£12.50–£14.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £9.
THE SPINNERS Dance Base, 7–19 Aug (not 13), 4.45pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5, £11 (£9). Australian choreographer Lina Limosani and Scottish physical theatre director Al Seed team up to create this dynamic dance theatre piece inspired by Greek mythology.
£10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 3–5, £7. Performed by Swiss company Woman’s Move, The Sensemaker shows the inner turmoil of a woman as she struggles to meet impossible expectations, while Drop the Gogo questions whether our ambitions and fantasies are really our own.
RÉVERSIBLE Assembly Rooms, 4–26 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 6.15pm, £18–£19 (£15–£17). Previews 2 & 3, £12 (£10). Acclaimed circus collective, The 7 Fingers, present this athletic new show, inspired by the lives our grandparents would have led in their youth.
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TAIWAN SEASON: BON 4 BON Dance Base, 7–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 5pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5, £11 (£9). Four real-life brothers, each having undergone different dance training, perform this moving yet unsentimental tale of memories and how they each experience being related.
6PM THE SENSEMAKER AND DROP THE GOGO ZOO Charteris, 6–11 Aug, 6pm,
THIS IS THE TITLE Dance Base, 7–19 Aug (not 13), 7.30pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5, £11 (£9). Acclaimed Finnish soloist Ima Iduozee’s fluid and elegant work is inspired by his background in breaking, contemporary dance and physical theatre. JUNGLE Dance Base, 7–19 Aug (not 13), 7.45pm, £13 (£11). Previews 3–5, £11 (£9). With performers hailing from across Europe, Pink Mama Theatre questions what colonialism means today and to what extent it continues to shape our world.
UNIVERSOUL CIRCUS: HIP HOP UNDER THE BIG TOP Underbelly Circus Hub, 4–25 Aug, 5pm, £19.50–£21.50 (£18.50–£20.50). This popular show from the US makes its British premiere, combining highwire artistry, contortions, slapstick, clowning and, of course, hip hop.
ATTRAPE MOI Assembly Hall, 4–27 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 5.30pm, £15–£16 (£13–£14). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £10. Canadian company Flip FabriQue returns to the Fringe which this crowd-pleasing circus show for all ages, featuring extreme acrobatics, a trampoline wall, parkour and diabolos.
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CIRCOLOMBIA Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 3–25 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 9pm, £17.50–£19.50 (£16.50–£18.50). Having taken Edinburgh Fringe crowds by storm in 2017, Circolombia returns with this skilful and energetic circus show, featuring incredible acrobatics and superb live music from a powerful 14-strong troupe.
10PM BURN THE FLOOR: REBELS OF BALLROOM If you’re a fan of Strictly Come Dancing or Dancing with the Stars, then this is the show for you. When TV producers are looking for their next crop of professional dancers, Burn the Floor is often their first port of call – so catch this lot live before they head for the small screen. Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 Aug (not 8, 15, 20), 3pm (also 1pm, 13, 14, 27 Aug), £18–£20 (£16–£18). Previews 1–3 Aug, £13.
CIRCUS-CISION Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 4–25 Aug (not 13, 20), 10pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Preview 3 Aug, £10. As the name suggests, this is a raucous late-night circus variety show, hosted by the Head First Acrobats – the team behind the popular Elixir show.
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CANADA EDINBURGH FESTIVALS 2018
MON 6 AUGUST 8–11PM
After last year’s roaring success, CanadaHub is coming back to Edinburgh this Fringe season. What better way to celebrate all things Canadian than with a party! Across the festival this summer, Canada’s writers, singers and musicians will be joined by the stars of comedy, dance and circus to ensure there is a dose of Canada for everyone in Scotland this Aug. We’re giving readers the opportunity to win a pair of tickets to this exclusive CanadaHub Festival Party on Mon 6 Aug at King’s Hall in Edinburgh. At the CanadaHub Festival Party, guests will enjoy a showcase of Canadian companies performing at this year’s Fringe. Guests will also be invited to sample drinks from Innis & Gunn, Yellow Tail and Rapscallion, with snacks from Bonnie Burrito and Sugar Daddy’s bakery. To be in with a chance of winning, just answer the question below:
Where is the CanadaHub at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe? CanadaHub Festival Party Mon 6 Aug, 8–11pm King’s Hall | 41A S Clerk Street | Edinburgh, EH8 9NZ #CanadaHub
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LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
DAVID BADDIEL’S ANIMALCOLM Energetic stage adaptation of Baddiel’s hit kids’ book To grown-ups, he’s the guy who sits next to Frank Skinner and talks about football or has us in stitches at his stand-up. But to a generation of children, David Baddiel delivers the laughs in quite a different way – through his five entertaining books for younger readers. Whether his protagonist is celebrating daily in Birthday Boy or swapping his mum and dad for new models in The Parent Agency, Baddiel uses astuteness and humour to capture both children and adults. Which is why acclaimed
theatre company Story Pocket looked to him for their latest show for families. The tale of a boy who can’t stand animals – until he turns into several of them – AniMalcolm has been adapted for the stage, complete with songs and energetic physical theatre. Baddiel’s book is aimed at 9 to 12-year-olds, but he’s made sure his humour works across the board. ‘When I first started writing books for children, I decided I wasn’t going to patronise or talk down to them when it came to
comedy,’ he says. ‘Although when I was a kid, that was probably the correct thing to do because children back then didn’t have a very sophisticated sense of humour. But now, my son and his mates grew up watching The Simpsons, Pixar movies and the internet, so by the age of eight they had the same sense of humour a 27-year-old had 20 years ago.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1–19 Aug (not 13), 11.30am, £7–£12 (£7–£10).
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KIDS HITLIST Kelly Apter picks week one Fringe highlights for children and families CIRCA: WOLFGANG One of the world’s finest circus companies turns its hand to the family market, in this new show inspired by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. See feature, page 91. Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 4–25 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 2pm, £12–£14 (£11–£13). DAVID BADDIEL’S ANIMALCOLM Fringe favourites Story Pocket Theatre adapt David Baddiel’s story of a young boy who dislikes animals – until he becomes one – for the stage. See preview, page 89. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1–19 Aug (not 13), 11.30am, £7–£12 (£7–£10). JOHN HEGLEY: MORNING WORDSHIP Spend a joyous hour with one of Britain’s finest performance poets, as he shares his unique brand of wonderful nonsense. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–19 Aug (not 6–8, 13–15), 10.30am, £10 (£8).
STICK BY ME Armed with colourful sticky tape, hundreds of lolly sticks and his own unique capacity to entertain, Andy Manley takes us on a joyfully funny journey filled with friendship, caring, loss and healing. Dance Base, 7–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 12.30pm, £9 (£7). Previews 3–5 Aug, £8 (£6). WILDE CREATURES Tall Stories, the team behind Fringe hits The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom present their funny and moving new show inspired by Oscar Wilde’s tales. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21–23, 25), 2.50pm, £9–£11 (£8–£10). Preview 2 Aug, £6. BALLOONATICS Scottish comedian Chris Henry may not be a pass-master at balloon art, but he certainly knows how to entertain a crowd in this fun-filled hour that has all ages in fits of laughter. Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 15–17, 20–24), 11.40am, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50.
Tall Stories present Wilde Creatures
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Circa: Wolfgang | FESTIVAL KIDS
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO: DAMIEN BREDBERG
ROCK ME AMADEUS
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Australian Fringe favourites Circa return with a show inspired by Mozart, specially crafted for the family market. Kelly Apter talks to artistic director Yaron Lifschitz about creating for a different audience
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wo days after Yaron Lifschitz took his 16-year-old son to see Wolfgang, he knew the show he’d just created had done its job. As artistic director of Circa, one of the world’s most acclaimed circus companies, Lifschitz has had no shortage of positive reviews over the years, for shows such as Humans, Beyond and Close Up. But this particular bit of feedback really put a smile on his face. ‘My son started humming something and said to me “what’s this?”,’ recalls Lifschitz. ‘I said “that’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart”, which he’d heard in the show a couple of days earlier. And that, coming from a 16-year-old boy who loves computer games, is one of the amazing things about Wolfgang. You watch kids beaming and having a great time while they’re watching it – and it’s all to the soundtrack of Mozart.’ For many sitting in the audience, 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart may well be an unknown quantity – but Circa’s new family-friendly show will change all that. Unlike the company’s usual output, Wolfgang weaves a narrative through the skilful acrobatic twists and turns. ‘It’s the story of a woman who arrives home for a birthday party that nobody else has come to,’ explains Lifschitz. ‘So she puts on a record by Mozart, and is taken on a magical mystery tour by a strange, Mozart-like figure. And then, after she’s been spat back out into her room, Mozart and his trusty side-kick burst into her world and they all stage a concert together – which goes kind of wrong, but magnificently right as well.’ Each Circa show highlights different skills, creates a different atmosphere and provokes a different emotional response – but a unique, recognisable thread runs through them all. When it comes to creating a show specifically for children and families, however, what does Lifschitz do differently?
‘As little as possible is the short answer,’ he says. ‘Because we want to make a show that’s authentic and honest rather than kidsy – that’s not our approach. I think what we do is remove unnecessary layers of irony and complexity – and make sure that we’re communicating what we want to communicate as strongly as possible. ‘Wolfgang is a very different kind of show from our usual work – it’s not abstract acrobatics set to music with a kind of emotional overlay, it’s much more of a theatre piece.’ If circus is becoming an increasingly flooded market at the Edinburgh Fringe, then children’s shows are even more ubiquitous. So bringing a show that combines both might be perceived as risky – but it’s a risk Lifschitz is keen to take. ‘We could have brought Humans back, which sold out last year, and Peep Show is running in London at the moment so it would have been easy for us to bring that,’ he says. ‘But I wanted to bring something that is distinctly different, and speaks to audiences in a different way. Wolfgang has a really different set of skills – solo bike, tower of chairs, very detailed choreographic acrobatics and some beautiful work en pointe. There are moments of kooky surrealism, as well as broad comedy.’ As always with Circa, Lifschitz aims to do more than simply wow the audience with impressive skills (although that’s there, too) – for him it’s about the potential for circus to create meaningful experiences. And as he says: ‘Meaningful can be “I had a great time” or “my life was changed” – or coming out of the theatre humming Eine kleine Nachtmusik.’ Circa: Wolfgang, Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 4–25 Aug (not 8, 13, 20), 2pm, £12–£14 (£11–13). 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 91
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TOP TIPS: WEEK 1 The pick Some of the of the best best comedy kids’ shows in the in week one the Fringe, our Fringe’s firstof week. Writteninby: handy chronological guide Brian Donaldson
10AM 10AM THE RED SHOES BAMBINO The Edinburgh King’s Theatre, Academy, Edinburgh,7–19 Tue 6– Aug (not 13), 10am & 11.30am, £12 Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings for adultBourne’s and baby (£7 acclaimed additional Mathew highly adult). Scottish Opera had a big new dance production, based on hit with BambinO year, they’re the classic 1948last film. Seeso our 5 star back topage entertain review, ??. a whole new young audience with this gentle operatic adventure for 6–18-month-olds. MILONGA Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue BETTER 13 & Wed TOGETHER 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ Pleasance Courtyard, 4–19 Aug festival Celebrated choreographer (notLarbi 13 & Cherkaoui 14), 10.30am, £8–£10 (£7– Sidi presents a piece £9). Previews 1–3 Aug, milonga £6. Clowns inspired by the late-night Tropizo, and Squiggle on a scene in Doa the intimate bars ofare Buenos journey to become best friends, in Aires. See preview, page ??. this acrobatic, slapstick show for the whole family. SURGE Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot A festival COOKIE to physical performance, dedicated Assembly Rooms, 3–25 Aug, incorporating outdoor, site-specific 10.30am, £6–£9. 2 Aug, events for all ages Preview and indoor £6. Manhattan Children’s Theatre showcases of performance art. adapts Laura Numeroff best-selling Workshops and masterclasses are bookprovided for the stage, in which a mouse also for those wanting to has a never-ending develop their talents.list of requests – starting with a cookie. BARD IN THE BOTANICS MAMABABAME Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, Wed Pleasance at EICC, 1–17 Aug (not 21–Sat 29 Jul, bardinthebotanics. co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on
6, 13), 10.30am Shakespeare featuring & 1.30pm, female£8. This absorbing physical theatre performers.dance, With performances of and live of music experience has Taming the Shrew?, Timon of been Athens specially created and Queen Lear. by Edinburgh-based company Curious Seed for babies and children aged 0–3 and their FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO grown-ups. La Bodega Tapas Bar, Sat 3 Jun, labodegaglasgow.com An evening of WRIGGLE AROUND THE WORLD Andalucian passion with performances Stockbridge Church, 7–25guitarist Aug (not from international flamenco 8, 10–12, 17 & 18, singer 21), 10.30am, Andrew Robinson, Danielo 11am, & 4.30pm, £8 (£5). A Olivera 2.30pm and the rhythmic footwork and fun, interactive and educational violin expressive choreography of El Fuego and concert for babies and de lacello Noche. toddlers, where wriggling is positively encouraged.
