Fest 2009 issue 1

ee fr

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rhyS darby adam rIcheS unIcorn kId dennIS kelly frank SkInner & loTS of revIewS

kevIn brIdgeS The glaSwegIan who’S wInnIng over edInburgh

The ulTImaTe IndePendenT feSTIval guIde 12—15 auguST 2009

‘Hauntingly and recklessly brilliant’ Sunday Times

Pleasance Courtyard 13 TO 29 Aug 5.20pm

festcontents The Burning Question:

adam riches

#1 “what’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you on stage?”

They say you shouldn’t cry over spilt milk. How about spilt Yakult? The worst thing that ever happened to me on stage involved a stage fight, a 6’7” younger brother, and a puddle of the aforementioned probiotic potion.

We were in the closing stages of Alpha Males, my Edinburgh Show last year when a misplaced squirt (how many times has an accident begun with that particular phrase by the way?) caused my brother to lose his footing whilst we were engaged in the dark art of stage combat, and launch all his considerable body-weight onto my right leg.

The knee buckled, the ankle shattered and the audience never batted an eyelid. They assumed the ensuing tears, pleas for an ambulance and

Saving Private Ryan-style morphine injections were all part of the “hilarity”.

Hilarity that continued well into my stay at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary...I can safely say I have never known humiliation quite like having two elderly orderlies cut me free from a muscle suit to reset my U-bend of a shin, while repeating: “Break a leg! You can use that in your show if you want!” ad nauseaum.

Five days, sixteen pins and one metal plate later, we took to the stage once more – albeit in a slightly more sedate (as in I was smashed on painkillers) fashion. I have no memory of what happened after that. [Adam Riches] Adam Riches: Rogue Males pleasance Courtyard 03:30pM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, price varies

conTacTS feST IS your free guIde To The edInburgh feSTIvalS Fest will be publishing its festival guides throughout August. Pick them up from venues across Edinburgh.

PublISher SAM FRIEDMAN

edITorIal

editor Evan Beswick deputy editor Simon Mundy comedy editor Tom Hackett Theatre editor Ben Judge books editor Ed Ballard music editor Chris McCall

ProducTIon

creative director Matthew MacLeod Picture editor Jay Sheldon web editor Nick Eardley Office Manager Marthe Lamp Sandvik

SaleS & SuPPorT

Sales executive Lara Moloney

To conTacT feST hello@festmag.co.uk 0131 651 6057 PublIShed by feST medIa lImITed

Registered in Scotland Registered number SC344852 regISTered addreSS 30-38 Dalmeny Street, Edinburgh EH6 8RG Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but the publisher cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate. Show times, prices and venues may be subject to change.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher.

Tom Hunt

© Fest Media Limited 2009

In The PrevIew ISSue of feST, we mISTakenly Included a PhraSe abouT Sarah MiLLiCAn wHiCH wAS nOT CORRECT (SARAH MiLLiCAn: A nEw BEGinninG) . wE ApOLOGiSE UnRESERVEDLY FOR THiS ERROR. An ARTiCLE in THE MUSiC SECTiOn wAS ALSO wROnGLY ATTRiBUTED TO CHRiS MCCALL. THE wRiTER wAS EVAnGELOS CHRYSAGiS

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festcontents features Kevin Bridges

»6

With a sell-out run on his Fringe debut, the young Glaswegian is tipped to shine at Edinburgh this year

Rhys Darby

» 14

Flush with success and Hollywood glitz, the Flight of the Conchords star remains down to earth on his return to the Fringe

Dennis Kelly

» 10

The axing of his acclaimed BBC drama Pulling hasn’t perturbed the London playwright, who returns to Edinburgh with one of his most challenging works to date

comedyreviews » 17 The Interminable Suicide of gregory church » 41

Ben Judge has high praise for Daniel Kitson’s latest offering at the Traverse

Rhod Gilbert Jo Caulfield Jason Cook Carey Marx Anna & Katy

» 18 » 21 » 32 » 36 » 19

theatrereviews » 39

Precious little talent » 45 Young playwright Ella Hickson doesn’t disappoint, as she builds on last year’s fringe first-winning sucesss

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The Rap Guide to evolution Leatherface Midsummer The Origin of Species...

Beachy Head

» 43 » 58 » 56 » 44 » 40

books

» 62

Frank Skinner Beyond Charlotte Square

» 62 » 65

music

» 66

Unicorn Kid The Stranglers

» 66 » 68

listings

» 70

fest snapshot

» 98

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 5

Class

clown In the increasingly genteel world of Fringe comedy, Glaswegian newcomer Kevin Bridges is breaking the mould. Tom Hackett meets him in his hometown

S

ocial class is a curiously persistent subject in stand-up.

Whether it’s Jack Dee openly deriding ‘chavs’, or Josie Long gently tickling liberal, middle class sensibilities, the spectre of class consciousness continues to haunt the comedy club in a way that’s now unfashionable in many other arenas. But while old hands like Billy Connolly and Alexei Sayle still fly the flag for working class (or ex-working class) comedians, there are few prominent young comics ready to take that flag up themselves.

Enter Kevin Bridges, whose Fringe debut this year sold out within days of the tickets being released. The excitement is largely down to a storming eight-minute set on the Channel 4 showcase Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, where Bridges stood out as much for his unabashedly working class persona as for his obvious talent.

Bridges’ strong, pointedly enunciated, Glaswegian vowel sounds and deadpan delivery allowed him to wring comedy from such commonplace statements as “I was standing at a bus stop, waiting on a bus.” Elsewhere he spoke of his upbringing in Glasgow’s deprived Clydebank area, where his social position was somewhere between the kids who came back to school after the holidays “with a tan and a new satchel,”

“I’m a kinda New Age, jumping-onthe-bandwagon anarchist. The kind of anarchist that the proper anarchists are rebelling against”

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and those who came “with a black eye and a new second name.”

I meet Bridges at the Blackfriar’s pub in Glasgow, where he first cut his teeth as a compere early in his young career. He’s an amiable and thoughtful 22-year-old, assured but consistently self-effacing. He’s also a much faster talker in person than he is on stage, waxing lyrically and speedily on every subject I raise.

“People say I’ve got a deadpan style, but in the beginning I was quite – almost Lee Evans, really fast.” he laughs.

But when gigging away from Scotland, Bridges realised, “you’ve got to slow down and enunciate your words. Obviously on stage your voice is your tool, it’s the only thing you’ve got, so you need to be understood.”

Bridges is keen not to “play the working class card, because that’s been done, hasn’t it?” – and he acknowledges that class is a more fluid, less definite thing these days. “I don’t think there’s anybody who can’t afford a pair of shoes, or is still grateful there’s food on the table.” Even so, “my mum’s a home help, and my dad’s unemployed on medical grounds. So I grew up with that,” he says. And initially, he saw this as a barrier to any sort of media career, stand-up included.

“I suppose [stand-up] started off as quite a working-class thing; I mean, look at Billy Connolly,” he says. “But then it’s become a lot more student, like guys with degrees, like Stewart Lee. So it’s a lot more intellectual these days.

And I think the thing with stand-ups is that they never fit in. There’s that whole thing, that you don’t feel you fit in, as a person, and people channel that. And I think that being a working class guy, at the Festival....” He stops mid-thought.

“I read Frank Skinner’s autobiography and I suppose that was the only thing that kind of hit home. Him being a working class guy, we had so much in common. He was just the guy that acted up in the classroom and all that, and I just thought: it can be done. You don’t have to be a guy in a drama school to go and try stand-up.”

It certainly says something about the class shift in the comedy world over recent decades, that a young man can now feel excluded from it because he doesn’t have a degree. Could Bridges have gone to university?

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Photos: James Robertson

feature kevin bridges

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Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 7

feature kevin bridges

“I could have been a lot better academically at school,” he tells me; Bridges’ sense of humour often got him into trouble, because he would “do anything to get a laugh. You’d gladly sit on your own, doing the punishment exercise, writing the lines, but it was worth it because it was funny.” He left with three Highers: “Not quite enough to get into uni. So it was that whole thing, too thick for uni, but too arrogant for a call centre.” Once he’d got over his reservations about it, stand-up seemed a good option.

His first gig at the Stand in Glasgow “Went really well, and being the kind of glass-half-empty guy that I am, the pessimist, I thought: right, first gig’s gone well, that’s a bad sign. I need to die on my arse for the first two years before I get good.” But fortunately, it wasn’t to work out like that. “It’s always been like this,” he says, angling his hand to indicate a slow but steady career rise.

“But it’s like the game Jenga, you keep putting stuff on top.” Another mime indicates just how precarious he thinks this strategy is.

Bridges still lives with his parents in Clydebank, and plans to stay in Glasgow when he gets his own place later this year. He’s keen not to lose his identity as a stand-up, and “it’s good for inspiration, you can still see a street brawl at half past one in the morning.” But he repeatedly stresses how keen he is to push himself out of his comfort zone whenever he can.

“I’d never pigeonhole myself, because I think it’s far too early in my career to get shaped into one particular style. I mean, I’ve done my own life experiences, but that doesn’t mean...I could branch out, be an anarchist, man!” He laughs, almost apologetically. Is he an anarchist? “I dunno, I mean, I always look for the flaw, the conspiracy theory.

I’ve just read Nineteen Eighty-Four, so I suppose I’m a kinda New Age, jumpingon-the-bandwagon anarchist. The kind

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of anarchist that the proper anarchists are rebelling against.”

Nevertheless, Bridges has some strongly-felt political opinions. “I suppose when you see, like, the Homecoming Scotland campaign, I’ve got a couple of jokes on that, how they’re trying to create Scotland as this great....” He trails off. “But there’s places in the East End of Glasgow, where the life expectancy’s 47. It’s third-world. You know, it’s that whole thing, they try and plaster over it, like when London gets the Olympics, so they just brush Hackney to the side. I suppose I just disagree with that hypocrisyhat’s where the class thing comes in.”

Bridges stares into the middle distance and appears to ponder. “I dunno, I think there’s not too much to rebel about these days. Everyone’s just kind of ground down, it’s just like, total apathy, with politicians. I think the days of the rebels are done,” he says wistfully.

“So it’s just like, trying to find something to take a stand against,” he continues. “We need something to happen.”

And in a small way, with Bridges’ confident arrival on the increasingly genteel Fringe comedy scene, perhaps something has.

Kevin Bridges: An Hour to Sing for Your Soul Pleasance Dome, 08:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, prices vary

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feature dennis kelly

Emotion before intelligence With his new play, Orphans, director Dennis Kelly , turns to fresh ground, examining acts of random violence. But as he tells Lyle Brennan, it s as much about keeping himself on his toes as it is keeping his audience on theirs

A

s I sit down with Dennis Kelly at the Traverse Theatre, two things are immediately striking: the frank, unassuming way in which the London playwright talks about his work, and the vigour with which he stirs his coffee – in less than two hours his new play, Orphans, will go before its first audience, and Kelly seems understandably restless.

When I ask him about the mood backstage, he hesitates: “Umm… good. We’re all shitting ourselves, though. Really, really bricking it – but in a good way. I think the cast and crew are brilliant, so it’s all positive… but that could all change tonight, couldn’t it?”

Following the success of his last run at the Traverse (2005’s After the End), Kelly has set the bar high for his latest offering. When he hears that murmurs of anticipation have been cropping up in the media, his response is a mixture of surprise and dread: “Oh fuck, I hope I don’t disappoint them! Sometimes it’s better to stay away from that stuff, it messes with your head.”

Despite early nerves, Kelly comes to Edinburgh this year armed with a track record of tense, imaginative scripts and a tried-and-tested partnership with director, Roxana Silbert. As she teases him from a table opposite, Kelly sings Silbert’s praises, speaking of her directorial flair and “instinctive” understanding of his fast-paced dialogue. “I’ve never felt quite as comfortable leaving the rehearsal rooms as I did this time,” he says and, already having formed a formidable team with Silbert for After the End, their rapport must surely stand Orphans in good stead.

Billed as a psychological thriller (though Kelly is reluctant to accept this

label), the play begins with a simple, yet intriguingly nightmarish scenario: the peaceful, urban life led by Danny and his pregnant wife, Helen, is thrown into turmoil when Helen’s brother arrives, drenched in blood. For those unfamiliar with Kelly’s work, Orphans may come as a surprisingly sinister turn from a writer who recently found fame through his work on the charmingly depraved, Bafta-nominated—yet abruptly axed—Pulling, which he co-wrote with the sitcom’s star, Sharon Horgan. In his return to theatre, Kelly works his way through four acts of brutality and volatile family ties, propelled by an aptitude for almost cinematic suspense.

Clearly, Orphans does not make for a gentle ride – and it’s no accident. As a writer, Kelly is sure of his priorities; he writes to engage his audience, hoping first and foremost to elicit a reaction. “I always want my plays to have tension,” he says. “Whether the audience hates it or loves it is up to them, but I never want them to be bored.” It’s a sentiment Kelly says he shares with the late Sarah Kane, inspired by an endeavour to avoid a trend in theatre that he sees as a tendency “to forget the drama in drama”: “Writers are afraid of melodrama, so they hold back and you get plays that are character studies or statements on society that feel no need to be dramatic.

That frustrates me.”

He explains that this has given rise to his own approach, in which emotion is valued over intellect. It’s a remarkably simple principle—maximum impact, no conceit and no moral message (“As someone who’s not a moral person I don’t think I’ve got the right to try and teach other people morality”)—though by no means does this limit the possibili-

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"You’ve got to be careful of doing an impression of yourself"

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dennis kelly feature ty of depth and relevance. Indeed, Kelly has a knack for writing unintentionally topical plays. The apocalyptic After the End proved hauntingly reminiscent of the London bombings of July 2005, opening a month after the attacks, while the pre-recession debt and despair of Love and Money would not be out of place in today’s climate of financial doom (“I wrote it two years too early, that was the problem with the fucking thing!”).

Evidently tuned into the views shared by much of the country, he speaks with venom about the war in Iraq, the expenses scandal and the recession. It comes as no surprise, then, that the title of his new play “refers to a sense of us feeling orphaned within society. We feel a little bit like we’ve been abandoned by the people who’re supposed to look after us.”

As a result, with Orphans set in an urban environment fraught with random violence, it’s difficult not to associate it with the past year’s reported surge in knife crime. But Kelly insists his inspiration is more personal: “Your mind will tell you what’s a cool thing to write about or what other people think you should write about but actually you have to avoid that and find out what you want to write about.”

For instance, he tells me how one play was inspired partly by his own experiences of South-East London, where he was seriously assaulted for knocking over another man’s ice cream before being mugged just months later. After the former attack, in which he sustained a life-threatening head injury, his immedi-

"A play should be sort of like a person, you know, funny and kind but also capable of incredible cruelty and a complete cunt at times. It should be flexible"

ate reaction was to seek catharsis. “I fucked it into a play,” he says, referring to Osama the Hero. “That seemed like the best way of dealing with it.”

Similar violence against strangers appears in Orphans, leading me to wonder whether Kelly’s recurrent depictions of dysfunctional families also originate from his own life – this is, after all, the same playwright who, in his debut, Debris, had a father crucify himself in the family living room. “I don’t know what a functional family is. They’re all a bit crap,” jokes Kelly, who was brought up in considerable poverty by Irish immigrant parents.

“No, mine wasn’t that bad,” he adds, “But then who knows? Maybe I’m suppressing. If a memory comes back and it’s your fault, what a great interview that’d make – but it’d be terrible for me.”

For Kelly, one of the most important qualities in a writer is versatility.

Though he turned 39 this year, his debut only opened in 2003 and his plays have veered in wildly different directions ever since. Throughout his work, there’s a consistent stubbourn refusal to settle on any one style or subject, be it infanticide in the fauxverbatim Taking Care of Baby, or the tyranny of fanged monsters in Our Teacher’s a Troll: “When I was starting out somebody said to me ‘you’ve got to be careful of doing an impression of yourself’, and maybe I took that to heart too much but it made a lot of sense to me at the time.”

Relishing the challenge posed by this constant changing of tack, he believes his work should not only vary from play to play, but that each should be as fluid in tone as the next. “A play should be sort of like a person, you know, funny and kind but also capable of incredible cruelty and a complete cunt at times. It should be flexible.”

Traverse Theatre, 9 Aug–30 Aug, not 10th, 24th, Multiple times, Prices vary

feature rhys darby

Out of character Seven years on from his first Fringe appearance, Rhys Darby has finally hit the big time. But there is no sign of a superstar ego, writes Tom Hackett

“D

on’t call him Murray, don’t call him Murray, don’t call him Murray….”

Rhys Darby has become so synonymous with his role in HBO’s Flight of the Conchords, where he gave a pitch-perfect performance as Murray Hewitt, the band’s incompetent and naïve manager, that it’s easy to forget that this is only one string to the Antipodean’s increasingly taut bow.

Very much in demand after the sitcom’s success, he’s now running from one career commitment to another, from film to television, to his recent return to stand-up. I catch up with him in London, in a taxi between appointments, having performed sold-out gigs at such illustrious venues as the Bloomsbury, which he calls a “wonderful, wonderful room,” and Shepherd Bush Empire – “very rock and roll.”

This will in fact be Darby’s sixth Fringe, though his stock has risen so rapidly post-Conchords that it will be the first time many audience members have seen him live. Previously, Darby lived in the UK for five years and made his way, he says, as “a novelty act, really, on the circuit.” At Edinburgh, he was pulling audiences of “12 people, eventually reaching the dizzy heights of, you know, 80!” He laughs a wheezy and self-conscious laugh, seemingly a habitual tic when he’s said something unexpectedly funny. Then, his stand-up was a very different proposition from his understated performance on the TV series, incorporating energetic “physical storytelling” (some would call it mime), and some truly impressive sound effects.

The latter were produced using only his own, biological vocal apparatus, but sounded uncannily like the helicopters, machine guns, cars and sunroofs that he would imitate. This unusual skill came from “a lot of alone time, as a child,” he says.

“I’ve always been very good at entertaining myself. I think it’s because I

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rhys darby feature

“I’ve always been very good at entertaining myself. I think it’s because I was the youngest child, so I spent a lot of time in my room"

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was the youngest child, and all the other kids were a lot older than me, so I spent a lot of time in my room, kind of making up noises and things, for my cars, and helicopters, and I just ended up getting really good at it, without really thinking about it. And when I got a microphone, you know, I just amplified it all, and I was kind of surprised that most people can’t do it – or, you know, don’t even want to do it!”

He laughs self-consciously again.

He’s aware that the sound effects are “a bit geeky,” and that mime currently gets a bit of a bad rap on the comedy scene. “Mime and physical theatre were there from the beginning of time, of entertainment, and I think they’ll be there through the end,” he says. “It will be popular, then it will be unpopular for a while, but it’s kind of a base level of humour – and something not everyone can do well.” Even so, he’s “definitely toned it down a bit” for the new Fringe show. “There’s a lot more dialoguedriven kind of stuff. That’s probably just due to getting older and not having to run around like a madman on stage any more, like I did when I was in my mid-20s, to get attention.”

He may also be bearing in mind the

popularity he’s enjoyed as Murray, which fits more into what he describes as “the awkward style of humour that’s been the kind of popular norm at the moment, with The Office, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and all that kind of awkward pauses and stuff.” He’s since branched out into more character comedy, creating some web-only short films of himself playing “very different little unique New Zealand characters,” which share the sort of naïvety and lack of self-awareness that made Murray so endearing. The characters play a part in the new show. Park Ranger, “man’s man” and overall bumbling fool Bill Napier acts as Darby’s “security guard” for the tour and opens the set, whilst amateur whale-watcher Ron Taylor and obsessive UFOlogist Steve Whittle, who has “a dark secret that’s a bit inappropriate,” also put in an appearance.

It was Darby’s long periods of time spent away from home—in the UK and now the US—that made him want to start exploring these different Kiwi archetypes. “You can really look back at your country and get a completely different scope on how the people are,” he says. “When you’re living with them and amongst them, you’re just part of

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 13

feature rhys darby

them, but when you look back from a distance you can pinpoint characters and abnormalities and funniness that they wouldn’t really see.” Is the fundamental awkwardness of his characters something that Darby suffers from himself? “I don’t know, I’ve always thought I was quite confident,” he says with some conviction. “But I find myself getting into situations a bit like Frank Spencer would, you know in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. I remember watching that character when I was growing up, and finding myself being more and more like him without even trying… the sort ofconstant mishaps, the being alone and talking to himself a lot, and trying but always failing.