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HE RED SHOES King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6– Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings BRAINIAC LIVE! Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 Mathew Bourne’s highly acclaimed Aug (not 13), 11am, £12–£15 new dance production, based on (£10–£13). Previews 1–3our Aug, £10. the classic 1948 film. See 5 star The popular review, page TV ??. show has been wowing crowds across the UK with this explosive stage version, delving MILONGA inside the weird and Theatre, wonderful world Edinburgh Festival Tue of 13science. & Wed 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ festival Celebrated choreographer THE GRUFFALO, WITCH Sidi Larbi CherkaouiTHE presents a piece AND THE WARTHOG inspired by the late-night WITH milonga JULIA scene inDONALDSON the intimate bars of Buenos Underbelly George Square, Aires. See preview, page ??. 2-–27 Aug (not 15), 11am, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Best-selling author Julia SURGE Donaldson starsGlasgow, in this brand-new Merchant City, Fri 28– show featuring Room onAthe Broom, Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot festival The MagictoPaintbrush, The Gruffalo dedicated physical performance, incorporating outdoor, site-specific
11AM
and newly events for all released ages and The indoor Cook and the King. of performance art. showcases Workshops and masterclasses are SHHH . . . THE ELVES ARE to also provided for those wanting VERY developSHY their talents. Royal Botanic Garden John Hope Gateway, 5–26BOTANICS Aug (not 6, 13, 20), BARD IN THE 11am, & 2pm, £5. Elfologist Botanic1pm Gardens, Glasgow, Wed Dr Faye29 Greenwood explains why 21–Sat Jul, bardinthebotanics. – and how she needs youron help to co.uk Botanics’ fresh take encourage her two tinyfemale friends to Shakespeare featuring come out and sayperformances hello, in his show performers. With of for younger Ipdip Taming of thechildren Shrew?,from Timon of Athens Theatre. and Queen Lear. THE SHOWSTOPPER’S FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO KIDS SHOW La Bodega Tapas Bar, Sat 3 Jun, Pleasance Courtyard, 4–19 Aug, of labodegaglasgow.com An evening 11am, £8.50–£10 Andalucian passion(£7.50–£9). with performances Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Fringe from international flamenco guitarist favourites and Olivier Award-winning Andrew Robinson, singer Danielo improvisers, The Showstoppers, Olivera and the rhythmic footwork and take kids’ ideas and transform them expressive choreography of El Fuego on theNoche. spot into interactive musical de la adventures. THE LIONS OF LISBON KIKA’S BIRTHDAY Celtic Park, Tue 6 & Wed 7 Jun, Pleasance Courtyard, 4–13Maley’s celticfc.net Ian Auld and Willy Aug (not 8), 11.30am, £7.50–£9 play about a group of Celtic supporters (£6.50–£9). Previews 1–3for Aug, who head to Lisbon in 1967 the £6. Kika the little French mouse is European Cup. about to turn five and her family has planned a birthday surprise, in MODERN BALLET GRADUATION this charming one-woman puppetry PERFORMANCE show. Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Thu 8–Sat 10 Jun, rcs.ac.uk BEOWULF Showcase from final year students on Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–17 the Conservatoire’s BA Modern Ballet Programme, run in conjunction with
Aug, 11.40am, Scottish Ballet. See £10–£11 preview, (£9–£10). page ??. Preview 3 Aug, £6.50. Take Thou That, a company hailing from Bristol CASABLANCA Old Theatre School, bring ÒranVic Mór, Fri 7–Sun 23 always Jul, oransomething to the Fringe and mor.co.uk special Gavin Mitchell stars in–this this year it’softhe of a film. little girl who adaptation thetale classic loves Beowulf, the story of AngloSaxon heroes. LA CAGE AUX FOLLES King’s Theatre, Tue 25–Sat 29 Jul, A DRAGON IN THE FAMILY atgtickets.com/venues/kingsPleasance Courtyard, production 5–19 Aug, theatre Bill Kenwright’s 11.50am, £9–£10star (£7–£8). Fusing sees Eastenders’ John Partridge storytelling, puppetry live harp take on the role of Albinand alongside music, Stories tellZmed the tale Broadway actorAlive Adrian as of a boy who in discovers stone inside a Georges this wittyamusical number cave, mightand justfamily be a dragon’s about which drag artists values, egg. in which the characters are forced to cover up their vibrant lifestyle.
NOON PROJECT Y THE Platform, BEAR Sat 29 Jul, tramway.org Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27youth Aug YDance, Scotland’s national (not 20), noon, £9–£12 (£7.50– dance organisation, presents four £10.50). Previews dance 1–3 Aug, £7. new contemporary works One when she’sAlan fast Greig, asleep, from night choreographers an enormous white Martin bear climbs into Hagi Yakira, Steven and Theo Tilly’s bedroom, leading to a magical Clinkard. adventure for both of them. PAISLEY INTERNATIONAL THE DRAGON AND THE WHALE TANGO FESTIVAL ASSEMBLY Thomas Coats ROXY, Memorial 4–27 Church, AUG (NOT 13, 20), NOON, £8–£9 Fri 25–Sun 27 Aug, coatsmemorial. (£6–£7). PREVIEWS 2 &held 3 org.uk Tango dance festival AUG, £6.days, Modest over three withPredicament, workshops, the company behind performances and2016’s parties.excellent Erin, Errol and the Earth Creatures present this tale of a dragon born LA BOHEME under the sea and raised by whales. Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 1– Sat 10 Jun, eif.co.uk Puccini’s tale of young Bohemians in love.Also touring, see list.co.uk/theatre for details. GLORY ON EARTH Royal Lyceum Theatre, Thu 1–Sat 10 Jun, David Greig directs Linda Maclean’s story which re-imagines the historic meetings between Mary Queen of Scots and John Knox. SHACKLETON Traverse Theatre, Wed 7–Sat 9 Jun, traverse.co.uk Blue Raincoat Theatre present the story of Shackleton and his voyage on the Endurance. Also Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 14–Sat 17 Jun, tron.co.uk Douglas Community & Library Centre, Thu 1 Jun, dundeecity. gov.uk/communitycentres/ douglascentre Arturo Ui is a witty and savage parable of the rise of Hitler – recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster’s takeover of the city’s greengrocery trade.
NAME HERE Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the WILDE CREATURES Fringe’s firstthe week. Written by:Fringe Brian hits Donaldson Some Room of the best comedy theThe Fringe’s Written by: one of their finest shows to date – a Tall Stories, team behind The Gruffalo, on the Broominand Snailfirst and week. the Whale, present Brian Donaldson Some of the best piece comedy the Fringe’s firstinspired week. Written by:Wilde’s Brian Donaldson. Donaldson Some funny, moving, infectiously catchy of in theatre and song by Oscar tales. Performed on alternate days with their show for older of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson children/adults, The Canterville Ghost. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–26 Aug (not 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21—23, 25), 2.50pm, £9–£11 (£8–£10). Preview 2 Aug, £6.
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FESTIVAL KIDS | Top Tips PHOTO: MIHAELA BODLOVIC
THE NEW I HATE CHILDREN CHILDREN’S SHOW the Space @ Surgeon’s Hall, 3—25 Aug, 1.35pm, £11 (£8). In recent years, the I Hate Children Children’s Show has delighted young and old alike with its mix of comedy and magic – this new show, for ages 8+ promises 20% more child hating.
2PM DUCKIE Summerhall, 1–12 Aug (not 2), 2pm, £12 (£10). Acclaimed cabaret star Le Gateau Chocolat brings his family-friendly re-imagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling to the Fringe, sending a gentle message of tolerance and acceptance. FOUR GO WILD IN WELLIES Dance Base, 6–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 2.10pm, £9 (£7). Previews 3–5 Aug, £8 (£6). Indepen-dance 4, Scotland’s inclusive professional dance company, presents this playful look at how friendships are built, broken and mended, for ages 3–5 years.
STICK BY ME One of the UK’s most acclaimed performers for children and families, Andy Manley doesn’t say a word during this 40-minute show, yet has the audience in stitches. Using just his physicality, our imaginations, several tubes of colourful sticky tape and lots of lolly sticks, he takes us on a journey of friendship, caring, loss and renewal. Dance Base, 7–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 12.30pm, £9 (£7). Previews 3–5 Aug, £8 (£6).
EATEN Scottish Storytelling Centre, 3–19 Aug (not 8, 15), 12.30pm, £9 (£7). Preview 2 Aug, £6. Funny and informative, Eaten invites children into the fascinating world of food chains and digestion, as they meet Lionel the lion whose lunch is coming back up to say hello. MICHAEL MORPURGO’S KENSUKE’S KINGDOM Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 12.30pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. Washed overboard during a round-the-world sail, young Michael finds himself stranded on an island in the Pacific, where he meets a host of animals and Japanese war survivor Kensuke.
1PM DICK AND DOM: DICK V DOM Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–12
Aug, 1pm, £9–£14.50 (£11.50– £13.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £9. The multi BAFTA-winning duo promise a comedy experience you’ll never forget, as they split the audience in half and let you battle it out with interactive games, songs and mess.
3PM CHARLIE BAKER PRESENTS: THE GREATEST GOAT OF ALL TIME Assembly George Square Gardens,
4PM MARK THOMPSON’S SPECTACULAR SCIENCE SHOW Gilded Balloon at the Museum, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 4.30pm, £10 (£8). Preview 3 Aug, £6. A regular face on TV, including presenting BBC series, Stargazing Live, the hugely enthusiastic Mark Thompson returns with more strange and magical experiments. DENIM: THE DENIM JUNIORS Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–19 Aug (not 13), 4.35pm, £9–£10 (£8-£9). Preview 3 Aug, £5. Now here’s something you don’t see every day – a five-piece drag act pop band playing chart hits and animated film classics especially for a family audience. Expect some seriously glam costumes.
5PM COMEDY CLUB 4 KIDS Assembly Roxy, 4–26 Aug, 5.50pm, £8.50–£10 (£7.50–£9). Preview 3 Aug, £8 (£7.50). A Fringe hit since 2005 with a different lineup at each performance, this family show plucks the comedians and sketch shows in town for their adult shows, and gives them a more productive way to spend their off-time. PHOTO: MIHAELA BODLOVIC
THE EXTRAORDINARY TIMETRAVELLING ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN The Stand’s New Town Theatre, 3-26 Aug (not 14), 12.10pm, £8 (£4). Preview 2 Aug, £7 (£3). Comedians and improvisers join forces to present this lively hour of fantastical, larger than life tales for all the family.
THE TIME MACHINE Scottish Storytelling Centre, 3–19 Aug (not 15), 2.30pm, £10 (£8). Preview 2 Aug, £6. Combining puppetry, melodrama and soundscape, this fast-paced adaptation whisks family audiences through HG Wells’ sci-fi classic. For ages 8+.
4–26 Aug (not 21), 3pm, £8.50–£10 (£7.50–£9). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8 (£7). Comedian Charlie Baker teams up with Sam Battersea from Class Dismissed for this fantastical tale about a shy goat who becomes confidant.
THE AMAZING BUBBLE MAN Underbelly George Square, 4–27 Aug, 1.30pm, £11–£12 (£8–£9). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. Fringe regular Louis Pearl is back with another hour of fun and artistry, using soapy water and a whole lot of skill. He’s not called ‘Amazing’ for nothing. ELLIE AND THE ENORMOUS SNEEZE Assembly Roxy, 4–27 Aug (not 14, 21), 1.30pm, £8–£9 (£7.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6. The team who brought us last year’s enjoyable Dr Zeiffal, Dr Zeigal and the Hippo that can Never be Caught return with this Roald Dahl-esque adventure. KAPUT Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–26 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 1.30pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8. Paying homage to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, slapstick clown Tom Flanagan plays a romantic projectionist in this witty, familyfriendly show.
CHORES For anyone who’s ever been told to tidy their room, when you want to do anything but, Chores will strike a chord. Inspired by Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Australian slapstick performers Derek Llewellin and Julian Roberts use circus skills, stunts and lots of physical humour to procrastinate for as long as possible. Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 12pm, £7–£9. Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.
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WRENNE US singer brings one-woman multimedia performance to Edinburgh ‘I love the smile I get when I describe it as “Post-Mormon-electro-pop”. Makes sense to me. If you can imagine what that sounds like . . . ,’ explains Wrenne. And while at first it’s a baffling description of her musical output, it’s actually pretty accurate. She’s been compared to the likes of Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Björk and Pink, her hypnotic vocals layered over ethereal electronica and delicate beats. ‘It’s maybe what you get when you mix an arty type who sang hymns as a kid, with some incredible electro-pop producers and co-writers,’ she suggests.
Raised as a Mormon in Utah, she left the church in her 20s, landing in London with just £200 in her pocket. ‘At the time I had no idea what sort of chance it was. I was just leaping into the future and following my imagination. I didn’t know a thing about it, except that I was free and wanted to take life as it came, while searching for a truth different to that I was raised on.’ With a background in musical theatre, her Edinburgh show is a collaboration with producer-director Hugo Vereker and musical director Mike Dixon for a spectacular one-woman multimedia
performance. ‘It’s a lot of songs, a lot of movement, a lot of stunning film work. It’s a sung show with a narrative, where Wrenne onstage tries to reach Wrenne onscreen with alarming results. A lot of good, talented people have practised their excellent art to help me tell my story. I can honestly say we believe it’s not like anything else you’ll see at the Fringe. Then again, you never know at this amazing festival!’ (Henry Northmore) ■ Assembly George Square Studios, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 3.30pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 2 & 3 Aug £7.
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FESTIVAL MUSIC | Hitlist Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin
MUSIC HITLIST Henry Northmore picks some of the best music shows to check out in week one of the festival FIVE TELEGRAMS EIF’s opening event is another spectacular mix of sound, light and music featuring a newly commissioned score composed by Anna Meredith and digital projections from 59 Productions. This year’s event commemorates the Great War inspired by the telegrams soldiers sent home in 1918. See feature, page 23. Festival Square, 3 Aug, 10.30pm, free but ticketed. WEE DUB X MUNGO’S HI-FI FRINGE SESSION Two of Scotland’s finest purveyors of dub join forces for a mighty roots, bass and reggae session. Featuring Mungos Hi-Fi Sound System, Mr Williamz, Tom Spirals, Escape Roots and Breezak. La Belle Angele, 3 Aug, 11.30pm, £8–£12. CLAUDIO SIMONETTI’S GOBLIN Claudio Simonetti and Goblin wrote the music for some of the most startling and visceral horror films of the 70s and 80s. Here they play a live soundtrack to screenings
of Dario Argento’s masterpiece Suspiria and, in a change to the programme, a greatest hits set. For an interview with Simonetti, see list. co.uk. Summerhall, 5 Aug, 5.30pm (Suspiria) & 8.20pm (Greatest Hits), 6 Aug 5.30pm (Greatest Hits) & 8.50pm (Suspiria), £26. RON DAVIS’ SYMPHRONICA Pianist and composer Ron Davis fuses his love of jazz and classical into a new and unique hybrid. A rich accessible mix harnessing the rhythms and complexity of the orchestra, the energy of jazz with a dash of rock and pop. Stockbridge Church, 3 & 4, 17 Aug, 5pm, £15 (£12); Scottish Arts Club, 8, 10, 16, 18 Aug, 9pm, £15 (£12); Leith Depot, 8pm, 13–15 Aug, £12 (£10). SIEGFRIED Big explosive opera in the third instalment of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle. A tale of myths and magic starring US soprano Christine Goerke as Valkyrie Brünnhilde, New Zealand tenor Simon O’Neill as Siegfried and Scottish bass-baritone Iain Paterson as Wanderer. Usher Hall, 8 Aug, 4.30pm, £20–£60.