Given this clumsy image, it comes as something of a surprise that Darby was once in the army. He joined immediately after leaving school and “loved it, because I was only 17 and it was running around in the bush with guns, hanging out with mates and digging tunnels and stuff.” He says it “hardened [him] up” and made him “a strong individual,” but even so, after three years, he decided

he wasn’t cut out for it. “I was sort of immature,” he says, and “it was sort of like I was joining the Scouts but I was a bit older, and I joined the real thing by mistake. I think if I got dropped in behind enemy lines, I probably would have just fainted.”

What Darby actually wanted to do, he says, “was probably be the actor, playing the soldier, rather than actually be the soldier.” He formed a comedy duo, Rhysently Granted, with fellow Kiwi Grant Lobban in 1996 and has never looked back. His stand-up has always been quite actorly, he says, and it “was always sort of a means to get to the acting, to get on to television and film, because I grew up loving Monty Python, and Peter Sellars, and Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, and things like that, so that’s where I wanted to be.” Now 35, he’s now beginning to get there. He’s had roles in the US film Yes Man with Jim Carrey, which was “my foot in the door in Hollywood,” and in the less successful British effort The Boat That Rocked, a Richard Curtis vehicle that met with general critical scorn and a disappointingly low box office. The latter

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hasn’t damaged him, he said “because it wasn’t so much of a disaster, and my role in it wasn’t so significant,” and he’s just finished filming his first lead role in Coming and Going, due for release in 2010. “I’ve been lucky,” he says, “I’ve been in such an awesome sitcom you know, you can’t really top that. And then everything else sort of flows from that.

So the next chapter will be Rhys Darby in a TV show, or a film, sort of on his own, leading it. And whether we’ll keep running with him, or whether we’ll go: ‘oh yeah, he’s not bad, but he’s better when he’s with the other two...”

He laughs his wheezy laugh. He’s arrived at the BBC building where he’s giving his next interview, and it’s time to wrap this up. “Thanks Murray,” I say, “and good luck with the show.” Shit. “Thanks man,” he says graciously, having either not noticed or decided to let it slide. “I’m really looking forward to getting up there and, um – rocking it out!”

Rhys Darby: It’s Rhys Darby Night Udderbelly’s Pasture, 10:00PM, 06 Aug—15 Aug, £15.00

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festcomedy comedypicks Randy’s Postcards from Purgatory

Heath McIvor’s comic puppetry skills impressed our reviewer last year when his “gloriously naughty” sponge people joined Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams. Here, he returns with the dark confessions of one such puppet in a show that’s strictly not for the kids.

Underbelly, 09:00PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Frisky and Mannish

Bourgeouis & Maurice » 24

Perhaps as close to perfect as musical comedy gets

Cabaret-style Fringe shows are always a bit of a risk, but a sneak preview of this suggests it’s going to be a real treat. A painted pianist and a slightly scary lounge singer lay bare the sinister undertones of some classic pop songs.

Underbelly, 07:20PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Stewart Lee

Jon Richardson: This Guy at Night » 32 Can the show live up to the brilliant title pun?

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Always a highlight of the Fringe, Lee’s material nevertheless varies significantly in quality from year to year. But the ten minute section of his latest set that Fest has seen, in which he rants impotently about the “corporate stupidity” of a certain high-street coffee chain, suggests 2009 will see him at his best.

The Stand Comedy Club, Various times, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

festcomedy Rhod Gilbert and the Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst HHHHH You’d think it would have been a happy year for Rhod Gilbert, who has graced every major stage TV standup has to offer following the immense success of his 2008 show Rhod Gilbert and the Award Winning Mince Pie. But a sell out national tour and appearances on Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and the Royal Variety Performance apparently haven’t made up for what has been another period dominated by impotent rage at life’s little challenges. …Award Winning Mince Pie marked a sea change in Gilbert’s performance style, which became suddenly pumped with adrenaline and fast talking wrath.

Last year’s anger at the apparently over-complicated process of buying a duvet— put it this way, he’s not a fan of the tog rating system— and hyperbolic marketing spiels attracted an if.comedy nomination, in spite of some accusations of melodrama from the press.

It is a reaction against these same ill-conceived reviews that begins 2009’s tale of rejection, bitterness and depression. Barnstorming onto stage, Gilbert almost instantly enters one of his characteristic rants, taking advantage of his slightly tipsy evening slot. Perhaps because his duvet is getting a bit grubby now, the targets of 2009’s lengthy showers of vitriol are, bizarrely, washing machines and Hoovers. Gilbert is the past master of such observational comedy on the microscopically petty scale and, with his audience

feeling like they’ve got their money’s worth only five minutes in, an atmosphere that could only have been forged by the simultaneously bitter and coquettish Welshman envelopes the room.

With such a tightly written and intensely hilarious style of comedy, Gilbert does well to provide pathos to balance his loquacious flare-ups. Lengthy epistles about such important issues as wall-mounted vacuum cleaners seem dauntingly distant from the main drive of the plot but are linked expertly back to his main

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purpose. Culminating in a masterclass on the comic device of the call-back, the audience is rendered almost silent thanks to the suffocating effects of his rapid fire shtick.

Sadly, success at this year’s Fringe may mark the last full August run for 2009’s Pleasance headliner – a man who doesn’t mind saying how stressful he finds the Edinburgh experience. A return next year for a limited time in an over-sized venue would be regrettable not least because Gilbert’s personal stories and complex humour

have much more power in an intimate space. Nonetheless, …The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst offers everything of Gilbert’s previous show but tweaked and perfected, as is to be expected from a comedian who is somewhat of a micromanager. Much has been made of his near miss in last year’s Fringe awards. With a show like this, there should be no miss about it in 2009.

[Chris Williams] Pleasance Courtyard, 08:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Anna & Katy HHHHH At the Fringe in ‘05 and ‘06, Anna Crilly and Katy Wix produced a marvellous and underrated sketch show under the bizarre moniker of Penny Spubbs. It was silly and surreal, with odd characters and accents galore, infused with a palpable commitment and enthusiasm that forced the audience to suspend their disbelief and go with its gorgeously daft flow.

Both comics have since gone on to their own projects, with Crilly giving a frequently scene-stealing performance as Polish au pair Magda in the Jack Dee sitcom Lead Balloon, and Wix appearing in various comedies and dramas, including the latest Torchwood outing. Now they’re a little better known, they’ve reformed their double act under their own

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names and are back to tickle our fancy with more loopy shenanigans.

The loopiness is still very much intact: in fact, it’s been so long that it’s easy to forget just how off the wall some of the pair’s characters are. There’s Nigel and Jeff, two South African motivational speakers with incredibly long arms that give them the ability to fly; a couple of East European scientists demonstrating how to dissect a Danish pastry; and Anna & Katy’s original

Japanese prototypes, shown in a video clip apparently performing their Princess Diana routine from 1997.

It’s all performed with a huge amount of enthusiasm from both women, and the spark between the two is a joy to watch. Katy in particular is prone to start giggling at their own jokes, a potentially irritating trait that’s made bearable by the fact that she clearly can’t help it: they just find each other’s company hilarious. The production is pretty slick, with

short and very funny videos filling in the pauses for the many costume changes.

There does seem to be something missing when compared to previous outings, though. Perhaps it’s just the hunger and commitment of a new Fringe act, so apparent in ’05, that hasn’t quite survived now that they’re enjoying relatively successful careers.

Perhaps their other projects mean they haven’t been able to spend so much time on each sketch, some of which feel a bit underworked and overlong.

But their infectious silliness still makes them worth a look; and if you haven’t seen them before, you’d be advised to check them out before they go on to yet bigger things. [Tom Hackett] Pleasance Courtyard, 06:40PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, Prices vary

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 19

festcomedy Jo Caulfield: Won’t Shut Up! HHHHH Jo Caulfield has been in this business for a while, and it shows – for better and for worse. This is a measured, consistent, professional hour of stand up: Caulfield’s observational barbs are expertly aimed, her timing exemplary, her recovery effortless on the few occasions when a joke falls flat.

Yet a faint air of lethargy hangs over this performance – something not helped by an overwhelmingly middle-aged audience. As Caulfield gets underway with a section on the MPs’ expenses scandal, she’s able to reduce the primmer viewers to giggles simply by dropping in the odd swear word – even the banal suggestion that David Miliband should “fuck off” meets with gasps of delighted outrage.

And this subject matter has been sucked almost dry by now; Caulfield should really aim higher than yet another joke about the Tory MP whose moat protects him from the wrathful local peasants.

There are some cracking lines, nonetheless. Caulfield does well on the slave labour unblinkingly performed at Tesco’s self-service checkouts, and on domestic drudgery:

Dan Antopolski HHHHH Dan Antopolski is a pretty edgy comic, or so he tells us tonight. So edgy, in fact, that a reviewer once remarked that he had “more edge than a hexagonal table.”

Presumably the critic in question was referring to the pre-2008 Antopolski, the one that had two Perrier nominations and a blossoming TV career, not the laboured Antopolski that rambles aimlessly through tonight’s

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“My perfect kitchen? I’m not fucking in it!” And there’s some amusing goading of the Scots, the observation that “you can’t tell whether they’re smiling or contemplating suicide” sparking a wave of self-deprecating titters.

Caulfield is married to a Scot, which entitles her to make that joke. It doesn’t, however, quite justify her heavy reliance on the timehonoured useless husband/ henpecking wife routines.

It goes down well, of course,

with couples sharing a wry grin as their quirks are picked out one by one. But it’s all just a little too easy. [Simon Mundy]

performance.

Things don’t start well.

Faced with a packed crowd of already-smiling Friday night punters, Antopolski completely fudges his initial audience banter, throwing himself and his expectant audience completely off-kilter.

Things improve slightly as he eases into polished observational material on Obama and family life, but by halfway through the set is starting to feel frustratingly shallow. Antopolski is obvi-

ously bright and likeable; it’s just his material is unforgivably weak.

Skits on porn and middle age only ever touch the surface and attempts at ‘zany’ surrealism are far too cuddly for a Fringe audience.

Indeed, the funniest moments generally come when Antopolski is acknowledging the weaknesses in his own set, skilfully using the awkward silences to his own advantage.

But there’s only so many times you can get mileage

from admitting your own flaws. In a bid to boost waning audience interest, Antopolski eventually turns to life in Brixton and then, excruciatingly, begins to rap.

You would think watching a white, middle-class, 37-year old rap could be so bad it might be funny.

Unfortunately, the result here is simply tragic. [Sam Friedman]

The Stand III & IV, Various times, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th, Prices vary

Pleasance Dome, 09:20PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, Prices vary

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 21

festcomedy Daniel Sloss: Teenage Kicks HHHHH By now you’ve probably heard of Daniel Sloss. A precocious 18-year-old comedian hailing from Fife, his two-year apprenticeship under Frankie Boyle’s wing has given him both an enviable headstart on the circuit and a healthy taste for morbid material. This forms the spine of his set, which is sprinkled with the expected smattering of wank gags and tales of weird teachers.

Sloss relates a slew of you-were-like-me-once tales, which are greeted with nostalgic laughter by a capacity audience. One anecdote recalls the horror of a class full of 10 year-olds accidentally being shown a birthing video played in reverse - baby snatched from a pallid, exhausted mother and violently shoved whence it came. It’s a smart subversion of the relationship between youth and sexuality, and

betrays a consistent intelligence in his writing.

Sloss is a curious proposition, and certainly there’s a fertile vein of comedy to be mined here. It’s difficult not to relate one’s own teenage tribulations to his tales of hoodie scaremongering and relentless masturbation. In many ways he does seem young – the awkward brush of the fringe, the ever-soslightly nervy exchanges with the audience.

These tells aside, though, there’s little sign of youthful naivety. It’s an assured act and, opening night jitters aside, one that shows a young man capitalising on his lack of years with aplomb.

Near the end of the set, he tells us that he recently rejected a university place to pursue his comedy aspirations full-time. On tonight’s evidence, this would seem a sound career move. [Oliver Farrimond] Pleasance Dome, 07:00PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 16th, 24th, Multiple prices

Zoe Lyons: Miss Machismo HHHHH Zoe Lyons is understandably a little annoyed with Germaine Greer. Wading into the “are women funny?” debate earlier this year with a typical nose for controversy, the legendary feminist essentially argued that they’re not,calling Lyons’ comedy “astonishingly vicious” in the process There’s little to justify that description in this set: for the most part, it’s wellwritten and self-lacerating observational material about the life and preoccupations of a thirty-something lesbian, albeit with one eye constantly trained on life’s grubbier aspects.

Portaloos are described as

“stinking piss-tardises,” an ill-starred excursion into the woods for a wee is graphically described, and Switzerland is characterised as a place so antiseptically clean that the dogs there are trained to pick up their own poo. It’s all performed

22 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

at a breakneck pace and with a skill for surreal detail and amusing tangents, all of which keeps a sweaty but enthusiastic audience onside for the full hour.

There’s nothing hugely original in Lyons’ choice of targets, however, and when

she gets on to the subject of celebrity women, you can start to see Germaine’s point. Nigella Lawson is a “slut,” Amy Winehouse a “spunkbucket,” and a modelling career is described as an “oxymoron.”

Coming from the mouths of male comics, these sentiments would rightly be construed as misogynistic – is Lyons immune from this criticism just because she’s female? This reviewer is doubtful. But anyone looking for anecdotal evidence to counter Greer’s main thesis, that women are generally less funny than men, will find a fair amount of ammunition here. [Tom Hackett] Pleasance Courtyard, 08:30PM, 05 Aug—30 Aug, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Paul Sinha HHHHH Whilst the alpha-male fraternity of comedy big-hitters have been busy prostituting themselves on endless TV quiz shows, gay Asian comic Paul Sinha has been quietly building a formidable reputation at the Fringe. But it should be during this year’s fringe run, Sinha’s fourth solo Edinburgh outing, that his intelligent brand of confessional stand-up really makes its mark.

As tonight’s audience file in, Sinha lurks anxiously at the corner of the stage, sizing up each punter as they come in. But it isn’t nerves causing Sinha’s uneasiness.

Instead, his beady eyes seem to be endlessly counting the number of people in the room, a suspicion verified when he later gleefully announces that tonight is his largest Fringe audience ever.

Indeed, such creeping OCD is the most obvious theme that emerges from 39 Years of Solitude. Although the ostensible focus is Sinha’s loneliness—he’s been single for the last 18 years— this is really just a vehicle for him to lovingly explain his obsession with pedantry, knowledge retention and, above all, quizzing. Not only has this geeky pastime served to fill any loveshaped hole in Sinha’s

life, but it has also helped him escape from a number of potentially dangerous encounters.

And although the theme of quizzing is neither a new or particularly exciting addition to Sinha’s stand-up arsenal, it works perfectly here as a vehicle from which to weave constant threads of sharp social commentary. Polished and assured but always charmingly self deprecating, this is clearly Sinha’s most assured Fringe performance to date.

[Sam Friedman] The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, Various times, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

Bourgeois & Maurice: Social Work HHHHH “One thing we’ve learned about sex,” the magnificently dressed Bourgeois purrs silkily, “is that it often leads to offspring.” The audience flinches momentarily. Bourgeois & Maurice are not the sort of people you would entrust your children to. Not when Bourgeois spends a sizeable part of the show dressed in a pink and green polka-dot sex suit. They might make questionable parent material, but Bourgeois & Maurice both undoubtedly create a visual and aural extravaganza.

Maurice, resembling a much younger and prettier Siouxsie Sioux, plays piano, pouts lustily and gives the word ‘sultry’ an entirely new meaning. Bourgeois, well, you can’t quite describe Bourgeois. He sings. He hollers. He prances. He arrives onstage looking like a giant Christmas decoration – albeit one with three inch eyelashes. “This isn’t a show!” he announces.

“This is real life laid bare!”

Together Bourgeois & Maurcie sing songs about tattoos, the nature of stardom and the drudgery of life, all of which are covered in a thick layer of sleazy glamour and sex. These songs are quite simply incredible in content, delivery, and their ability to

24 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

both shock and amuse. The pick of the bunch is perhaps the charmingly titled If You Don’t Know What to Do with Your Life Then Kill Yourself.

In summary, who cares if this pair has been knocking out kids? We can only hope the little bastards have inherited their parents’

ridiculous talent. God knows the Edinburgh Fringe could do with more people like Bourgeois & Maurice. [Chris McCall] Pleasance Courtyard, 09:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Axis of Awesome HHHHH The Axis of Awesome is an Australian troupe of musical comedians. Self-aware and post-modern, their songs are as ironic as their T-shirts.

The group consists of three characters, each invested with a distinct place within the dynamics of the comedy: a small, musically gifted pianist (who functions as the butt of all jokes); a sort of goofy but endearing lead guitar; and a round, larger-than-life front man whose fist pumps and high kicks summon the moribund energy of Gene Simmons on tour in the 90s.

modern pop, and the four chords which structure Western music. Laying down a repeated chord progression, the band takes us on a tour of popular sounds, through Journey and The Beatles and N-Dubz, emphasising the sameness of it all.

I guess you could call this ‘muso-comedy’ - a savvy look at the nature of music and its attendant oddities.

At its best, the show is a literate, melodic treat, as interesting as it is irreverent.

[Frank Lazarski]

cowbell reminds us that, as well as humour, we really do need more cowbells in pop. Although melody often takes second place to tragic tales of familial dysfunction, the songs are catchy enough to leave you humming them for days.

The show has some weaknesses. The rivalry, tantrum, reconciliation formula wears a little thin towards the end, the

slapstick moments are not executed well and the balance between song-based humour and dialogue is tilted too heavily to the latter. But it’s enjoyable stuff nonetheless, and you can never have enough Kraftwerk parodies featuring robots with identity crises. [Nick Prior]

One undeniable asset of musical comedy acts is that their tunes can usefully fill nasty gaps left by the absence of laughter. It’s an uneasy minute, then, when Sarah Adams and Leisa Rea put down their guitars and perform a sketch consisting of deathly quiet and furtive glances. What’s intended as a hilariously awkward silence is just plain awkward.

For all the chemistry between the pair, there’s little in the way of belly laughs during much of the rest of the show. Whilst a healthy stock of astute social observations (pointing out the “ridiculous bread” of smug middle-class couples is a masterstroke) raise appreciative smiles, the bulk of the humour is simply too gentle to satisfy. In fact, many of these songs would be more enjoyable without the grim awareness that one’s meant to be laughing.

The pair might do better to concentrate on their rapping: a salacious “educational” song about waste disposal is brilliantly funny, Rea outrageously grinding her hips while intoning “stick it in me big black bin” in a ludicrous Caribbean patois. A second rap about “making sexy things unsexy” is equally fun, and there’s an enjoyably unsettling guitar number based on The Silence of the Lambs, with Adams gurning her way through a chorus lyric borrowed from the murderous Buffalo Bill. But these spells of genuine hilarity aren’t quite enough to make up for the irksome lack of punchlines in the remainder of the set. [Simon Mundy]

Pleasance Courtyard, 11:11PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

Pleasance Dome, 07:30PM, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 09:15PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th, 26th, Multiple prices

Die Roten Punkte HHHHH “Does humour belong in music?” asked Frank Zappa.

Die Roten Punkte deliver a resounding “yes.” Basically a parody of The White Stripes’ stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic but played on kiddy-sized instruments, Die Roten Punkte (“The Red Dots”) showcase a handful of chuckle-worthy parodies of stock music clichés that unfold through a story of familial tragedy and rivalry.

Like The White Stripes, Die Roten Punkte’s ‘thing’ is that they are—or purport to be—brother and sister. The show centres on the perils of sibling co-production, and the problem that blood really ain’t thicker than water when it comes to public adulation. The tensions take musical form in squabbles over timings and song-writing credits, and a battle for the audience’s sexual desire.

One of the highlights of the show features Astrid Rot, the drummer, sharing an orgasmic moment with the audience; whilst a sonic battle between Keytar and

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Adams and Rea: Blissfully Unaware HHHHH

Although the group go to great pains to acknowledg— and distance themselves from—Tenacious D (their obvious forebears in both appearance and sound), the initial similarities between Jack Black’s oeuvre and the content of the show are striking. The now hackneyed jokes about “rock”—an entity “harder than a diamond”—are exhausting and standard, playing upon the staid ridiculousness of the ghosts of cock-rock.