HENDRIX AND US Aki Remally is one of Edinburgh’s most renowned jazz funk guitarists. Here he pays tribute to the guitar stylings
of one of his heroes, rock legend Jimi Hendrix, with help from Trio HLK and The Hidden Orchestra. Jazz Bar, 8, 10, 13 & 14, 20 Aug, 10pm, £10 (£8).
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Classical at EIF | FESTIVAL MUSIC
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PHOTO: © THEÃÅAÃÇTRE DES CHAMPS-ELYSEÃÅES
CLASS ACTS
The Barber of Seville
With top productions, performers and composers from across the world descending on Edinburgh, it can be tricky to know where to start with the International Festival’s classical and opera programme. Carol Main lends a helping hand by picking this year’s five must-see shows THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
Among all of Rossini’s comic operas, The Barber of Seville is the jewel in the crown. With its array of larger than life characters getting into all sorts of farcical scrapes, the music and libretto are full of exuberant energy, with Figaro, the multi-tasking entrepreneurial barber, at the centre of all its wit and colour. Taken from the first of French playwright Beaumarchais’s trilogy centred around Figaro (Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro is the same character, but from the second play), The Barber of Seville is seen in a new production straight from the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. Setting it apart from other stagings is conductor Jérémie Rhorer, who brings his own periodinstrument orchestra to the pit. ■ Festival Theatre, 5, 7 & 8 Aug, 7.15pm, £28–£96.
SIEGFRIED
If there’s anyone still to be convinced of the merits of concert performances of operas that were originally intended to be fully staged, then Sir Mark Elder’s Siegfried will be the sure-fire event
to make minds change. Following last year’s sensational Die Walküre, the International Festival continues its presentation of Wagner’s Ring Cycle with the Hallé Orchestra and an impressive lineup of soloists returning to Edinburgh as part of this four-year project. Described as the Wagnerian tenor of his generation, New Zealander Simon O’Neill is the hero who knows no fear, who puts together pieces of his father’s sword to slay a dragon, who gains the cursed ring of the cycle’s title and who brings the opera to a close by waking – and falling for – the Valkyrie Brunnhilde, giving her the ring to prove his love. It’s heady stuff. For five and a half hours. ■ Usher Hall, 8 Aug, 4.30pm, £20–£60.
TAKÁCS QUARTET AND MARCANDRÉ HAMELIN
Two chances to hear this extremely distinguished Hungarian string quartet, who are reputedly so reliant on each other that they’ve taken out life insurance on each of their lives. Across two complementary Queen’s Hall mornings, they perform one piece
each day by Mozart, Dvořák and Dohnányi. From the latter are Piano Quintets No 1 and 2, for which the quartet are joined by Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin, who appeared with the SCO at last year’s festival. Lots of Hungarian gutsy folk tunes, lush melodies and dancing rhythms abound in the Dvořák and Dohnányi repertoire, while the Mozart string quartets introduce each programme with typical grace, wit and lyricism. ■ Queen’s Hall, 10 & 11 Aug, 11am, £11–£34.
ROBIN TICCIATI CONDUCTS BRAHMS CYCLE
Unbelievable though it may seem to Scottish audiences, conductor Robin Ticciati, who was appointed principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the age of only 26, conducts his final concerts with the SCO in two concerts at the Usher Hall. Since his first appearance in Edinburgh with the orchestra in 2009, Ticciati has been a much-cherished figure who will be greatly missed, but will surely return. For his swansong, he goes
all out on Brahms, programming Symphony No 1 and 3 one night, and Symphony No 2 and 4 the next. ■ Usher Hall, 18 & 19 Aug, 7.45pm, £15–£47.
A BERNSTEIN CELEBRATION
On the date that marks exactly 100 years since the birth of the legendary composer, conductor, pianist, writer and lecturer who is American music personified, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra – making its Edinburgh Festival debut – celebrates Leonard Bernstein with music director Marin Alsop. A conducting student of the great man himself, Alsop is renowned for her highly charged performances. West Side Story Symphonic Dances sit alongside three dances from Broadway musical On the Town and the more reflective Serenade for orchestra and violin. Putting Nicola Benedetti into the mix as soloist means that tickets will be like proverbial gold dust. In the morning, Hebrides Ensemble are at the Queen’s Hall with Bernstein for smaller forces. ■ Usher Hall, 25 Aug, 7.45pm, £15–£47. 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 97
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FESTIVAL MUSIC | And So I Watch You From Afar
GO THE DISTANCE And So I Watch You From Afar, the complex post-rock instrumentalists from Northern Ireland, chat to David Pollock about the thrill of live performance and creating music their fans can let go to
‘M
y dad would love to hear you say that!’ laughs Rory Friers of Northern Irish instrumental rock group And So I Watch You From Afar, when I put it to him there’s as much of the whimsical lightness of Genesis in their music, as there is the roiling sternness of their early post-rock heroes Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky and Pelican. ‘It’s completely true. Our MO was always just to squeeze whatever’s fulfilling and exciting into our music, regardless of what people perceive an instrumental band to be. We’re sincere about it, we try to create that moment of escapism, music you can let go to.’ The live aspect of And So I Watch You From Afar – who play Summerhall as part of this August’s Nothing Ever Happens Here music programme – has always been the most important to the group since they formed on the north coast of County Antrim in the mid-2000s. The quartet now includes guitarist Friers, his oldest friend Chris Wee on drums (‘we’ve been playing Nirvana covers in our bedrooms for 30 years,’ says Friers, ‘but it doesn’t feel much different doing it for a job’), guitarist Niall Kennedy and bassist Johnny Adger. These grunge-obsessed kids hanging round the local skater and surfer community had one eye on getting into Belfast’s busy live music venues. Now they’re internationally recognised, with five records (the most recent was last year’s The Endless Shimmering). ‘There was a period where we were becoming more proficient at playing our instruments, and I felt really proud, really accomplished,’ says Friers. ‘Then we remembered it’s not really about that, and we found a more rounded perspective of what’s important about music, that it can be really full, or empty; a void. We have a better understanding now of what sort of journey we want to take people on.’ For this band, that journey happens best when it’s live. ‘It’s like when we were teenagers,’ says Friers. ‘Growing up where we did, it was about Friday night, the end of the week, going to see a favourite band that had come to town. That was one of the few moments of congregation, and it was important to completely escape in that. For me it’s about how it feels live, and whether it’s really going to be worth people’s hard-earned money to come and get those moments we all yearn for, where you can forget the day job and go into another world.’ And So I Watch You From Afar, Summerhall, 8 Aug, 8pm, £16.50.
LUCKY STAR Henry Northmore chats to New York troubadour Dean Friedman as he prepares to revisit his classic album “Well, Well,” Said the Rocking Chair American singer-songwriter Dean Friedman occupies a unique place in the world of music. ‘I grew up listening to people like Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon, writers who painted pictures using very vivid imagery,’ says Friedman. He scored a series of top ten hits in the late 70s with ‘Ariel’, ‘Lucky Stars’, ‘Woman of Mine’ and ‘Lydia’, just as punk was taking hold on the music scene. ‘I think it was unlike anything else on the radio at the time,’ he says of his work. ‘Punk was just happening, I did Top of the Pops with the Boomtown Rats and the Buzzcocks!’ Friedman is returning for his 15th Fringe to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his most successful album, 1978’s “Well, Well,” Said the Rocking Chair, a collection of pastoral acoustica inspired by his move to New York. ‘It’s impossible not to be influenced by the sights and sounds, colours, textures, even the tastes and smells of a city like that,’ he says. ‘Inevitably those colours and sounds ended up on the album.’ However, that’s just half the story. Friedman has cropped up in all manner of unlikely places – as a world authority on synthesisers with people still checking out his YouTube videos to this day; an early pioneer of virtual reality gaming; a designer of musical playground equipment and writer of the soundtrack to beyond-cult British horror movie I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle. Surely his most surreal musical adventure was as the subject of a song by Half Man Half Biscuit (‘The Bastard Son of Dean Friedman’). ‘It was great, he’s a brilliant writer. I met Nigel [Blackwell] and the band at the Fringe in 2003, and he confessed he had “Well, Well,” Said the Rocking Chair.’ Friedman did the maths and soon realised he was only seven-years-old when Blackwell was conceived and wrote cheeky rebuttal ‘A Baker’s Tale’ in 2009. ‘I have a lot of respect for those guys and I feel like we have musically addressed each other’s place in the pop music firmament,’ laughs Friedman. ■ Sweet Grassmarket, 8–19 Aug (not 13 & 14), 7.30pm, £20–£22 (£18–£20).
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Top Tips | FESTIVAL MUSIC
TOP TIPS: WEEK 1 Music highlights from the first week of the Fringe, arranged in a handy chronological guide
9AM BACH FOR BREAKFAST Royal Scots Club, 6, 8, 13, 15, 17 Aug, 9.30am, £15 (£12). A very civilised way to start your day in the company of a selection of excellent young classical musicians performing a programme of Bach.
11AM NICOLA BENEDETTI Queen’s Hall, 4 Aug, 11am, £11–£34. Scotland’s violin superstar with an early performance of baroque classical along with the Academy of Ancient Music. Featuring works by Vivaldi and Telemann.
ELVIS: STILL YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL
NOON AFRICAN RISE Assembly Checkpoint, 4–27 Aug, 12.30pm. £13 (£12). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £10. Time to get moving with Afripella. As the name suggests acapella African music, song and dance. ELSA JEAN MCTAGGART: HEBRIDEAN FIRE theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 4–25 Aug (not 5, 12, 19), 12.35pm, £7 (£5). Preview 3 Aug, £6 (£4). Elsa Jean McTaggart returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018 to launch her well-known folk and Scottish music show, Hebridean Fire. The show will feature Elsa’s original songs on guitar and tunes on the fiddle and penny whistle while incorporating well-known Scottish songs and tunes.
Elvis was the King of Rock’n’Roll and there are hundreds of impersonators around the world, but most focus on his Vegas jumpsuit years. Oliver Harris brings to life the young Elvis, when he was still a true heartbreaker, playing his early hits including timeless classics ‘Love Me Tender’, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ‘My Baby Left Me’. Frankenstein Pub, 2–27 Aug, 3.45pm; 2–12 Aug, 7.30pm, £8 to guarantee entry or Pay What You Want.
3PM NATIONAL YOUTH CHOIR OF SCOTLAND Usher Hall, 5 Aug, 3pm, £15. Christopher Bell directs this young and extremely talented choir with a programme of Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs, Tippett Five Spirituals (Child of Our Time), Thea Musgrave On the Underground Set No 2 and Eric Whitacre When David Heard. CHRIS DIFFORD Assembly Checkpoint, 6–12 Aug, 3.30pm, £16 (£14). Aka Some
Fantastic Place, My Life in and Out of Squeeze. Songs and stories from the Squeeze frontman, in the company of Boo Hewerdine, to mark the release of his autobiography.
6PM BELLY OF A DRUNKEN PIANO Assembly Rooms, 2–26 Aug, 6.15pm, £15–£16.50 (£14–£15.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug £11. A tribute to the darker end of the singersongwriter spectrum as Stewart D’Arrietta plays the music of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Ian Dury and more. DOME NIGHTS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON – INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF PINK FLOYD Dynamic Earth, 3–27 Aug, 6.30pm, £12 (£8). Inspired by the music of Pink Floyd, this dome spectacular features the 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon in explosive surround sound. With spellbinding abstract projections on the dome, audiences will be surrounded to create a truly astonishing visual and aural experience.
THUMPASAURUS A big punk funk party band from LA, self-proclaimed ‘intergalactic dance gods’ Thumpasaurus approach their music with a sense of humour but the slap bass grooves are seriously infectious as they prepare to unleash their debut album The Book of Thump. You can also catch them with Norwegian-American comedy duo Zach & Viggo for absurdist funk opera Where Does The Love Go?. Underbelly Cowgate, 3–5, 10–12, 17–19, 24–26 Aug, midnight, £10; Where Does The Love Go?, Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 8, 13), 9.20pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50.
007 VOICES OF BOND theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 3–25 Aug, 6.50pm, £13 (£11.50). There have been some cracking Bond tracks through the years from Adele and Sam Smith to Carly Simon and the queen of them all, Dame Shirley Bassey. Vocalist Phoebe Katis pays tribute to the best theme tunes in the movies.
7PM THE MAGNETS: NAKED 80S VOLUME 2 Assembly George Square Gardens, 4–26 Aug (not 20), 7pm, £15–£17 (£14–£16). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £12. The hit a cappella show of the Edinburgh Fringe 2017 returns to present the 80s remixed. Like Pitch Perfect with shoulder pads, vocal harmony supergroup The Magnets strip away the synths to honour the decade of big snares and bigger hair with their voices alone. #PIANODROME LIVE Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – Pyrus Lawn, 3–26 Aug (not 6 & 7, 13 & 14, 20 & 21), 7pm, £15 (£12). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £10. S!nk host a nightly cornucopia of new music, movement and more in the world’s first ever #Pianodrome. This bespoke 100-seater amphitheatre in the Royal Botanic Garden is made entirely out of upcycled pianos is free for all to play on, in and around during the day, and animated by night with special performances.
8PM BETH NIELSEN CHAPMAN Queen’s Hall, 8 Aug, 8pm, £27. Texas singer-songwriter who has written for all the country greats including Willie Nelson, Faith Hill, Waylon Jennings and Mary Chapin Carpenter alongside hits for herself. Support comes from British Americana singer Robert Vincent.
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FESTIVAL MUSIC | Top Tips NYO-USA JAZZ Usher Hall, 5 Aug, 8pm, £10–£24. Big band favourites to contemporary jazz and maybe even a bit of hip hop and R&B from Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Directed by trumpeter / composer Sean Jones with special guest vocalist Dianne Reeves. CHOIR OF MAN Assembly Rooms, 2–26 Aug (not 13), 8pm, £13–£17.50 (£11–£16.50). A night of unadulterated entertainment that combines high-energy dance, live music and foot-stomping choreography with the talent of nine ordinary guys who perform everything from sing-along classics to classic rock. BON: THE MUSICAL Greenside @ Nicholson Square, 3–25 Aug (not 12, 19), 8.45pm, £12 (£10). Previews 3–5 Aug, £10. Hard rockin’ musical telling the story of legendary AC/DC vocalist Bon Scott. Brought to life by Kingdom Theatre Company and starring ex-Nazareth vocalist Linton Osborne.
9PM UKULELE DEATH SQUAD Leith Depot, 3, 5, 7–9, 12 Aug, 9pm, £11 (£10). Taking ukulele music to new heights with a rousing and fiery take on folk, mariachi, flamenco and rap all played on tiny four-string ukes (with back up on sax).
WE ARE Just Festival at St John’s, 7–25 Aug (not 12, 19), 9pm, £15 (£13). LA band Adaawe provide uplifting singing, drumming and dancing as they share stories from women around the globe. BLUESWATER PRESENT: QUEENS OF THE BLUES theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 3–25 Aug, 9.10pm, £10 (£9). A celebration of all the great female blues singers through the years led by vocalist Nicole Smit.
10PM THE FLYBOYS: A POSTMODERN SWING SENSATION! Gilded Balloon Rose Theatre, 4–24 Aug (not 13), 10.30pm, £11.50–£13 (£10.50–£12). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8. Imagine a night where Pharrell Williams croons with Judy Garland, Ricky Martin scats with Cab Calloway, and Maroon 5 groove with Ella Fitzgerald. Four masters of mash-up will whisk you back to the golden age of big bands but with an incredibly unique twist.
11PM FLY PRESENTS JASPER JAMES & THEO KOTTIS Cabaret Voltaire, 3 Aug, 11pm, £12. Underground house and techno selections from James and Kottis at this festival opening party boasting a 5am licence.
TOM JONES The Welsh crooner is back doing what he does best. Mr Jones knows how to work a crowd not only dishing out big hits (including singalong favourites ‘What’s New Pussy Cat?’, ‘Delilah’ and ‘Green Green Grass of Home’) but in recent years he’s returned to his roots celebrating the best of soul, blues and gospel. The perfect way to kick start the Summer Sessions series of open-air gigs. Princes Street Gardens, 6 Aug, 6pm, £55–£80.
SOULSVILLE Summerhall, 3, 26 Aug, 11pm, £5. Bookending the festival with a hot selection of soul, funk, rare groove, deep disco, Latin, world beats and global grooves. MASSAOKE MIXTAPE Assembly George Square
Gardens, 2–5, 9–12, 16–19, 23–26 Aug, 11.30pm, £12–£16. For anyone who gets nervous at the thought of getting up on stage for karaoke but loves a big singsong, Massaoke is for you. No star turns, just big belting tunes with lyrics onscreen that the entire audience sings together.
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A GENEROUS LOVER Queer artist La JohnJoseph’s unique tale of a troubled journey
PHOTO: SHARLENE DURFEY
La JohnJoseph’s previous Edinburgh Fringe success, Boy in a Dress, was a sensitive yet forthright fusion of performance art and storytelling: like A Generous Lover, it began with autobiography before addressing wider social ideas about gender and individuality. 2018’s show follows La JohnJoseph seeking mental health support for a friend, highlighting the experience through a transfeminine perspective. La JJ’s approach is determinedly queer in aesthetic and content: ‘I always want to flag that up to the audience. Queer isn’t seeking fixity, queer is questioning.’ A Generous Lover, driven by La JJ’s distinctive elegant and eloquent style, sits at the intersection between modernist experimentation, classical poetry and robust social commentary. Working
across multiple art-forms – La JJ performs, writes and makes videos – the artist takes their own experience and translates it into a philosophical exploration that encompasses religious belief, tenderness and raw honesty. With queerness now more widely discussed, La JJ has a place within the tradition of filmmaker Derek Jarman, North American firebrand feminist raconteur Penny Arcade and the romantic poets. La JohnJoseph’s tag – yesterday’s Britain today – suggests a reinvention of history through a contemporary prism, while this reimagining of the past is tempered by a spiritual, intelligent and bracing sense of performance and performativity. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 6pm, £10 (£8). Previews 1, 3 Aug, £8.
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Gareth K Vile picks the best theatre to check out in week one WHITE FEMINIST Lee Minora is making an effort to challenge laziness in her thinking, so why doesn’t everyone else? A radio show format invites the audience to question themselves. See feature, page 110. Tolbooth Market, 4–25 Aug. 9.45pm, free. A CLOWN SHOW ABOUT RAIN Clown has escaped from the circus and become a major presence in Scottish theatre: its ability to deal with serious issues is exemplified in this exploration of mental health through three lighthouse keepers who find themselves all at sea. See feature, page 105. Pleasance Dome, 4–27 Aug, (not 13, 20), 1.40pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. OTOSOTR All the way from Kazakhstan, a war story seen through the eyes of millennials: it concentrates on the hidden tale of the ethnic Koreans in Soviet territory during WWII. A
PHOTO: TATYANA KIM
THEATRE HITLIST technological feast surrounds a solo performance as a young man attempts to follow his grandfather’s journey. Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 6.40pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50. PREHISTORIC Australia, 1979, when being in a punk rock band can expose the corruption of a city’s government. Gig-theatre that promises to blend music and politics and the horror of why the populace has become so quiet about it. Summerhall, 3–26 August (not 6, 13, 20), 9.15pm, £10 (£8). Preview 1 Aug, £5. ZOO As a hurricane races towards Miami zoo, Lily Bevan’s script asks questions about moral responsibility and the tricky problem of what happens when animals are threatened – and a zookeeper has always preferred them to humans, anyway. Assembly George Square Studios, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 11am, £9.50–£11.50 (£8). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7.
OTOSOTR
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Mental Health | FESTIVAL THEATRE
list.co.uk/festival
AL L W EL L AN D G OOD With the issue of mental health being given ever-increasing exposure throughout the arts, Lorna Irvine talks to some of the theatre companies tackling the subject to find out how they plan to look after their own wellbeing during the Fringe
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ne in four people in Britain are currently affected by mental health problems, according to the charity Mind. It’s a troubling statistic. With the mayhem of the Fringe a potential hotspot for excess, anxiety and stress, many of the companies exploring mental health have now designed strategies for selfcare during August in Edinburgh. Here they offer up a selection of tips and sage advice,
demonstrating that mental health is more than just a fashionable theme for a show. Gulliver Returns focuses on a life-changing trauma faced by a couple, and a man caught up in a fantasy world. Writer and director Dan Coleman explains: ‘It uses the idea of a person becoming lost in a book to explore the dislocating effect that grief has on your sense of self, the world, relationships with others’. As for the Fringe, he says: ‘I think having your own space is really important. Keeping in contact
with the outside world is really important. Getting some sleep is really important. The occasional fried Mars bar helps as well.’ Writer Lucy Danser’s new show Lost In Thought aims to dispel some myths around OCD, focusing on Felicity, a young woman with the condition. ‘It’s naturally difficult to stay healthy at the Fringe, but we are even more serious about it this year because of the topic of the play and our writer and actor both having OCD,’ she says. ‘A core part of that has been
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the importance of accommodation and healthy eating. We’ve organised accommodation for our team that’s not too far but also not too central to the hubbub of the festival to ensure that everyone has a place that’s calm and quiet.’ Bebe Sanders, writer and performer of Violet warns against alcohol. ‘If you are feeling anxious or mentally unstable, it is a categorically terrible idea – something I learnt the hard way. Also, all the basics: try and get enough sleep, eat good food, not just chips from a van. And try to connect with other people who might be experiencing similar things to you. There are some wonderful
ways to connect with people – just reach out. If you’re struggling, don’t feel like you have to do it alone.’ Lesley Wilson, writer of Wired, which deals with PTSD in the military – and systemic misogyny – takes the advice of Fringe veterans. ‘I often hear them saying, “It’s a marathon not a sprint”, which I think is good advice. I think what I learned last year, and am holding close to my heart, is to keep my feet on the ground and remember that the Fringe comes and goes but life, love and relationships go on beyond August.’ ‘Personally, I’ve got my running shoes and I’m going to start an intimate relationship with Arthur’s Seat,’ says Robin Kelly of Valerie, an intergenerational cabaret. ‘Positive self-care in the Fringe has been a lynchpin of our strategy for coming to Edinburgh. We’re coming from New Zealand, which means a huge financial burden, but leaving our support structures behind. So as a company we’re looking inward to support each other with super-practical steps. The most important of these is that we have scheduled time across August to check back in with families/ therapists/partners/friends at home, and we all understand that that is a priority which supersedes anything else.’ Ben SantaMaria’s solo show, Really Want to Hurt Me, details the experience of growing up gay in Devon during the 1980s. ‘The Fringe is a unique place to get lost in just about everything you could imagine. A refrain I keep hearing, though, is what a lonely experience it can be for most people at some point. So maybe we can all take a tip from that scared 80s schoolboy and dare to reach out to connect with others that bit more often, instead of getting trapped in thinking we don’t belong. I also personally swear by transcendental meditation.’ In Lovecraft (Not The Sex Shop), Welsh performer Carys Eleri probes the neuroscience of relationships, using music and theatre. She observes that ‘last time I came to Edinburgh, I signed up for a month’s membership at a hotel spa to exercise, swim and relax during the mayhem. I also took myself out of Edinburgh on my weekly day off to stay at at B&Bs in the countryside and have some peace and quiet. Good diet helps too. This time, my show is quite vocally demanding, so I’ll have to lay off the sauce as much as I can.’ A Clown Show About Rain, produced by Silent Faces, takes a more abstract, but no less touching, approach to mental health with its sad clowns. Their advice is not to feel pressure.’Don’t succumb to the pressure of having a “perfect” Fringe! There will always be emails you forget to send, shows you don’t manage to see, performances that don’t go so well, money you shouldn’t have spent and events you should have gone to, but your mental health is more important. Taking time for yourself, whether it is a coffee break, a nice walk, a trip to the cinema – you deserve to take time to do the things that make you feel normal.’ Tender comedy-drama All Change follows elderly, fragile Ivor, who is determined not to be put into a care home, and daughter Lily, who has already packed his case. ‘Performing three plays during the Fringe will be a challenge,’ admits actor Tim Marriot. ‘Audience reaction and reviews can feel personal, so we need to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth. I will try and make myself and my company as resilient as possible by keeping physically fit, eating and sleeping well, keeping regular hours and avoiding too many late nights and alcohol!’
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Clockwise from below: Lost in Thought, Valerie, Really Want to Hurt Me, A Clown Show About Rain
Glasgow ’14 looks at four male characters who experience an unexpected trauma, and how this impacts on their lives. Writer Sally Lewis swears by running. ‘I find it a great way to destress. And I surround myself with friends and family and supporters of the show, and make sure I take myself off to watch some of the other great shows.’ Theatrewhack bring absurdist play Welcome To Self Co to Edinburgh, focusing on the vagaries of mental health. Hope Kennedy-Smith, writer and producer, is hoping that the jetlag of their trip from New Zealand to the Fringe wears off quickly: ‘Given that our whole team suffers from mental health issues, we try and support and be kind to each other as much as possible. I certainly need good sleep (and exercise) to keep me functioning. I’m sure we’ll get overwhelmed at times but I’m certain the buzz of the festival will keep us uplifted.’ Gulliver Returns, Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 2pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. Lost In Thought, Underbelly Cowgate 4–26 Aug (not 13), 6.40pm £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50. Violet, ZOO Southside, 5–18 Aug, 9.55pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £7. Wired, Army @ the Fringe in association with Summerhall, 10–25 Aug (not 13, 20), 2.30pm, £12 (£10). Valerie, Summerhall, 3–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 9.15pm, £12 (£10). Preview 1 Aug, £5. Really Want To Hurt Me, Assembly Hall, 4–27 Aug (not 13, 20), 3pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. Lovecraft (Not The Sex Shop), Summerhall, 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 9pm, £15 (£12). Preview 1 Aug, £5. A Clown Show About Rain, Pleasance Dome, 4–27 Aug, (not 13, 20), 1.40pm, £8.50–£11 (£7.50–£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50.
All Change, Assembly George Square Theatre 9–27 Aug, (not 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26), 12.20pm, £10–£12 (£9–£11). Glasgow ’14, theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 3–18 Aug (not 5, 12), 8.10pm, £10 (£8). Welcome To Self Co, Laughing Horse @ The Phoenix, 15–26 Aug, 5.15pm, free but ticketed. 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 107
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Feminism | FESTIVAL THEATRE
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO: KATE RAINES
CHAIN R EACTIO N White Feminist
What happens when artists talk to each other? Theatre editor Gareth K Vile finds out in this ‘relay’ interview, where four performers tackling feminist issues at the Fringe interview each other about their shows
T
his year, there are a large number of works calling themselves feminist, and drawing attention to movements like #metoo. This would have been remarkable in 1973: in 2018, it stands out because of the abject failure of the broader theatre scene to engage consistently with female representation. Lee Minora’s White Feminist wants to go further than a surface celebration. GKV: You’re asking for a broader interrogation of feminist theatre: can you tell me a bit about that? LM: A broader interrogation of feminist theatre
has to come from a broader interrogation of feminism itself. My show White Feminist is an exploration of . . . white feminists! White women, like me, find ourselves in dual roles as oppressor and oppressed. Navigating gender and privilege comes with heaps of juicy, complicated hypocrisy and failures that can be painfully funny and biting. GKV: Do you think that theatre – especially at the Fringe – is an effective place for this conversation?