Yet when the performers break from parody, the show succeeds. The most competent and well-delivered part of the musical relies upon the pianist’s knowledge of

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 25

festcomedy Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective HHHHH As the group that spawned Hans Teeuwen, the Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective (AUCC) has a lot to live up to. It’s a shame, then, that tonight they appear to field a merely competent reserve team.

Martijn Koning is the instantly likeable compère, propositioning audience members with a gawky, halfwitted grin. Though not a main attraction, he outshines two of the three acts he presents. The first is Thijs van Domburg’s brand of grumbling misanthropy that begins promisingly, but unfolds with peculiar restraint. Assuming that moaning makes him easy to relate to, he rarely displays the conviction needed to carry him beyond the level of disgruntled teenage goth.

Sander van Opzeeland, meanwhile, knows how to gripe. Sour and cynical, he

An African Perspective: Westerners Calm Down!

HHHHH It’s always a pleasure to see a comic whose jokes can span the nations, and Daliso Chaponda’s certainly do that. This is made more impressive by his choice of subject matter, telling his audience that their countrymen are overreacting – to everything. It’s a fair point, and the Malawian comic has the good grace to make it amusingly, delivering his witty, heartfelt writing with the flair of a true professional.

Covering subjects as varied as the financial

plays the sharp-tongued underachiever with ease.

With his own accent obscured by Americanisms, his sneering impression of the Dutch comic who told him how British audiences “hate it when you shpeak the Queen’sh English” reassures us that AUCC’s intended appeal is not that of a “freak show” of inarticulate Europeans stumbling over bad jokes.

crisis, racism, the obesity epidemic and various hang-ups about sexual performance, Chaponda demonstrates solid comic ability, managing to bash out the laughs minute on minute. His interaction with the audience seems entirely natural as he gently rips us apart, but without causing too much offence.

His observations ring true and take the edge off Westerners’ “problems” – which, according to him, pale in comparison to other parts of the world.

But whilst it’s all well and good getting some comic relief, Chaponda loses some

26 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Yet the night ends with a whimper when the conspicuously young Stefan Pop arrives. Occasionally blundering, he dithers between ironic bigotry and the halfhearted, anti-racist derision with which he counters it. Pop redeems himself with a stunningly fluent explanation of Einstein’s theory of relativity and an anecdote about visiting a prostitute with his mother, leaving the

audience content.

By no means is the showcase a flop, but given such a small window of opportunity, the younger comics fail to make any lasting impression, leaving 40-year-old van Opzeeland’s experience to dominate.

[Lyle Brennan] Underbelly, 09:30PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

laughs when he attempts to belittle subjects, such as the financial crisis, which are doubtless affecting some of his audience members to greater or lesser degrees.

The show is also let down by one too many references to an ex-girlfriend and some crude innuendo.

Still, the big laughs Chaponda gives to his own deliberately awful puns indicate that this man takes nothing seriously – which, given the problems currently besetting the Western world, is probably a lesson we’d all do well to learn. [Hannah Atkinson] The Lot, 07:00PM, 07 Aug—31 Aug, £5.00

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festcomedy Regret Me Not HHHHH Fringe newcomer Andrea Donovan has a long way to go. This one-woman character comedy flounders in unchallenging territory, peddling tentatively risqué quirkiness. The show’s lack of comic substance means the few laughs are smothered by incidental detail, anda sense of greater concern for sculpting setting within a sketch than with entertaining her audience.

The desperation of each of Donovan’s six personas could seem to account for their feeble humour – but the apparent lack of knowing with which mother-in-law jokes and penis gags are delivered means that it’s near-impossible to appreciate them on any higher level. What’s more, her anti-heroines are distinctly stale – take Kathleen, a forgery if the patronising, callous life-coach stereotype exhausted years ago by Little Britain.

Donovan, 30, is obviously an accomplished performer; her spark could easily flourish with better scripts. As she darts between shrill, giddy toff and motherly Geordie, her accent rarely slips, though elsewhere a wrong turn leaves her drawling away somewhere between New York and Johannesburg. Whether she’s yelping naughty words like “fanny” until the audience surrenders a titter, Donovan fails to realise that even the crudest joke requires thought.. Meanwhile, characters like dreary, Brummie Audrey are clear attempts at embarrassingly familiar caricature – but here the audience is left cringing for all the wrong reasons.

[Lyle Brennan] Pleasance Courtyard, 04:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Multiple prices

One Man Lord of the Rings HHHHH It is, perhaps, a question reviewers ought to ask themselves more often.

Namely, why does this show exist? Is it unreasonable to think the the whole of The Lord of the Rings, acted out by one man in a little over an hour might be considered somewhat decadent, maybe a little pointless?

I’m provided an answer before Charles Ross has uttered a syllable of Elvish: as the lights dim, the 400-strong Udderbelly audience explode in applause.

Quite simply, for fans of the LOTR films—the narrative

follows more closely Peter Jackson’s blockbusters than Tolkien’s trilogy—Charles Ross’s single-hander is precious stuff.

As a work of mime, vocal acting and physical theatre, OMLOTR more than deserves the praise it has garnered from one Ian McKellan.

Indeed, so energetic and engaging is the performer that he’s able to win back an Edinburgh audience after professing his pleasure on arriving in England. One suspects ancient magic to be at work here.

There’s even the odd ad lib thrown in. The formative Fellowship’s pledges (“You have my sword; and my hair”) are received riotously,

as is Ross’s recital of the Elvish written on the ring: “One for the money, two for the show...”

But there’s also a great deal of indistinct soundtrack humming, explosion noises, and falling over – and nonafficionados will find themselves utterly lost. There’s the rub: OMLOTR is a show which appeals to a very select—indeed, most probably a self-selecting—audience. But few performances truly offer “something for everyone”, so perhaps this is a show that just happens to wear its exclusive credentials on its sleeve. [Evan Beswick]

ily a bad thing. As far as impressions go, McGowan has mastered his art, and his confident style helps to make the show a success. When he does try his hand at standup, it is well delivered and witty, though it’s questionable whether it would carry him through an hour-long show on its own.

Whilst there is a sense of deja-vu about the act, McGowan has clearly done his homework, and knows

how to appeal to his largely middle-class, middle-aged audience with jokes at the expense of Edinburgh housing estates and the current burning issue of trams. For those who enjoy McGowan’s popular brand of comedy, this outing provides an excellent showcase for his talents. [Nick Eardley]

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 08:35PM, 06 Aug—16 Aug, Multiple prices

Alistair McGowan: The One and Many HHHHH Being too well-known for one thing can be a curse.

Comedians who become synonymous with a particular show or act inevitably face challenges when they try to branch out, and Alistair McGowan is no exception.

Should the 45 year-old Big Impression star stick with his infamous and popular imitations of public figures, or try to move beyond his comfort zone, into potentially dangerous territory?

In his first act at the Fringe for over a decade, McGowan errs towards the former. Despite the first section of the show focussing on stand-up, large parts of his routine are based on familiar sketches. The old favourites from TV feature are all here—the Beckhams, Sven Goran Eriksson, Dot Cotton—and it is obvious that the show’s direction is based on accommodating these characters.

But this isn’t necessar-

28 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 07:20PM, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Brian Gittins: Roadside Cafe Owner HHHHH “Knock knock! Who’s there?

Linford Christie. Ooh, that’s a nice surprise!”

As jokes go, it’s not the punchiest, but then David Earl‘s wonderful character act is all about frustrating audience expectations of what an entertainercomedian should be. Brian Gittins owns a roadside café somewhere along the A32, but dreams of a career on the stage. He’s given himself an ambitious target of playing the London Palladium within five years, but for now he has to make do with the cramped confines of the Pleasance Below. Gittins shuffles on stage in a black suit with a broken fly zip and a Union Jack bow tie (“It never hurts to have a bit of razzle dazzle”) and croakily sings an ode to the Full English Breakfast.

Earl stays fully in character throughout, and

creates an extraordinary amount of audience tension by presenting us with Gittins’ sheer incompetence as a performer, snorting and giggling his way through a series of bad jokes read out from a torn scrap of paper.

The tension is punctured by moments of bizarre, transgressive silliness and audience interaction involving a range of rubber masks, and the release is such that we are often thrown into fits of helpless giggles.

By the time we get to the “spectacular” musical finale, there’s also a fair amount of sympathy built up for this strange, sad figure, and the show becomes a kind of lament about the pain of dreaming unachievable dreams. Watching a personal tragedy unfold on stage has rarely been this much fun [Tom Hackett] Pleasance Courtyard, 04:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th, Multiple prices

Adam Riches: Rogue Males HHHHH Adam Riches will be hoping that his luck has improved significantly since August last year when, midway through his critically acclaimed 2008 run, Lady Luck conspired to break his leg in a freak on-stage accident.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and Riches is now back in Edinburgh, again exploring his favourite topic: the daftness of masculinity. This year’s offering, Rogue Males, is a character comedy full of enough inherent silliness to just about work as what might be called a ‘straight’ comedy. But it’s not flawless: like so many character comedies, when a particular

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persona doesn’t quite work the show falls a bit flat. This is particularly true of the big-game hunter O’Hara – not a poor character by any means, but one heavily reliant on cliché and certainly

not worthy of the sizeable proportion of showtime allocated to him.

However, the charactercomedy aspect is but a crutch upon which rests a near masterclass in interac-

tive comedy. Audience participation can so often be a recipe for disaster; but Riches carries it off expertly, falling just about on the right side of naughty so as to never feel threatening. But that’s not to say that this reviewer wasn’t plagued with cold sweats every time the house lights went up!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rogue Males offers little in the way of daring physical stunts, the odd pratfall aside. But as a package, it combines just the right blend of daftness, witty asides and electric tension to make it Riches’ most accomplished Fringe performance to date.

[Ben Judge] Pleasance Courtyard, 03:30PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 29

festcomedy Cardinal Burns HHHHH If Cardinal Burns as a show doesn’t really work, it cannot be put down to lack of effort on the part of Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns.

They arrive on stage in their boxer shorts and proceed to mime animatedly whilst ironing shirts to a cheesy auto-tuned R&B number.

It’s an attention-grabbing opening gambit, but not a particularly funny one. This, in general, is the problem with Cardinal Burns.

After being nominated for the if.comedy award for their previous incarnation Fat Tongue, Cardinal and Burns return with a two-man sketch show that tries awfully hard, but never truly takes off. Many of the sketches here are well conceived, and there are moments where it all comes together and the show is genuinely funny, if only for a second – such as the routine in which a director

instructs an auditioning actor through the motions for a decidedly bizzare soft drink commercial, or where Cardinal hosts a This Is Your Life-esque show for thoroughly average people.

But more often than not, the sketches fall flat or revert to tired comedy clichés for laughs.

Much has been said about the sketch show’s supposed inferiority to stand-up as a medium, and Cardinal Burns certainly expose the difficulties the genre faces. Funny ideas and good acting do not necessarily translate into audience laughs, and a concept with real potential may not have time to develop into genuinely good comedy.

As it stands, Cardinal Burns get full marks for effort, but sadly fall short in the laughter stakes. [Andrew Chadwick] Pleasance Courtyard, 05:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th, Multiple prices

Pajama Men: The Last Stand to Reason HHHHH A fluid ability to occupy multiple personalities verging on the schizophrenic: not the most conventional compliment. It is however the most appropriate when describing Mark Chavez and Shenoah Allen, otherwise known as The Pajama Men. The intensity with which they animate characters, such as a crazed gunman with an invincible son named Dan or trailer-trash mermaids, leaves you eagerly anticipating their reappearance in the narrative.

There is something distinctly childlike about two men dressed in pyjamas, constructing an entire

imaginary journey with just two chairs and innumerable caricatured voices. But the execution is polished, and they are a genuinely tight and funny duo. The camaraderie between them is clear as they cover for one another during the (very minor) technical glitches and

30 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

slip-ups.

During a scene featuring a reluctantly romantic Frenchman and an unspecified but very tiny “Cute Thing,” they hold hands and stare into each other’s eyes, and this reviewer feels an unspecific but decidedly warm and fuzzy feeling

unsurpassed since Lady and the Tramp nuzzled meatballs.

This is perhaps due to the pair’s ability to evoke entire characters, complete with back-story and irritating affectations, with little more than the tilt of a head or a particular cadence of speech.

Sadly, Chavez and Allen also share a tendency to milk certain mimes to the point of tedium. Conversely, their co-star Dominick Campbell is underused, the predictable soundtrack he provides seeming to confine his abilities. His sole vocal in the finale gives a tantalising glimpse of a talent not yet fully tapped. [Susan Robinson] Assembly @ George Street, 07:25PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Jason Cook: Fear HHHHH “If you ever find yourself in an Arab prison....” Jason Cook, like most comedians, has his own onstage persona. Oddly, though, his spell in a Libyan jail following a conviction for maritime piracy sits somewhat at odds with it. While his manner may be that of a fearful, somewhat nerdy youngish man, Cook has had a remarkable life, and

one which makes for truly uplifting comedy.

It’s easy to become fed up with comedians who manage so consistently to find themselves in such pickles – or so they claim.

Trips to the supermarket become platforms for wildly exaggerated anecdotes about standing in the queue without the correct change.

Or something. But tales of Cook’s former alcoholism, his fear of clapping toy

monkeys, his anticlimactic attempt to abseil heroically down the side of Auckland’s Sky Tower—video evidence provided—err on the side of understatement. The comedy springs, sometimes gently, sometimes more brashly, from the actions of a deeply flawed man. But then again, as he tells us, “we’re all freaks, really.”

It’s perhaps because he’s so genuine that Cook manages to draw real pathos from his narratives. The Arab prison anecdote steers clear of the potentially fruitful ground of jail rape

jokes, firstly because Cook has sensibly written a show which works in his afternoon slot rather than ploughing on with a raucous evening set. Secondly, and more importantly, in a show about his myriad fears, Cook admits that he still finds the story upsetting.

For a stand up to admit as much, perhaps takes more balls than any common-orgarden attempt at piracy.

[Evan Beswick]

mind he describes taking him over in the lonely hours of evening; all of which serves to satirise faultlessly the duplicity of the professional gentleman.

Previous year’s reviews have made patronising mention of “comedy friend” and

former BBC6 radio co-host Russell Howard to buoy support for the comic. But with This Guy at Night, the vulnerable and endearing Richardson surely breaks out of any shadows and into a limelight of his own. A meticulously arranged deconstruction

of a life spent in constant fear of proper etiquette, this must be Richardson’s most proficient offering yet. [Chris Williams]

The Stand III & IV, 03:20PM, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, prices vary

Jon Richardson: This Guy at Night HHHHH By turns a cleanliness freak, a loner and—this year—a perfectionist whose only happiness comes from a Sky TV subscription and a ruthless determination to submit to convention, Jon Richardson is frank when it comes to how little hope he holds out for himself in life.

Ruining every relationship he enters and making ridiculous and unreasonable demands of his loved ones, the comic spends his days traipsing round London filled with an intense hatred for all those who dare to smile or take pleasure in a sunny day in the capital.

The perfect caricature of the British middle-class misanthrope, Richardson draws out every snobbish and protocol-obsessed thought his audience has ever felt, burning it into delicious insignificance under the magnifying glass of his own contempt for easy sociability. His pleasant on-stage demeanour—“I know it’s incredibly hot in here so, if you do need to take a breather, just go”—sits at odds with the petty and self-obsessed

32 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Pleasance Courtyard, 08:30PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Rob Rouse HHHHH Crude comedy can be a hazardous business. Performers run the risk of taking things too far and reaching a point at which their audience, rather than seeing the funny side, begin to wonder what on earth they have just paid to see.

Rob Rouse treads a fine line on this front, often pushing the boat out as far as it will go. There are a number of moments during his act when you can’t help but think that the Englishman is going to overstep the mark. Yet, to his credit, this never seems to happen. Rouse always manages to prevent himself from making any fatal mistakes, keeping his act just at the point where it is still funny.

This year’s offering surrounds the last 12 months in the life of the 35 year-old, from the birth of his son to the adoption of a ‘second-hand’ dog. Rouse has a fantastic ability to take largely ordinary events, such as preparing for childbirth, and turn them into hilarious sketches to which the audience can often relate. At the same time, he uses language brilliantly, illustrating his articulate side throughout and resorting to coarser language only when beneficial.

This show is not for the sensitive. Rouse has no fear in taking vividly sexual acts - normally those carried out by his ‘sexually deviant’ dog - and acting them out onstage. However, for those who don’t mind their comedy probing into the world of the borderline obscene, Rouse’s portrayals offer some hilarious moments: he certainly knows how to do crude well.

[Nick Eardley] Pleasance Courtyard, 09:00PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, Multiple prices

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Tiffany Stevenson: Along Came A Spider HHHHH Tiffany Stevenson is no stranger to the Fringe, having performed at the Festival since 2005, and starred alongside names such as Stewart Lee and Phil Nichol.

Her latest solo comedy act, Along Came A Spider, is a journey through the events of her life, culminating in a firm belief that one need not always stick to the plan.

Sadly, it fails to captivate.

Sitting through this show feels like picking the seat next to the raving madwoman on the bus and wondering if you’ll ever make your destination. Stevenson runs through a plethora of predictable jokes, paying precious little attention to coherence.

Although she has a certain charm and no lack of energy, a nice smile can’t save her material, which has plenty of shock value but little genuine wit. By taking pauses to help latecomers to their seats, and having to explain poor jokes to the audience, Stevenson further robs the performance

Shane Langan: Not Also But Only HHHHH If bad writing is an art, Shane Langan is well on his way to mastering it. An intense literary reading in the cramped Gilded Balloon Turret could only be a recipe for awkwardness – a dynamic that Langan sets out to exploit by means of calculatedly terrible forays into short stories, confessional poetry, and a cheerleading trade magazine for the dairy industry. With his scruffy tie and thick-rimmed glasses, Langan’s aspiring writer looks every inch a 21stcentury Adrian Mole, and his opening reading (from a

of any narrative drive.

An overly broad of topics, from teenage mums to Bryan Adams and abortion, makes for a confusing and untidy show. In her eagerness to give the bewildering act some semblance of theme, Stevenson keeps returning to the subject of spiders, throwing fact after irrelevant fact about our eight-legged friends at the audience without it having

any direct relevance to her current topic. To be fair, Stevenson tries her best to keep the audience onside in a cramped and uncomfortably hot venue, but ultimately this feels more like a hostage situation than a comedy show. [Marthe Lamp Sandvik]

romantic/action/political/spy novel entitled Tainted Milk?) wins over a young audience with an affectionate pastiche of overenthusiastic schoolboy fiction.

The gentle, endearingly cheeky tone is sustained throughout. A delightfully silly diary entry bemoaning a bullying pet (“My cat shat on the mat in my flat; my cat, my cat’s a twat!”) is followed by the highlight of the show: the poignant tale of a lonely soul who wakes up every night to find Count Dracula sitting on his lavatory and waiting for a manly chat.

When comedy gets that surreal, there’s no way of telling whether it’ll work.

Langan may end up having second thoughts about a second short story, about a little girl who skins a dead squirrel and attaches it to a robot, which is plain confusing. And while his satirical digs consistently raise a laugh, the targets can seem obvious: the excerpt from the memoirs of a puddle-deep TV personality chases some well-worn lines of attack.

He’s nailed the gawky charm needed to pull his concept off; all that’s needed is a few more truly terrible ideas.

[Simon Mundy]

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, Multiple prices

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 02:00PM, 05Aug–31Aug, not 17th, £7.50

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 33

festcomedy Janeane Garofalo HHHHH Zealous is too weak an adjective to describe Janeane Garofalo’s left-leaning liberalism, and it would be logical to think that—in the era of our great leader Obama—a comedian with such a pedigree would find the postBush world a little difficult to satirise. But with the newly disenfranchised and increasingly vocal Republicans firmly in her sights, the wildeyed comedian has certainly found enough racist, sexist and homophobic Fox News quotes to fill her set.

Coming to the Fringe off the back of a performance at Suffolk’s Latitude Festival that—to use her own term— bombed, the 24 and West Wing star is no doubt a little sick of us reticent Brits already. Although in Edinburgh there are certainly enough laughs for her to remain on stage for the full hour, weak, slow material and a tendency

to stray along blind-ending and unamusing tangents means that this poorly rehearsed show cannot be received well.