LM: Hell yes! I’d grown so bored by the theatre of good intentions; theatre that seems to be congratulating liberals instead of challenging them. Why was I watching so many plays that were designed to educate MAGA hat-wearing, conservatives, who don’t even go to theatre? I set out to make a piece that interrogated good intentions, that could flex and evolve with current events, and meets the people in the room where they are. So yes, it’s a great place to have this conversation and get the piss taken out of you. GKV: So: are you one of the good ones? LM: Ha! This is the question of the show,
Gareth! But for me: Oh God, no. I think the ‘good ones’ are the self- satisfied, virtuesignalling ones, who believe they’ve figured out feminism. But I think being a good feminist or ally is like having good hygiene. You have to bathe all the time to be hygienic. You have to constantly be learning, and selfevaluating, and fucking-up, and looking at your mistakes, and then trying again so you can be better and better.
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It’s possible that this white male needs to take a backseat, for once. Amanda Kelleher’s Coccinellidae has a soundscape collating women’s voices: Lee Minora has a few questions to ask her. LM: Hi Amanda. I’m excited to have the chance to chat with you. Your show sounds really rad. I understand coccinellidea are a type of bug often called lady beetles. What made you choose that title? AK: I called it Coccinellidae (ladybird in
Latin) for two reasons. Being called a bird in Britain really annoys me – as does lady. Both terms for me signify appeasement and rules and being minimised. By co-opting the phrase and mispronouncing it (cock-in-a-lady) it was a tongue in cheek refusal to be the little lady, setting my stall from the get go. No more apologising! LM: Your show is asking what happens if we maximise women instead of shrinking them. 2018 has brought a feminist reckoning, with things like #metoo and Times Up, women are taking up more space than ever and it’s incredible. Tell me how your show connects to what’s happening in feminism right now? AK: Just like the first vote in Britain being for
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classes. I’ve interviewed lots of women and many don’t feel maximised. The audio interviews are woven into the soundscape of the show. During all of this, I mainly throw myself round the stage, doing things that many women would never dream to do, like draw a face on my wobbly belly. The show celebrates our innate power, our bigness, our taking space. We need some optimism now to create change and on a small level, that’s what I hope the show will do. ......................................................................... Amanda Kellehner speaks to Miranda Prag, from This Is Just Who I Am, a critique of ‘selfie culture’. AK: I love the premise of your show. We all get so pulled into the falsity of
the perfect projection of the selfie, how do you challenge this on stage? MP: I was thinking about the way we create
these false identities for ourselves – the selves we want other people to see – and how these identities are essentially a ‘performance’ pretending to be authentic. And so that’s what This Is Just Who I Am is – a performance pretending not to be a performance. I parody myself, or a person like me – a white, middle class woman in her twenties – and poke fun at all the tactics we employ in the hope of appearing intelligent, well-informed, feminist, cool, fun etc. AK: Why did you choose to explore identity? MP: The internet has given us the means to
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project our ideal selves in countless different
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presents
A new play by EVA O’CONNOR Directed by JIM CULLETON With EVA O’CONNOR & CIARAN O’BRIEN
SUMMERHALL 5.55pm, Wed 1st - Sun 26th Aug, 2018 Summerhall Box Office: 0131 560 1581
Critical acclaim for MAZ AND BRICKS: POWERFUL EXQUISITE EXTRAORDINARY PROVOCATIVE RIVETING
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Feminism | FESTIVAL THEATRE
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This Is Just Who I Am
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wrong every time, and all the contradictions and hypocrisies that throws up. ......................................................................... Miranda Prag takes the baton and chats to Jessica Hagan from Queens of Sheba, an expose of misogynoir, the prejudice against black women. MP: Firstly, the show sounds brilliant! Prejudice against black women is a big, urgent subject – why did you decide to approach it through the story of four women? JH: Thank you! Addressing the subject through
Queens of Sheba
ways, and ‘selfie culture’ is permeating society more and more, particularly among young people. We’re constantly comparing ourselves to each other, and feeling inadequate. We’ve become wary of saying the wrong things, and so keen to be seen as the ‘right’ kind of person, that we’ve become caricatures of ourselves. So, I wanted to make a show that found the humour in that – in a person trying hard to be seen the right way but perhaps getting it a bit
the story of these four women was actually Ryan Calais Cameron’s idea. Ryan adapted a series of spoken word pieces I’d written for Queens of Sheba and created a storyline from them. I just wanted the story to be told by black women full stop. The most important thing was that the subject was addressed by the women who are directly affected.
hopes to achieve (and is achieving). Going to Ghana, being around the matriarchs in my family and engaging with other black women who struggled to identify with the present day feminist movement revealed to me that the wider feminist landscape is completely different to the loud, white, privileged female voice that speaks over the rest of us. Queens of Sheba reflects those voices; it’s black women telling everyone else to be quiet and listen to us. No one telling us how to feel, what we should believe in or how we should ‘empower’ ourselves. We demand that all men and non-black and white women listen and learn as we address their prejudices and how they contribute towards the general mistreatment of black women. In short, it doesn’t fit in because it doesn’t need to. White Feminist, Tollbooth Market, 4–25 Aug (not 13), 9.45pm, free. Coccinellidae, theSpace @ North Bridge, 3–11 Aug (not 5 & 6), 11.35am, £5 (£3).
MP: What does the wider feminist landscape look like to you at the moment, and how does your show fit into it? JH: Good question. The feminism I was
This Is Just Who I Am, Assembly Rooms, 4–25 Aug (not 20), 8.55pm, £9.50– £10.50 (£8.50–£9.50). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7.
initially introduced to was, and still is, extremely white / Eurocentric. It’s something I’ve struggled to fit into personally despite agreeing with a lot of the goals that feminism
Queens of Sheba, Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug, 6.50pm, £11 (£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 113
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FESTIVAL THEATRE | Alt-right opposition PHOTO: ADRIAN BUCKMASTER
it’ll be alt-right on the night Paul Joseph Watson is the British reporter for Alex Jones’ conspiracy theorist / fake news site InfoWars, where he spews badly reasoned and ill-formed rants across the internet about the threat of women, vegan diets, Marxists, contemporary art and anything else that upsets the alt-right and men’s rights activists. PJW gets exercised by threats to the patriarchal utopia where traditional values and market forces have finally provided an objective standard of ‘the good’. His enthusiasm for finding opposing points of view and lambasting them until he spits and dribbles, however, needs all the help it can get, so theatre editor Gareth K Vile has handpicked a selection of Fringe shows that PJW can use to fuel his adventure into completely losing his shit
HOW TO BE A BAD GIRL Burlesque-influenced Sabrina Chap might seduce men’s rights activists with her promise of ‘the dirtiest song ever’, but she also supports queer politics and her How to Be A Bad Girl provides plenty of ammunition for PJW’s trademark anger against the degeneration of art. Laughing Horse @ The Place, 15–26 Aug, 10.55pm, free.
PHOTO: GREG VEIT
LADYKILLER This one ‘tears up the gender rule book’ and is a romantic tale of a woman’s quest to embrace her inner psychopath. Writer Madeline Gould says: ‘it is important that, in our battle for equality, we accept, explore and embrace the female capacity for violence and criminality.’ So PJW can claim that it reveals the essential nature of women, before his head explodes at the contradictions. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27 Aug, 1pm (not 13 &14), £11 (£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. [INSERT SLOGAN HERE] The mixing of music, spoken word and video project is an abomination against proper performance. The implied critique of the consumerist obsession with branding is just another example of how Marxist post-modernists want to destroy Western civilisation. ZOO Sanctuary, 5–21 Aug, 6pm, £12–£14 (£10– £12). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £7.50.
From top: How to be a Bad Girl, Who Killed Franz Ferdinand?, Leave. To Remain, Ladykiller
RED AND BOILING Not only does this star bearded drag king Hasadick, his sidekick Rosay recreates interviews with queer
womyn through shadow puppetry. Why can’t they spell women properly? It’s all well and good giving voice to the silenced, but you didn’t get crossdressing in Shakespeare. Venue 13, 2–25 Aug (not 3, 16, 20), 1.15pm, £12 (£10). LEAVE. TO REMAIN Found in Translation have the temerity to adapt an Aristophanic comedy to aim a pithy response at the definitive Voice of the People statement about the EU and probably the foreigns. I can remember when comedy used to be about mocking minorities and not making trenchant analyses by examining theatre history. theSpace on North Bridge, 4–11 Aug, 10.10pm, £10 (£8). Preview 3 Aug, £7 (£5). WHO KILLED FRANZ FERDINAND? Of course, PJW wouldn’t relate to four coked-up professors trying to disentangle the assassination that caused WWI. It’s just the kind of reckless reconstruction of history that liberals love, confusing the certainty of GCSE students with the suggestion that the past didn’t run like clockwork, and academic investigation isn’t purely objective. theSpace on North Bridge, 6–11 Aug, 7.15pm, £7 (£5). HOW TO SWIM IN HOLLYWOOD Since this is set in 1979, it is totally unfair to suggest that standards of basic human decency could have been observed in the world’s Dream Factory, and that this whole Harvey Weinstein business reflects an entrenched culture of male privilege. Greenside @ Infirmary Street, 5–18 Aug (not 12), 10pm, £10 (£7).
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25 YEARS AFTER THE EXECUTION OF THE RUSSIAN ROYAL FAMILY, NOTHING IS BLACK AND WHITE
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The Pleasance in association with Bill Kenwright presents
QUIETLY WONDERFUL... A TRIUMPH
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HEARTFELT, FIERCE... BEAUTIFULLY PERFORMED
Evening Standard (for Maurice’s Jubilee)
The Guardian (for A British Subject)
A new play by
NICHOLA McAULIFFE
Directed by
Designed by
PATRICK SANDFORD
CHRISTOPHER RICHARDSON Cast includes
NICHOLA McAULIFFE PETER STRAKER KEVIN MOORE TOK STEPHEN
0131 556 6550 www.pleasance.co.uk Untitled-2 115
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TOP TIPS: WEEK 1 Our top Some oftips the for best theatre comedy in the in the first week of the Fringe’s firstFringe week. Written by: Brian Donaldson
11AM 10AM FALLEN FRUIT Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 6, 13, THE RED SHOES 20), 11.25am, £12 (£10). Previews King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6– 1–3 Aug, £5–£10. In 1989, as the Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings Berlin Wall splits open, girl looks Mathew Bourne’s highlyaacclaimed forward to life beyond communism, new dance production, based on a couple unravels andSee 80sour TV 5 star the classic 1948 film. permeates everything. 2019: Britain review, page ??. leaves the EU while Europe celebrates 30 years since the end of the Cold MILONGA War. A storyFestival of love and breaking Edinburgh Theatre, Tuefree and award-winning 13 &Europe Wed 14from Jun,multi edtheatres.com/ Two Destination Language. festival Celebrated choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a piece inspired HOW TObyBE theAMAZINGLY late-night milonga HAPPY! scene in the intimate bars of Buenos Pleasance Courtyard, Aires. See preview, page4–27 ??. Aug (not 13 & 14), 11.35am, £8–£10 (£7–£9). SURGE Previews 1–3 Aug, £6. Victoria is on a quest to discover Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– how youJul, make a new lifeAwhen you Sun 30 surge.scot festival can’t haveto the one you imagined. In dedicated physical performance, this big-hearted, big-thinking show incorporating outdoor, site-specific of storytelling and and physical comedy events for all ages indoor our heroine’s search for showcases of mid-life performance art. Workshops and masterclasses are also provided for those wanting to develop their talents. BARD IN THE BOTANICS Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, Wed 21–Sat 29 Jul, bardinthebotanics. co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on
joy, identity and Shakespeare featuring belonging female features public displays playfulness, of performers. Withofperformances private and sheer bloody Taming truths of the Shrew?, Timon of Athens mindedness. and Queen Lear. ALL THE LIGHTS ARE ON FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO Summerhall, 3–26 Bar, Aug Sat (not38,Jun, 13, La Bodega Tapas 20), 11.40am, £10 (£8). Previews labodegaglasgow.com An evening of 1 & 2 Aug, £5. Typical Emmy, to Andalucian passion with performances turn cancer into a game. Her frombrain international flamenco guitarist husband attempts to careDanielo for her, Andrew Robinson, singer even asand the the illness eats away the and Olivera rhythmic footwork woman he knows and loves. expressive choreography of ElBut Fuego Emmy knows optimism is a false god de la Noche. and cancer is a gamble. A fearless play about the limits of hope and the consolations of certainty. HE RED SHOES ALMA, A HUMAN VOICE Tue 6– King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Summerhall, 3–26 Aug (not 8, 13, Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings 20), 11.50am, £10highly (£8). Previews Mathew Bourne’s acclaimed 1 & 2dance Aug, production, £5–£8. There are two new based on kinds of madness in this the classic 1948 film. Seeone-person our 5 star drag play: the??. one experienced by review, page Oskar Kokoschka, who turned his lover Alma Mahler into a life size doll; MILONGA the other belonging the nameless Edinburgh Festival to Theatre, Tue woman on 14 theJun, phone in Cocteau’s 13 & Wed edtheatres.com/ The Human Voice. Italian Nina’s festival Celebrated choreographer Drag Queens spearhead drag aqueen Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents piece philosophy intolate-night the modern age. inspired by the milonga scene in the intimate bars of Buenos Aires. See preview, page ??.