Ultimately Garofalo is overcome by the same sense of irrelevance that besets all American political comedians in the UK. British comedy having thankfully left the ragged and bloodied remains of Thatcher to compost many moons ago, the actress is left looking outmoded and sounding tired. More personal material about adolescent sexual misadventures and her love-hate relationship with alcoholism is promising, but is hurriedly crammed into the dying seconds of an over-running show. With Garofalo billed as the highlight of the Gilded Balloon’s 2009 programme, questions must surely be asked about the booker’s judgement on this occasion. [Chris Williams] Gilded Balloon Teviot, 08:30PM, 06 Aug—15 Aug, £12.00

Hugh Hughes: 360 HHHHH Hugh Hughes is a happy man. He maintains a kind of manic, childish enthusiasm throughout this show - his first straight stand-up outing after a string of well-received storytelling performances - whether he’s introducing one bemused audience member to another as they take their seats, or bidding a cheerful farewell to a punter with the temerity to leave. His relentless refusal to be cynical or gloomy gives him the air of a slightly overbearing children’s TV presenter, and the non-stop positivity can occasionally be wearing.

But all this bounciness isn’t incidental. The impor-

tance of maintaining a sense of fun is actually his show’s subject matter, and Hughes’ jokes are all morality tales with the same message: don’t get too caught up in being a serious grown up; remember to remain, on some level, a child. 360 is the

34 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

story of how he went back to Anglesey as a young man, after finding himself jaded and disillusioned in London.

To cheer himself up, he decided to climb Snowdon with his old friend Gareth, but found himself increasingly annoyed by the endlessly

repeated jokes which used to form the glue in their friendship.

In a few witty vignettes, Hughes gives an account of this friendship, from childhood to the mountaintop crisis. The story is both expertly structured and wittily delivered, although this artistry is sometimes hidden behind Hughes’ madcap, grinning, pantomimeesque onstage persona. The whimsy occasionally grates, and the show offers smiles rather than belly-laughs, but Hughes’ childish enthusiasm and his genuine storyteller’s skill ultimately prove a winning combination.[Ed Ballard] Pleasance Courtyard, 07:05PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 17th, Multiple prices

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festcomedy Carey Marx: The Doom Gloom Boom HHHHH Carey Marx is the dark heart of the ‘Stand Pack’, that band of Fringe comedians whose names have become synonymous with Edinburgh’s only permanent comedy venue. Marx is a proper club comedian, edgy, dark and a little dangerous; and his 2009 offering, The Doom Gloom Boom, is a convoluted half-apology, half-assault on our current obsession with doom-mongering.

Marx has a real knack for setting an audience on edge without being repugnant - something of a gift given how close much of his material cuts to the bone. His ability to offset a joke about, say, the death of conjoined twin babies on Christmas Day, by merely putting on a “What?

Me, miss?” schoolboy expression is almost absurd.

The first act of the set is based around a conversa-

tion which takes place some 40,000 feet in the sky (on a plane, I should point out; Marx is no surrealist) between him, an airheaded woman and a Geordie misogynist. Through this, he explores topics as diverse as global warming and Northerners’ hygiene standards. He then travels some 100 years into the future to a dystopia in which health and safety legislation reigns supreme: a relatively pedestrian topic rendered surprisingly fresh by some excellent writing.

What lets this set down is not the strength of Marx’s jokes. Rather, there is no real sense of flow or variety and the set can feel unaffecting as a result. Marx’s staccato delivery, though impactful in small bursts, is tiring when spread across an hour and ultimately he’s hard work to truly engage with. [Ben Judge] The Stand II, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, £7.00-£8.00

John Gordillo: F**konomics HHHHH “May I recommend Jim Jeffries, ladies? Very sensitive, very erudite” calls John Gordillo after two middleaged women as they trot out of the venue, affronted by his reference to “cumguzzling sluts”. They’ve completely missed the point he’s making—mocking the porn-generated myth of female sexual availability—and if it’s casual misogyny you’re after, you won’t find it in Gordillo’s act.

On the contrary, Gordillo boldly defies the supposed trend of ‘New Offenders’ in male stand-up to discuss ‘fuckonomics’, a term which can be broadly described as the numerous sacrifices and

unspoken compromises that are made through sex and relationships.

Gordillo’s determination to stick rigidly to his theme is the sole stumbling block that drags down what is otherwise an hour’s worth of amusing, poignant and

36 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

thought-provoking material.

Nonetheless, the comic’s exploration of his relationship with his step-daughter— often infuriating, always funny—is worth the ticket price alone. As the show progresses, the awkward, reluctantly paternal Gordillo

moves from referring to the 14 year old as “a fucktard” or “a hormonal, Old Testament God,” to the realisation that he does want to attempt to be a decent father figure.

Occasionally, Gordillo’s observations come out sounding like slightly less trite versions of Carrie Bradshaw’s Sex and the City ramblings – “sex is this animal thing and yet the consequences are social”.

But Fuckonomics is still a valuable show, because here is a comedian who can still tell a brilliantly filthy sex joke whilst maintaining an honest portrayal of relationships between men and women.[Fern Brady] Pleasance Dome, 08:10PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

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festtheatre theatrepicks The Hotel

Leatherface » 58

A dark and unexpectedly touching story of human desparation

Written and directed by festival favourite, Mark Watson, The Hotel is the latest of many comedy/theatre crossovers to hit the Fringe. Fawlty Towers-meets-interactive art, the play’s cast of comedians makes up the fictional establishment’s staff, while the audience become hotel guests. They’re taken through 10 rooms, each of which is home to various caricatures associated with the hospitality industry: from over-zealous fitness instructors and excessively bureaucratic admin officers to a bar and restaurant with questionable waiting staff. The Hotel’s premise seems designed to be at once engaging and light-hearted, yet technically challenging. Potentially another success for the multitalented Watson.

Assembly @ George Street, 04:15PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Stefan Golaszewski is A Widower

After a sell-out month and a host of five star reviews for his 2008 theatrical debut, Golaszewski returns to Edinburgh this year with his new play, Stefan Golaszewski is a Widower, at the Traverse. The piece is set in 2056, when a 75-year-old Golaszewski mourns the death of his wife and reminisces about their life together.

Traverse Theatre, Various times, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Luck

David Leddy's White Tea » 49 A fragile and sympathetic friendship lies at the soft heart of this Japanese-themed piece

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Luck is the critically acclaimed confessional theatre production fro Megan Riordan. Based around her childhood experiences of life as the daughter of a professional gambler, Riordan teaches her audience some of the tricks of the trade while simultaneously plucking at the heartstrings. With chance dictating the show’s outcome, this may well be worth a punt.

Underbelly’s Hullabaloo, 08:10PM, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

festtheatre Beachy Head HHHHH In the first few minutes of Beachy Head, two filmmakers find something chilling among the hours of footage they’ve recorded on the eponymous Sussex suicide spot: a man walks to the edge of the cliff, removes his jacket and boots, and steps into space. After a few seconds, one asks the other, “shall we watch it again?”

It’s a great moment, and captures the best qualities of this black comedy about our fascination with death.

Contacting the grieving widow, the film-makers begin planning a film which commodifies her grief with pretty lighting and an emotional soundtrack. These scenes, as the filmmakers try to impose their vision of suicide onto the sad reality, are wittily scripted and well performed; their morbid fascination with suicide contrasts well with Hannah Barker’s down-toearth pathologist. However, the play is weaker as a psychodrama about depression; worse still as a depiction of the suicidal act itself. Some

set pieces are heavy-handed, such as when Steven, the dead man, reanimates to recite his final diary entry – itself too mawkish to capture the desperation of someone about to take his own life.

But there are snatches of the quality which earned this company a Fringe First award in 2007. The moment when the deceased wanders onstage, only to advise his wife to check out a dodgy light-fitting, is unexpectedly touching; so is a hopeless phonecall Steven makes to a depression helpline moments before his jump. Such moments redeem Beachy Head, even if it’s not a complete success. [Ed Ballard] Pleasance Dome, 05:25PM, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th, Multiple prices

Snatch Paradise HHHHH As a shrieking siren heralds the approach of five women dressed like hookers at Halloween, it soon becomes clear that no noise could better set the tone for this, one of the most rabidly obscene hours on offer this year.

Snatch Paradise marks the return of writer Van Badham, the Australian former anarchist who Fringe audiences last saw bating fundamentalists with 2007’s Cash in Christ.

This time it’s a trashy attack on vulgar modern celebrity, tracing the downfall of amnesiac boyband member D-Star (played in a felt-tip goatee

40 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

by a slapheaded Shannon Dooley) and his cutthroat tart of a girlfriend. Stripping all glamour from the age of sex tapes, fake tits and orchestrated paparazzi traps, this barrage of bad taste achieves little more than an exercise in pushing boundaries.

The cast members compete to be the most repulsive, diving headlong into their roles – and here that can mean anything from swaggering around with stuffed crotches to pointless nudity, to sexual slapstick, convulsing and thrusting in a manner as grotesquely puppet-like as the vacuous C-listers they play.

The music, meanwhile, is

deliberately schmaltzy and hamfistedly provocative, scoring points for accurately parodying the likes of the Pussycat Dolls. At its heart it is irreverent, anti-consumerist—maybe even feminist—but these sentiments are lost in a show rammed home with such brutal force that any hope of Badham making her audience think (rather than simply recoil) is quickly dashed. This, the theatrical equivalent of being battered with a dildo wrapped in a copy of Heat, will leave you longing for a good scrub. [Lyle Brennan] Underbelly, 10:05PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, Multiple prices

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festtheatre The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church

by Daniel Kitson HHHHH In early 2007, Daniel Kitson was looking for a new house. His friends had all largely abandoned London in search of “somewhere nice to live” and, with an ever decreasing social circle, he was considering following suit. Then one morning, in a burst of uncharacteristic activity, he decided to up sticks and relocate to Yorkshire, where he grew up.

But while being shown around one potential new abode, Kitson made a discovery that would put not only his house-hunting, but also much of his life, on the back-burner. In the dusty loft, amidst a jungle of boxes, he finds a suicide letter from a Mr Gregory Church.

Unable to banish it from his mind, Kitson negotiates for himself the ownership of the contents of Mr Church’s loft; dozens and dozens of boxes full of letters sent, received and meticulously categorized by the eponymous dead man. And meticulously, over a period of weeks and months, Kitson pieces together the life of this complete stranger: The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church is his life story.