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SURGE Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot A festival dedicated to physical performance, incorporating outdoor, site-specific
events for all ages and indoor showcases of performance art. Workshops and masterclasses are DAUGHTER CanadaHub Hall, 3–26 also provided @ forKing’s those wanting to Aug (nottheir 6 &talents. 7, 13 &14, 20 & 21), develop 12.30pm, £11 (£9). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, IN £9.THE The show that rocked BARD BOTANICS Canada, sparking aGlasgow, thousandWed Botanic Gardens, conversations its head-on 21–Sat 29 Jul, with bardinthebotanics. confrontation of fresh toxic take masculinity. co.uk Botanics’ on Adam Lazarus plays The Father and Shakespeare featuring female he’s done bad things in his life. of Taking performers. With performances you through struggles with Taming of thehis Shrew?, Timon of love, Athens lust violence, and and Queen Lear. he presents himself as a figure for our amusement, dismay, and judgement. FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO La Bodega Tapas Bar, Sat 3 Jun, THE ABODE labodegaglasgow.com An evening of Underbelly Cowgate, Aug, Andalucian passion with4–16 performances 12.30pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). from international flamenco guitarist Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7.Danielo Davey Andrew Robinson, singer Anderson’s newrhythmic play follows young Olivera and the footwork and Samuel intochoreography the alt-right. Samuel expressive of El Fuego feels an outsider, unvalued in his de la like Noche. own country. That is until the Trolls invite him intoOF their vibrant secret THE LIONS LISBON community Celtic Park,where Tue 6everyone & Wed 7 looks Jun, like him and his heritage is celebrated. celticfc.net Ian Auld and Willy Maley’s An adventure story play80s-style about a group of Celtic supporters exploring depthsinof1967 contemporary who head the to Lisbon for the extremism. European Cup.
NOON
MODERN BALLET GRADUATION PERFORMANCE Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Thu 8–Sat 10 Jun, rcs.ac.uk Showcase from final year students on the Conservatoire’s BA Modern Ballet Programme, run in conjunction with
NAME HERE THE ofBIG Some the best LIEcomedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Writtenwithout by: Brian Donaldson Some of the bestatcomedy inof the Fringe’sX’s first week. Writtenthrough by: ‘You can’t have capitalism racism.’ Shaniaz Hama looks the truth Malcolm bold statement Brian Some of theexperiences best comedy the Fringe’s first week. Written by:offices Brian Donaldson. a tale Donaldson based on her personal ofinbeing a migrant and working in the of a top lawDonaldson firm who Some want of the best the comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written Brian to defend indefensible. theSpace @ Jury’s Inn, by: 6–16 AugDonaldson (not 12), times vary, £5 (£3).
LOVE SONG Scottish Ballet.TO SeeLAVENDER preview, page ??. MENACE Summerhall, 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, CASABLANCA 20), (£10). Previews Òran12.55pm, Mór, Fri £12 7–Sun 23 Jul, oran1 & 2 Aug, Gavin £5–£7.Mitchell After a stars sell-out mor.co.uk in this run at the Royal adaptation of theLyceum classic Theatre film. Edinburgh, Scotland’s 80s gay romantic hit is back. So are LA CAGEcomedy AUX FOLLES nostalgic bookseller and King’s Theatre, TueLewis 25–Sat 29partyJul, boy Glen, in this funny, celebratory atgtickets.com/venues/kingsplay about radical, lesbian, theatre BillScotland’s Kenwright’s production gay feminist bookshop that seesand Eastenders’ star John Partridge began therole cloakroom of Scotland’s take oninthe of Albin alongside first gay nightclub and became Broadway actor Adrian Zmed asthe beating Edinburgh’s Georgesheart in thisofwitty musical LGBT+ number community. about drag artists and family values, in which the characters are forced to cover up their vibrant lifestyle.
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MEEK PROJECT Y Traverse, 5–26 6, 13, Platform, Sat 29Aug Jul, (not tramway.org 20), times vary, £21.50 (£16.50). YDance, Scotland’s national youth Preview 4 Aug, £15presents (£9). In afour society dance organisation, where private lives dance become political new contemporary works and of expression is not an fromfreedom choreographers Alan Greig, option, IreneSteven finds herself Hagi Yakira, Martin imprisoned. and Theo As tales of her incarceration spread Clinkard. overseas and her growing exposure becomes threat, she is forced to PAISLEY aINTERNATIONAL make a brutal decision. TANGO FESTIVAL Thomas Coats Memorial Church, Fri 25–Sun 27 Aug, coatsmemorial. org.uk Tango dance festival held JET over three OF BLOOD days, with workshops, ZOO Charteris, 5–27 Aug (not 15), performances and parties. 2.10pm, £10 (£9). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £8. Brought to you by Civil LA BOHEME Disobedience, Jet of Blood is not for1– Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu the of heart. Trigger warnings Sat faint 10 Jun, eif.co.uk Puccini’s tale of include but are not in limited to: rape, young Bohemians love.Also touring, graphic pornography, for excessive see list.co.uk/theatre details.drug use, violence, the musical styling of Miley Cyrus, corruption, GLORY ON self-mutilation, EARTH anorexia/bulimia and theThu not-soRoyal Lyceum Theatre, 1–Sat unique story of one 14-year-old 10 Jun,true David Greig directs Linda boy in the oldest and most prestigious Maclean’s story which re-imagines prep in North America.between Mary the historic meetings Queen of Scots and John Knox. CHASE SCENES CanadaHub @ King’s Hall, 3– 26 SHACKLETON Aug (not 6, 13, 20),Wed 2.25pm, £11 Traverse Theatre, 7–Sat 9 Jun, (£9). Previews 1Blue & 2 Raincoat Aug, £9. Theatre traverse.co.uk Inspired by our collective nightmare present the story of Shackleton and of his being the manifestation voyagechased on the and Endurance. Also Tron of this in film cultureWed and14–Sat real-life17 Jun, Theatre, Glasgow, experience, tron.co.uk three women enact various chase scenes at a breakneck pace. An absurd DIY film studio Douglas Community & Library exploring the 1 fear, adrenaline and Centre, Thu Jun, dundeecity. humour of the pursued. gov.uk/communitycentres/ douglascentre Arturo Ui is a witty BENNY and savage parable of the rise of Hitler Gilded Teviot, Aug – recastBalloon by Brecht into a 4–27 small-time (not 13), gangster’s 2.45pm, £10–£11 Chicago takeover(£9–£10). of the Previews 1–3 Aug,trade. £6. When Benny city’s greengrocery Hill died in April 1992, his body lay undiscovered in his flat for two days. During these two days, his shows were watched by millions all around the world. This captivating one-man show revisits those final days and insightfully explores the life of the man himself.
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@AssemblyFest #MyAssembly
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3PM CENTURY SONG ZOO Southside, 5–18 Aug (not 8, 15), 3pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £9. The original co-producers of global hit White Rabbit, Red Rabbit return with a new work of visceral beauty. Exploring 100 years of black women’s unspoken history, Century Song takes us on a journey through performance, music, and animated art. FACE 2 FACE theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 5–25 Aug (not 12, 19), 3.05pm, £10 (£8). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £5 (£4). Technology is becoming a greater force within our society; everyday we are becoming more dependent on it. Set 20 years in the future, we see the story of Ben and Emma who are different from the norm. They share one thing in common: the desire to escape from this high tech world, which is easier said than done.
of love, longing and loss. Sitting is the debut play by BAFTA Award-winning actress Katherine Parkinson.
4PM HARPY Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 4pm, £12–£13 (£11–£12). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £6.50. Birdie’s a hoarder. The neighbours call her a harridan and a harpy, although most have never even met her. They see her hoard as a hazard for house prices. But it isn’t rubbish. It’s her life’s work and it exists because years ago something deeply cherished was stolen, and Birdie’s not been able to give up anything since. Directed by Hannah Chissick and starring Su Pollard in her Edinburgh Fringe debut.
A GENEROUS LOVER Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 4.10pm, £10 (£8). Previews 1 & 3 Aug, £8. A Generous Lover is SITTING BY KATHERINE the true and very queer tale of one PARKINSON soul’s journey through the wasteland Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4–26 of mental illness, to deliver their lost Aug, 3.15pm, £14–£16 (£13–£14). love. Drawing on epic poetry, classical Previews 1–3 Aug, £8. Luke, mythology and queer modernist Cassandra and Mary are sitting. They literature, it fuses psychology, sit weekly for their portraits and, in a euphonic prose, and song to create series of revealing sessions, end up an intimate and beguiling world. See sharing funny and moving tales preview, page 103. NAMEtheir HERE Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson. Donaldson Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson
HUFF CanadaHub @ King’s Hall, 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 4.15pm, £11 (£9). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £9. Cliff Cardinal’s solo show Huff is the wrenching, yet darkly comic tale of indigenous brothers, caught in a torrent of solvent abuse and struggling to cope with the death of their mother. Their fantastic dream world bleeds into haunting reality, as they’re preyed on by the Trickster through hallways at school, the abandoned motel they love more than home, and their own fragile psyche. TIMMY Assembly George Square Studios, 3–27 Aug (not 14), 4.15pm, £9–£11 (£8–£10). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £7. Tim is acting strangely. Judith wants answers. Together, they’re struggling to reach a conclusion. A punchy, honest comedy about avoiding decisions at all costs. Written and performed by Roxy Dunn, creator of five-star sell-out hit In Tents and Purposes, at Soho Theatre. PICKLE JAR Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug (not 14), 4.40pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. It’s hard keeping it together when your whole life is falling apart. But the pressures of teaching, Tinder and outrageous Irish best mates are a
lot to juggle, especially when you’re stumbling through the maze of trying to be a grown-up. Stranger danger, heartbreak and piña coladas are on the syllabus in the debut play Pickle Jar, written and performed by Maddie Rice. TESTAMENT ZOO Charteris, 5–27 Aug, 4.45pm, £10 (£8). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £5 (£4). In the beginning God created the heavens and earth and . . . Max! After a car crash, Max questions what happened to Tess. Answers take the form of apparitions of modernised biblical characters, aiding Max in his discovery or tempting him away. His only hope of recovery lies in the hands of a brother whose guilt is driving him away.
5PM RE: PRODUCTION ZOO Southside, 5–27 Aug (not 15), 5.15pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £7. Karen and Tom met and married when they were really young. They’re grownups now. Their friends are painting the spare room sunset yellow. Flexible working hours, baby yoga, PTA meetings; it’s what they want, isn’t it? Karen is a scientist. She knows the facts. By now she should be ready. But what if she’s not?
HENRY The extreme puppetry experts Blind Summit let artistic director Mark Down take a masterclass which ends up in awkward revelations when ‘possession’ uncovers some truths – or fictions – about the furious 50-year old puppeteer’s relationship with his father. The power of the inanimate delves into one man’s emotional turmoil. Pleasance Dome, 11–26 Aug, 3.30pm, £10–£12 (£9–£11).
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Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s first week. Written by: Brian Donaldson
Shakespeare featuring female performers. With performances of Taming of the Shrew?, Timon of Athens and Queen Lear.
10AM
FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO La Bodega Tapas Bar, Sat 3 Jun, labodegaglasgow.com An evening of Andalucian passion with performances from international flamenco guitarist Andrew Robinson, singer Danielo Olivera and the rhythmic footwork and expressive choreography of El Fuego de la Noche.
THE RED SHOES King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6– Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings Mathew Bourne’s highly acclaimed new dance production, based on the classic 1948 film. See our 5 star review, page ??. MILONGA Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 13 & Wed 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ festival Celebrated choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a piece inspired by the late-night milonga scene in the intimate bars of Buenos Aires. See preview, page ??.
11AM HE RED SHOES King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6– Sat 10 Jun, edtheatres.com/kings Mathew Bourne’s highly acclaimed new dance production, based on the classic 1948 film. See our 5 star review, page ??.
events for all ages and indoor showcases of performance art. Workshops and masterclasses are also provided for those wanting to develop their talents. BARD IN THE BOTANICS Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, Wed 21–Sat 29 Jul, bardinthebotanics. co.uk Botanics’ fresh take on Shakespeare featuring female performers. With performances of Taming of the Shrew?, Timon of Athens and Queen Lear. FLAMENCO DEL FUEGO La Bodega Tapas Bar, Sat 3 Jun, labodegaglasgow.com An evening of Andalucian passion with performances from international flamenco guitarist Andrew Robinson, singer Danielo Olivera and the rhythmic footwork and expressive choreography of El Fuego de la Noche.
PHOTO: GEMA GALIANA
TOP TIPS: WEEK 1
Scottish Ballet. See preview, page ??. CASABLANCA Òran Mór, Fri 7–Sun 23 Jul, oranmor.co.uk Gavin Mitchell stars in this adaptation of the classic film. LA CAGE AUX FOLLES King’s Theatre, Tue 25–Sat 29 Jul, atgtickets.com/venues/kingstheatre Bill Kenwright’s production sees Eastenders’ star John Partridge take on the role of Albin alongside Broadway actor Adrian Zmed as Georges in this witty musical number about drag artists and family values, in which the characters are forced to cover up their vibrant lifestyle.
PHOTO: DANIEL HUGHES
PROJECT Y Platform, Sat 29 Jul, tramway.org YDance, Scotland’s national youth dance organisation, presents four new contemporary dance works OUR SURGECOUNTRY from choreographers Alan Greig, Annie Merchant Saunders City, Glasgow, and Becca FriWolff 28– travel the MILONGA epic landscapes of the USA where two THE siblings LIONSfind OF themselves LISBON facing the law, Hagi and Yakira, the place Stevenwhere Martinthe andpersonal Theo becomes political. Haunted by Greek tragedies andFestival westernTheatre, music, the a coup deTue theatre to remind where we are right now. Edinburgh Tueshow uses Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot A festival Celtic Park, 6 & Wed 7 Jun, the audience Clinkard. Summerhall, Aug performance, (not 6, 13, 20), 5.15pm, (£12). Preview 1 Aug, £12 (£10). celticfc.net Ian Auld and Willy Maley’s 13 &£15 Wed 14 Jun, edtheatres.com/ dedicated to3–26 physical incorporating outdoor, site-specific festival Celebrated choreographer play about a group of Celtic supporters PAISLEY INTERNATIONAL Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a piece events for all ages and indoor who head to Lisbon in 1967 for the TANGO FESTIVAL £10). Previews 2 & 3 Aug,Church, £7. The showcases REVELATIONS of performance art. inspired her new by Scottish the late-night boyfriend milonga in tow. European Soviet government Cup. in 1937. It is an Thomas Coats Memorial story of four27 black who have Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 6,are 13, It’s timeinto talk about bars the future. But exploration of the life of a Soviet scene the intimate of Buenos Workshops and masterclasses Fri 25–Sun Aug,women coatsmemorial. been turned from a nightclub 20), 5.40pm, (£8). wanting Previews who does futurepage belong soldier of Korean descent Anatoliy Aires. See the preview, ??.to? First also provided £10 for those to 1, MODERN BALLET GRADUATION org.uk Tangoaway dance festival held for ‘being black’ on the 3 Aug, £9 (£7). James Rowland’s Snow is a world premiere written and Ogay, told by his grandson who develop their talents. PERFORMANCE over three too days, with (based workshops, Dstrkt night-spot Revelations is about a man who performed by artists from Scotland traces Conservatoire his grandfather’soflife through a SURGE Royal Scotland, performances andincident parties.of 2015). The drama focuses on the rise of gives his to his female and Québec. witty8–Sat text, multimedia storytelling and Merchant City, Glasgow, Fri 28– BARD INsperm THE BOTANICS Thu 10 Jun, rcs.ac.uk misogynoir and is the story of strong friends so they canGlasgow, have a child. A contemporary Botanic Gardens, Wed Sun 30 Jul, surge.scot A festival Showcase frommusic. final year students on LA BOHEME passionate Festival women who fight to storytelling show about love, faith EGG dedicated to physical performance, 21–Sat 29 Jul, bardinthebotanics. the Conservatoire’s BA Modern Ballet Edinburgh Theatre, Thu 1– overcome the terrors of oppression and trying to do fresh the right Summerhall, outdoor, 4–26 Augsite-specific (not 6, incorporating QUEENS OFrun SHEBA co.uk Botanics’ takething. on Programme, in conjunction with Sat 10 Jun, eif.co.uk Puccini’s tale of in a racist and sexist society. See 13, 20), 6.15pm, £12. Previews Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 Aug young Bohemians in love.Also touring, feature, page 110. for details. SHOWMANSHIP 1 & 3 Aug, £5. Egg is a powerful (not 13), 6.50pm, £10–£11 (£9– see list.co.uk/theatre C royale, 1–27 Aug (not 14), and evocative new aerial theatre 5.40pm, £8.50–£10.50 (£6.50– production from acclaimed circus GLORY ON EARTH £8.50). 1935: a two-bit circus travels theatre company Paper Doll Militia, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Thu 1–Sat Dust Bowl America. Desperate a highly visual exploration of female 10 Jun, David Greig directs Linda townspeople need hope but, when fertility, sexuality and choice. Weaving Maclean’s story which re-imagines the fortune teller names her price, together personal testimony, live the historic meetings between Mary what’ll they be willing to pay? Darkly original music and stunning aerial Queen of Scots and John Knox. funny psychological thriller, laced with artistry, the piece takes audiences poignancy and devilry, from the multi on a deeply personal and political SHACKLETON award-winning BoonDog Theatre. journey, following the true story of Traverse Theatre, Wed 7–Sat 9 Jun, a woman who gave her eggs to her traverse.co.uk Blue Raincoat Theatre DI & VIV & ROSE (IN AN HOUR) friend to have a child. present the story of Shackleton and his BY AMELIA BULLMORE voyage on the Endurance. Also Tron C cubed, 2–14 Aug, 5.55pm, £8.50– THE BASEMENT TAPES Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 14–Sat 17 Jun, £10.50, (£6.50–£8.50). A courageous Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 13, tron.co.uk look at the enduring bond of 20), 6.30pm, £12 (£10). Previews 1 friendship by Handmade Theatre. & 3 Aug, £5 (£2.50). Following her Douglas Community & Library Together three women rollercoaster grandmother’s death, a girl faces the Centre, Thu 1 Jun, dundeecity. their way through life, encountering overwhelming task of clearing out the gov.uk/communitycentres/ sex, loss and all kinds of love. basement. She discovers a series douglascentre Arturo Ui is a witty of mysterious tapes with recordings and savage parable of the rise of Hitler made by her grandmother. As she – recast by Brecht into a small-time hears these tapes for the first time, Chicago gangster’s takeover of the things start to unravel. FIRST SNOW / PREMIÈRE NEIGE city’s greengrocery trade. CanadaHub @ King’s Hall, 3–26 BABY FACE OTOSOTR Aug, 6.10pm, £15 (£13). Previews 1 A trip into the unacceptable commodification of the child’s world, and the Underbelly Cowgate, 4–26 & 2 Aug, £13. Isabelle summons her sexualisation of adult women as young girls. With a soundtrack of drone NAME HERE 13),Written 6.40pm,by: £10–£11 family back their comedy ancestralinhome and pop, Katy Some of thetobest the Fringe’sAug first(not week. Brian Donaldsonrock Some ofbubble-gum the best comedy in theDye is taking a hard look at the horror (£9–£10).Some Previews 2 &best 3 Aug, in Québec. Despite history, thefirst facades fun, and Fringe’s first week.their Written by:they Brian Donaldson of the comedy in thebehind Fringe’s week.ofWritten by:the contradictions of innocence and the £6.50. A story of onefirst of the 200,000 come.Donaldson Her right-wing brother Harry, Summerhall, 3–26Some Aug (not 5, 13, 20), 1.30pm £9 (£7). Previews 1 & Brian Some of the best comedy in the Fringe’s week. Written by:sexual Brian gaze. Donaldson. Donaldson wereDonaldson deported from daughter andinCatherine, thefirst week.Koreans 2 Aug, £5. of the bestMina, comedy the Fringe’s Written who by: Brian the Russian-Korean border by the rebellious baby of the family, who has
6PM
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a program of work from coast to coast
Indigenous resilience. Three women running for their lives. Separatist politics. A confrontation of toxic masculinity. And unrelenting puppet deaths.
King’s Hall ll 1-26 Aug (not Mondays) Venue #73 41A S Clerk Street 0131 560 1581 canadahubfringe.com #canadahubfringe
WORLD PREMIERE
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By Dante or Die Written by Chris Goode
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WWW.DANTEORDIE.COM @DANTEORDIE
MULTI AWARD-WINNING HASTE THEATRE PRESENTS
Where the Hell is Bernard? 16:10 22:00
LondonTheatre1
00 - 00 AUG(NOT 13, 20) 01-27 AUG
STUDIO FIVE
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FESTIVAL THEATRE | Top Tips
ENTROPY Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 7.15pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50. Sam has turned up on Barbara’s doorstep unannounced after years of absence, not for nostalgic reasons, but for reasons of his own that become apparent as he plays games with her – and on her. An intriguing and disturbing play full of dark humour. EXTINGUISHED THINGS Assembly George Square Studios, Summerhall, 4–26 Aug, 7.25pm, £11.50 (£9). Previews 1, 3 Aug, £5–£8. Award-winning writer/ performer Molly Taylor pieces together the story of two lives intertwined. Vivid and lyrical, Extinguished Things is a captivating exploration of what it means to spend your life with someone, and the nature of what you leave behind. MY KIND OF MICHAEL Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20), 7.30pm, £11 (£9.50). Previews 1, 3 Aug, £6. Ever since he was a kid, Nick has loved Michael Barrymore. In this heartfelt and playful tribute, Nick invites you to examine the turbulent relationship between showman and spectator, intertwining his own personal stories with tales of Barrymore’s rise to fame and ultimate downfall.
8PM A SOCKFUL OF CUSTARD Pleasance Dome, 4–27 Aug (not
PHOTO: ALEX BRENNER
7PM
13, 20), 8pm, £11–£12.50 (£10– £11.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £8. Jeremy Stockwell and Chris Larner celebrate British comedy legend Spike Milligan with 90 minutes of laughs, songs, philosophy and utter, utter silliness. Playing Spike and those who surrounded him, they explore his invention, delight in his influence and look to discover what made him tick. FAMOUS PUPPET DEATH SCENES CanadaHub @ King’s Hall, 3–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), 8.30pm, £11 (£9). Previews 1 & 2 Aug, £9. Willingly undergo a heart-wrenching parade of theatrical demises that will severely exacerbate your fear of death. All your favourite scenes are there: Edward’s Last Prance by Samuel Groanswallow, The Feverish Heart by Nordo Frot, Why I Am So Sad by Sally, and the unforgettable Bipsy’s Mistake from Bipsy and Mumu Go to the Zoo by Fun Freddy. FEAR ITSELF Greenside @ Infirmary Street, 8–18 Aug (not 12), 8.50pm, £9 (£7). Previews 3–5 Aug, £6 (£5). Do you want to rid your life of fear? Then let renowned psychologist Dr Greenwood free you from the ghosts of your past as she takes you on a journey into the darkest parts of the human psyche. Danse Macabre Productions bring their unique blend of horror, humour and fantasy to the Fringe.
STARDUST Columbia’s association with a certain chemical is dissected in a show that follows its journey from a plant used as an aid to conversation, through an illegal industry that caricatures Columbians, destroys economies and ends up as a performance-enhancing drug for middle-class bores at dreary parties. Pleasance Dome, 4–27 Aug (not 20), 4.20pm £11.50 (£10.50). Previews 1–3 Aug, £10.
9PM SHACKLETON’S STOWAWAY theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, 5–25 Aug (not 12, 19), 9.10pm, £9–£10 (£7–£8). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £8. Shackleton’s Stowaway is based on the real events of the legendary Endurance expedition to Antarctica. It follows the tragicomic misfortunes of an 18-year-old stowaway aboard the expedition A GHOST’S TALE Outside Johnston Terrace Nature Reserve (by the red telephone boxes), 1–28 Aug, 9.30pm, £12 (£9). With 3D immersive sound (a virtual reality for the ears), headphones will teleport you into a mixed reality, where companions from the past, revealing their tales, will escort you around the old streets of Edinburgh. Follow the wide roads and narrow closes, from the 16th century to the modern era.
BRIDE OF THE GULF An international collaboration that responds to the Eurocentrism of Gregory Burke’s Black Watch by putting the people of Basra first in the aftermath of the city’s destruction. From a short play to a full-scale production, Bride is an example of how engagement with the people impacted by war is about more than soldiers. C cubed, 2–27 Aug (not 14), 3.10pm, £9.50–£11.50 (£5.50–£9.50).
URBAN DEATH Sweet Grassmarket, 2–26 Aug (not 13 & 14), 9.30pm, £8.50 (£6.50). Urban Death presents vignettes of brutal horror mixed with gallows humour designed to shock, delight, and frighten. These unflinching performances will sear images into your brain and refuse to let go. NOTORIOUS STRUMPET & DANGEROUS GIRL Summerhall, 4–26 Aug (not 13, 20),
9.55pm, £14 (£12). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £9. Step into this unassuming Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where twisted storytelling and spectacular circus skills are shaken and stirred, with one part dark comedy, one part serenity and three parts hostility, hilarity and honesty.
10PM UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME Traverse, 5–26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20, 25), times vary, £21.50 (£16.50). Previews 2, 4 Aug, £15 (£9). Good morning, America! Welcome to Hanover Middle School, where a pair of teachers are getting down and dirty with today’s lesson. The duo tackle race, sex and power politics in this R-rated, kaleidoscopic, and fearless comedy.
11PM DANDY DARKLY’S ALL ABOARD! Underbelly Bristo Square, 4–27 Aug (not 13), 11.10pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £7. New York City’s critically acclaimed satirist and cult horror raconteur, Dandy Darkly, returns to the Fringe for another horrific, hysteric, late-night frolic. Join Dandy aboard the infamous Gaybird Steamer for an earful of Southern Gothic grotesquery – country fried robots, spider gods, beauty shops and inbred freakery.
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VISUAL ART TACITA DEAN: WOMAN WITH A RED HAT
For m info gootroe
LIST.CO.UK /FESTIVAL
Exploration of the artist’s approaches to theatre, performance and narrative
PHOTO: ZAN WIMBERLEY
Given that practically every space in Edinburgh gets turned into a theatre in August, it’s appropriate that the theme of performance echoes through the Edinburgh Art Festival programme. Fruitmarket curator Fiona Bradley explores this theme in the work of Tacita Dean, who has returned to it a number of times over the last 25 years. The central work here is ‘Event for a Stage’, a filmed performance by actor Stephen Dillane screened roughly hourly. Like Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which Dillane quotes from, it manages to explore the power of performance, while still using that magic on its audience. Her 1996 work ‘Foley Artist’ works in a similar way: she films two foley artists creating the sound effects for a film: clacking high heels on wet newspaper, rippling a big sheet of metal for thunder. The magic is debunked, and yet it isn’t: what they’re doing seems as magical as ever. Dean’s medium of choice is film (always analogue, not digital) but she also references it in works such as ‘The Russian Ending’, a series of prints made using found postcards to create ‘sad’ endings for a series of fictitious films, and ‘When first I raised the tempest’, a blackboard drawing nearly 10-metres long which has a filmic quality. Recent work has focused on actors. ‘His picture in little’ is a miniature portrait featuring three actors who have played Hamlet – Dillane, David Warner and Ben Whishaw – using a masking technique to place their portraits in the same frame. By inviting performers not to perform, she poses questions not only about acting but about the nature of portraiture itself. (Susan Mansfield) ■ Fruitmarket Gallery, until 30 Sep, free. ●●●●●
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ART HITLIST Rachael Cloughton picks out some of the best visual art in the festival’s first week PLATFORM Four emerging artists based in Scotland show new work that explores bodies, identity, politics and the ‘slipperiness’ of images. A highly experimental exhibition that gives audiences an insight into some of the most exciting ideas explored by recent graduates working in Scotland today. See feature, page 18. City Art Centre, until 26 Aug, free. TACITA DEAN The central work in this major exhibition by Tacita Dean is ‘Event for a Stage’, a filmed performance by the actor Stephen Dillane which will be screened roughly hourly in the gallery. The other works in the exhibition expand on the themes explored here, looking at the figure of the actor, the role and workings of the script and the construction of sound and narrative in film. See review, page 123. Fruitmarket Gallery, until 30 Sep, free. REMBRANDT: BRITAIN’S DISCOVERY OF THE MASTER This landmark exhibition of work by Rembrandt is not to be missed. The
Rembrandt: Britain’s Discovery of the Master
show includes works by the Dutch Master taken from collections across the world, as well as pieces by the British artists he inspired including William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds and Frank Auerbach. Scottish National Gallery, until 14 Oct, £15 (£10).
CANALETTO & THE ART OF VENICE This summer the Queen’s Gallery is hosting the largest exhibition of works by Canaletto ever to be shown in Scotland. The works were purchased wholesale by George III from
Canaletto’s patron, Joseph Smith, and include some of his most iconic images of Venice, including the Grand Canal Series. Be prepared for some serious wanderlust. See review, page 127. The Queen’s Gallery, until 21 Oct, £7.20 (£6.40).
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Ruth Ewan | FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO: SALLY JUBB PHOTOGRA
MAGIC MOMENTS
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Artist Ruth Ewan and a team of magicians are taking to the streets of Edinburgh to perform magic with a political twist. Susan Mansfield finds out about the inspiration behind the Sympathetic Magick project
E
dinburgh in August is a magnet for street performers. Every vacant space in the city seems to be occupied by jugglers, fire-eaters and people dressed up as Yoda hovering two feet above the ground. When Glasgow-based artist Ruth Ewan was invited to make work as one of the director’s commissions for this year’s Edinburgh Art Festival, she knew she wanted her work to be out in the midst of the madness. ‘I really like
devising projects for particular contexts or spaces,’ she says. ‘I know Edinburgh quite well, and I’m really familiar with the festival. I was really interested in creating something that used the idea that Edinburgh is so busy and so full of performers and would add another layer to subvert that.’ In Sympathetic Magick, Ewan has orchestrated a team of magicians to join the throng of festival entertainers – on the streets, in pubs,
and in programmed events and workshops – performing magic with a political twist. Whether you find yourself watching ‘The Great Class Rope Struggle’ or ‘The Great Banking Trick’ – which explores the movement of money around the world – or seeing the social system being explained with reference to a deck of cards, the aim is to open up bigger ideas. Ewan worked with Marxist magician Ian Saville and put out an open call for magicians,
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FESTIVAL VISUAL ART | Ruth Ewan
PHOTO: SALLY JUBB PHOTOGRAPHY
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both amateur and professional, to take part in a series of workshops. ‘We weren’t asking the magicians to replicate Ian’s tricks or political beliefs, just to look at their own practice and ask what in their practice they could use to incorporate new layers of belief within the magic. A lot of the magicians had elements of politics in their work already.’ Ewan’s own practice is socially engaged and often invites participation from both adults and children. Artwork might take the form of anything from a jukebox to a radio broadcast, or a wildflower meadow turned into a botanical clock. The works are brought to life by an audience, whether or not they know they’re looking at art. ‘Audiences who are aware it’s an art project will come and make a choice to come. Other people will just stumble across it, who have no idea it’s part of an art festival or developed by an artist; I find those are some of the most interesting experiences and most interesting responses.’ Ewan’s work is always political, often recovering little known aspects of the history of radical politics, from ‘The Glasgow Schools’, made for GI in 2012, which drew out the history of Glasgow’s socialist Sunday Schools, to
‘Another Time’, made for Camden Arts Centre and then for the Sao Paolo Biennale, which created a visual representation of the French Revolutionary Calendar, a secular calendar which renamed the days of the year after animals, plants and domestic objects. ‘All the work I make is connected to political ideas and beliefs, how these beliefs are circulated, get lost, reappear again. A lot of my work is also looking at a long historical narrative of social movements, the continuity of radical ideas throughout time, the idea of these struggles not getting lost, being communicated by different means.’ The aim is always to present ideas in creative ways, to provoke thought and discussion. Ewan says: ‘What I like about Ian Saville’s work is that he makes something look incredibly simple, he uses humour in a very clever way to get across pointed messages. There’s a truthtelling process in magic which, to my mind, is what the best art works do as well.’ Ruth Ewan: Sympathetic Magick, various locations across Edinburgh, until 26 Aug, free. For a schedule of performances and activities, see edinburghartfestival.com
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Reviews | FESTIVAL VISUAL ART
list.co.uk/festival
PHOTO: (C) PINKIE MACLURE
PHOTO: MAUD SULTER, TERPSICHORE, 1989. © MAUD SULTER / THE ESTATE OF MAUD SULTER (PHOTO: STREET LEVEL PHOTOWORKS)
PHOTO: SAN GEREMIA AND THE ENTRANCE TO THE CANNAREGIO C.1726-7
IN FOCUS: SCOTTISH PHOTOGRAPHY
ART OF GLASS
The painter who put Venice on the map ●●●●●
Compact exhibition from city's collection ●●●●●
Exploring the creative potential of glass ●●●●●
This exhibition of works by Canaletto – the largest show Scotland has ever seen – was purchased wholesale by George III from Joseph Smith in 1762. Smith was a major collector of Italian art and a crucial patron for Canaletto, commissioning some of his most significant works, including The Grand Canal Series, which forms the centerpiece for the show. There are 14 paintings altogether, capturing all manner of life lived on and alongside this iconic body of water. Smith hung the works in his palazzo on the Grand Canal, and would impress British tourists on the Grand Tour with them, encouraging new commissions or the sale of prints. Canaletto was less concerned with faithfully recording Venice than with representing how it exists for the awestruck tourist visiting. He was unafraid to move buildings around and manipulate perspectives to create a better composition and a more spectacular image. Smith and Canaletto were major ambassadors for their city; they constructed and distributed breathtaking images of it across the world, inevitably drawing visitors from far and wide. Even today, you can’t help but gaze at these works and wish you were there. (Rachael Cloughton) ■ The Queen’s Gallery, until 21 Oct, £7.20 (£3.60–£6.60).
Hidden away in the City Art Centre basement, this era-spanning collection of Scottish photography from the centre’s collection is by no means comprehensive. It does, however, feature some striking works, not least the late Scots-Ghanaian artist Maud Sulter’s large 1989 image of the performance artist Delta Streete as the muse Terpsichore. This photograph leads the exhibition’s publicity, and also pushes the subject of black representation in classic photographic portraiture with as much urgency as it did 29 years ago. The breadth of work here makes up for the modest exhibition size. There are images of Edinburgh dating back to 1840 by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson; biblical digital collages by Calum Colvin; amusing self-portraits which act as political responses to their surroundings in Nathan Coley’s ‘Waiting on the Scottish Parliament’ and ‘Reading Burns to the Scott Monument’; Joseph McKenzie’s warm-hearted, working class 1960s documentary work; Catherine Yass’ dusky lightbox image of the Red Road flats; and Christine Borland’s ‘The Velocity of Drops’, a watermelon incongruously smashed from a great height amid the Mount Stuart mansion on the Isle of Bute. There isn’t a huge amount to see, but there’s a lot to absorb. (David Pollock) ■ City Art Centre, until 12 May, free.
This exhibition, presented in partnership with the National Centre for Craft & Design, showcases the work of 15 glass artists from all over the UK. Harry Morgan makes solid sculptures which look monumental and opaque but are partly made from delicate straw-like glass. Jeffrey Sarmiento subverts expectations too: his relief sculpture of an abandoned rubber factory doesn’t look like glass at all. Some of the artists, like Anna Dickinson, concentrate on pure sculptural forms; others, like Rhian Haf, on the way glass transmits light. Pinkie Maclure makes stained glass in a traditional style but with very contemporary themes. Edinburgh-based Geoffrey Mann takes as his starting point the (possibly apocryphal) story that the wine bottle was invented in Leith. Erin Dickson’s ‘Chinese Whispers’ engaged five different glass artists around the world, each artist sending the next a set of instructions for reinterpreting a historic vessel: the five contrasting results are fascinating. The installation by Belgian-born glass artist Griet Beyaert and digital artist Paul Miller is an immersive environment of sound and coloured light. All these are proof that the possibilities of glass in art are still far from being exhausted. (Susan Mansfield) ■ National Museum of Scotland, until 16 Sep, free.
CANALETTO & THE ART OF VENICE
PHOTO: © NOLDE STIFTUNG SEEBÜLL
EMIL NOLDE: COLOUR IS LIFE Major exhibition of works by German expressionist ●●●●● Sex, God and the transcendent tangle of both are the prime pulses behind this collection of more than 100 paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints by one of Germany’s most significant expressionists, brought together in all their contrary glory. Here, after all, is an artist who put faith in National Socialism in the hope that avant-garde art would become a central tenet of government thinking, but whose abstractions were ridiculed in the Nazis’ notorious 1937 Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich. Despite this, a primal fervour remained at the heart of Nolde’s work, before and after being officially black-balled from the art world, in ways that all but burst through the frame. This is the case with the self-deification of ‘Free Spirit’ (1906) as much as the rapture of ‘Ecstasy’ (1929), in which a naked Mary is painted at the point of conceiving Jesus, and the sensory abandonment of ‘Candle Dancers’ (1912). In terms of come-down, ‘Paradise Lost’ (1921) (pictured) finds a terrified-looking Adam and Eve hunched on the ground, side by side, but very much apart as they guiltily regret the night before. For all the brutal grotesquery of Nolde’s Unpainted Pictures, a series of watercolours made during his artistic exile, his pursuit of intimacy is best captured in ‘Young Couple’ (1913), eight lithographs of the same image in different colours. Seen side by side, they resemble a Jules Feiffer party scene that perfectly encapsulates Nolde’s ever-changing moods. (Neil Cooper) ■ Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern 2), until 21 Oct, £10 (£8). 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 127
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the list
EVENTS
HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR PACKED FESTIVAL EVENTS PROGRAMME
EVENTS CALENDAR
PHOTO: ALLAN POLLOK-MORRIS
MUSEUM AFTER HOURS The adult-only Friday Fringe Takeover nights at the National Museum of Scotland are back. Discover the museum at night and enjoy performers, comedy and music specifically curated by our team at The List. National Museum of Scotland, 10 Aug, 7.30pm, £18 (£16), nms.ac.uk ART LATE 3 The third Art Late starts off at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art where audiences can enjoy a performance from Catherine Street. Next up is the Travelling Gallery, before heading off to Jupiter Artland to view new works and see an acoustic performance from Jared Celosse. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 16 Aug, 5.30pm, £11 (£10), list.co.uk/artlate
ART LATE WITH ST.MARTIINS Evening trails shine a light on Edinburgh Art Festival
W
ith so much on offer during the festival season, it’s impossible to fit everything in during the daylight hours. Happily, the Edinburgh Art Festival’s Art Lates are back again, with twilit tours of their programme’s treasures every Thursday evening in August, in collaboration with The List. The second Art Late this year, to be held on 9 August, will begin with a visit to Shilpa Gupta’s For, in your tongue, I cannot hide. The installation, located at Edinburgh College of Art’s Fire Station venue, features 100 microphones suspended on metal rods, each piercing a page on which is written a fragment of poetry by an artist who once found themselves in conflict against dominant powers and cultural discourses. Next up will be Adam Lewis Jacob’s No Easy Answers, a moving image installation that explores Brexit Britain and late capitalism through manipulated animals and recorded interviews between the artist and his grandmother. The third stop will take place at Stills: Centre for Photography, for a viewing of their exhibition The days never seem the same: Gunnie Moberg and Margaret Tait, two artists who worked in different mediums but were linked by their strong affinity to the island and people of Orkney. Finally, the walk will come to Tacita Dean: Women with a Red Hat, a showcase of works related to performance, narrative and the imagination by the Turner-nominee. The night will then close with music from the Dundee jazz-inflected pop-electronic duo ST.MARTiiNS (pictured), who will perform an intimate gig at the Fruitmarket Gallery as the sun sets on the city that – for one month only – never sleeps.
Art Late 2, The Fire Station at Edinburgh College of Art, 9 Aug, 5.30pm, £9 (£8), list.co.uk/artlate
MUSEUM AFTER HOURS Twelve acts over three different stages take over the museum for the second of the NMS after-hours events. Included in the admission is a chance to see the museum’s summer exhibition, Rip It Up: The Story of Scottish Pop. National Museum of Scotland, 17 Aug, 7.30pm, £18 (£16), nms.ac.uk ART LATE 4 The final Art Late takes in Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh Printmakers, Ingleby Gallery, Arusha Gallery and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Performances on the night include sets from Signy Jakobsdottir and the Ninth Wave. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 23 Aug, 5.30pm, £9 (£8), list.co.uk/ artlate MUSEUM AFTER HOURS Your final chance to see the Friday Fringe Takeover and enjoy a night at the museum. Wave goodbye to another year of the Fringe with music and performances spread across three stages and, of course, plenty of bars to keep you refreshed. National Museum of Scotland, 24 Aug, 7.30pm, £18 (£16), nms.ac.uk
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Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd: Reasons to be Cheerful
13:30
10:30 & 13:30
16:00
Ruby Wax: Frazzled
16:00
Dad’s Army Lunch Hour & Dad’s Army Afternoon Tea Hour
13:30 16:15
16:00
20:00
19:00
21:40
20:30
Tim Key: MEGADATE
23:30
23:15
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Cirque Berserk!
Craig Hill: C’mon The Lads
19:20
Reginald D Hunter
20:00
11:30 & 15:00
18:00 & 13:30
Daniel Sloss: X
18:00
The Lost Things
Jimeoin: Result!
20:40
Silence
21:30 & 22:40
Iain (Stirling) Does Jokes (With Pals)
22:00
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