This production is Kitson’s follow-up to his Fringe First-winning 2008 show 66a Church Road: A Lament, Made of Memories and Kept in Suitcases. A stand-up comic by trade— and a Perrier-winning one at that—Kitson’s so-called “story-shows” have for six years now been established as genuine theatrical

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highlights. And be under no illusions, …Gregory Church is every bit as good a monologue as one could expect.

Ultimately, this is a tale of compassion, of redemption through human contact and friendship. As Kitson unpacks Gregory Church’s letters, he learns of the desperation of a man on the edge, and of the people who offer him salvation. There’s a tenderness in this performance, a real celebration of the small and often spectacularly banal things that individually mean nothing, but taken together are what makes

a person who they are. We come to genuinely care for this man, this stranger, as though he is the most important person in the world.

But this is not just a story of Gregory Church’s life, it’s a story of modern life. It’s a story of the loneliness of modern society, of the atomizing impact of neo-liberalism and a nostalgic look back at a time before email ushered in an era of meaningless communication. Yet it is optimistic; its message is one of hope.

It celebrates friendship, it celebrates people, interaction and ultimately love.

It is a genuinely beautiful piece.

Kitson lovingly paints Gregory Church’s world in the most vivid terms. His highly energetic, enthusiastic and yet distinctly vulnerable delivery is honesty itself. There’s nothing bombastic about this production, nothing spectacular or show-stopping: what makes it so utterly captivating is its overarching humanity. [Ben Judge] Traverse Theatre, 10:15PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th, 29th, Multiple prices

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 41

festtheatre Rent HHHHH The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent has an admirable history. Based on Puccini’s opera, La Boheme, the off-Broadway production subverted the essentially conservative nature of the medium, injecting drugs, sex and bohemian excess into a familiar set-up. A lengthy Broadway run, critical acclaim and a film quickly followed. Few were immune to its charms, in spite of its dark and moving subject matter: the AIDS epidemic of 1980s New York.

2009 sees Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group attempt to grapple with the material. And grapple they do. While the amateur cast undoubtedly give their all, the profoundly uneven singing, acting and, most painfully, dancing ability lets the show down. This would be forgivable had it not been for the slightly-above-average ticket price. But despite the energy levels, for a demanding Fringe audience, this production simply does not satisfy. The actors playing Collins, Angel and Roger stand head and shoulders above their colleagues, and clearly have bright futures ahead of them, but when basic voice projection issues render entire songs almost incomprehensible, there is a critical problem. Even taking the production’s low-budget credentials into account, it is difficult to overlook the presence of actors onstage who, put simply, don’t cut it.

In its Broadway incarnation, Rent absolutely deserves its bucketloads of critical acclaim. Regrettably, this student endeavour does not. [Adam Knight] Multiple locations, Various times, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 9th, 10th, Multiple prices

East 10th Street: Self Portrait With Empty House HHHHH Brought to the UK by the multi award-winning Richard Jordan Productions, East 10th Street is the autobiographical piece from the former posterboy for New York theatre’s avant-garde scene. Describing a cast of characters and a setting that is reminiscent of Augusten Burroughs’ equally eccentric memoir Running with Scissors, Edgar Oliver paints an image of a New York in which people living in close quarters for years are nevertheless haunted by loneliness, constricted by their own social awkwardness.

While some audiences may initially find the playwright and performer’s delivery style off-putting—the grandiose gestures and wildly dramatic voice can seem annoyingly luvvie—anyone who is aware that this is the real Oliver, neither fictional nor embellished for theatrical purposes, will quickly warm to

Plagiarismo HHHHH Richard DeDomenici is a performance artist whose artwork is cerebral, accessible and subversive – traits conspicuously absent in his one-man lecture, Plagiarismo!

Addressing the issue of intellectual property rights, Plagiarismo! provides plenty of bite-size trivia about musical bootlegging and ripping off others’ jokes: all pubfriendly banter that doubtless come in handy. His topic is unarguably interesting and pertinent to contemporary society where the public post their every creative whim on the Internet, then cry foul of being ripped off when it turns up elsewhere. Moreover,

42 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

his engaging account, which manages to move seamlessly between grotesquery and light-heartededness. It’s unsurprising that Oliver and his sister Helen were raised by a bohemian mother yet the fact that he hails from Georgia is indiscernible when listening to his famously bizarre accent.

Though attempting to follow what sounds like a slightly camp Vincent Price takes some getting used to, it’s this very oddity that has endeared Oliver to off-Broadway theatre-goers for so long.

it is heavily influenced by DeDominici’s own experience of plagiarism and the misery it causes, throwing light on the dichotomy between our post-romantic notion of creative genius, and a postmodern society which ensures that recognition goes to whoever’s packaging is prettiest.

Plagiarismo! exposes many interesting arguments but offers them up with little panache. Each, often grainy, video clip is accompanied with DeDomenici’s oratory, too often read from the notes on his laptop. He is disconcertingly unimpassioned about his topic—even when discussing Rupert Murdoch’s tactless usurpation of his work—and this

Incidentally, the word “truly” pops up repeatedly in Oliver’s monologues, a necessary reminder to the audience that the wild characters he describes—the midget cabalist, the ancient crone dwelling in “a nest of rags”—really did exist in the lumbering old property that he remains in to this day – although now he is left only with the memories.

[Fern Brady] Traverse Theatre, Various times, 06 Aug—16 Aug, not 10th, Multiple prices

apparent antipathy gives him the air of a once rebellious cultural commentator who finds himself doing the links on a ‘quirky’ television clips show. DeDomenici is clearly smart enough to make a good job of exposing the flaws in cultural orthodoxy, but his choice of format stifles his natural propensity for creation.

Such a reliance on his PowerPoint presentation seems to limit rather than enhance his imagination and insight. Which is a shame, as it’s only really in presentation that this production is lacking. [David Stevenson] New Town Theatre 07:00PM, 5Aug–30Aug, not 16th, £10

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festtheatre The Rap Guide to Evolution HHHHH Following up on his critically acclaimed reworking of Geoffrey Chaucer’s masterpiece in The Rap Canterbury Tales, Canadian actor and rap artist Baba Brinkman has set his sights on an altogether more ambitious project: illustrating the majesty of Darwin’s theory of evolution through the medium of rap.

But a few minutes in to The Rap Guide to Evolution one could be forgiven for doubting that the two could be compatible bedfellows.

Certainly there seems to be little promise of nuance when the lines “Darwin’s got it goin’ on/Creationism is dead wrong” are repeated ad infinitum.

Fear and Misery of the Third Reich HHHHH When originally performed, Brecht’s play would no doubt have caused a stir – a series of vignettes outlining the fears and suspicions of everyday life in the Third Reich, presented through theatrical devices little seen before. The problem for a contemporary production is that Brecht’s theatrical ideas have, by now, lost their edge somewhat through overuse.

Much to their credit, this production is textbook Brecht—simple, powerful and emotional—but it plays it very straight and safe, lacking any real venom, ignoring almost the original intent. That said it is a faithful and strong production of what is an often ignored subject - the perils of civilian existence in Nazi Germany.

The set is simply made up of three black boxes, although this minimalism is hampered

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However, this is much, much more than a Christian-bashing science love-in (although, let’s not be mistaken, it that as well). This is a lovingly crafted, intelligent exploration of one of the most important ideas to come out of Western science

and its impact upon wider human thinking. In fact, The Rap Guide to Evolution is most stimulating and intelligent when addressing the social and behavioural theories associated with evolution: in one particularly nice segment, Brinkman uses Darwin

to explain the rise of rap music and hip-hop culture in a way that is far from contrived – as much social commentary as it is a science lesson.

Brinkman’s rhymes are at times Shakespearean in their beauty, but often the rapidfire machine-gun rap format doesn’t give one enough time to appreciate their sentiment.

And whilst unquestionably thought-provoking, it’s not sufficiently entertaining to warrant its billing as a theatre production. Which is a shame, because Brinkman himself is a thoroughly engaging personality and after an hour in his company one’s mind is noticeably a little more open.

[Ben Judge] Gilded Balloon Teviot, 02:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

somewhat by the seemingly endless supply of props and costumes within them.

Elsewhere around the stage, shoes are suspended from the ceiling, meekly alluding to the countless items collected and worked on by those in concentration camps – this little detail is nice, but it does tend to clutter the stage.

The cast themselves exhibit some great potential, with some suggesting glimpses of brilliance that one day will no doubt shine.

But the production itself needs to do more.

The simple techniques used just lack the depth and sharpness that Brecht revelled in. Though it is fairly accomplished and should be applauded for its refreshing take on an often explored topic, the production lacks the real drive that any Brecht piece must bring to the fore. [Richard Hanrahan] Sweet ECA, 01:15PM, 07 Aug—16 Aug, £7.50

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 43

festtheatre Cry From Underground HHHHH

The Origin of Species...

HHHHH

Adapted from Dostoevsky’s novella Notes From Underground (1860), Thorston Manderlay’s intelligent and very well-performed play presents us with a profound and sensitive study of a being too burdened by his own intellect to ‘fit in’ with a world he despises.

Manderlay himself plays the protagonist, nicknamed “Tolstoy”. It is an impressive performance, intimating a reverent nod to the works of Dostoevsky and others such as George Orwell, who have similarly attempted to relay the troubled train of thought of the ‘thinking man’: the soul acutely conscious of the hopeless inevitabilities of life, and disgusted by the ability of others to revel in its simple pleasures without carrying the awareness of their eventual decay with them.

Despite his character’s cynicism, Manderlay brings many different dimensions to his representation of ‘Tolstoy’ in the play. It is a soul which still experiences, perhaps more sincerely than others, desire, hope and human sympathy – emotions shown clearly during his encounter with a prostitute, Lisa, whom he encourages to escape from the downwards spiral in which she is trapped.

Manderlay’s polished skill in representing a man who is capable of hope, but whose hopes will always be quelled by a sense of futility, indicates an identification with Dostoevsky’s original novella which transcends mere academic understanding. [Rose Wilkinson]

Tying in with the the celebration of Charles Darwin’s bicentenary, Tangram Theatre Company’s The Origin of Species… pays homage to the father of modern biology in a light-hearted one-man musical comedy.

Playing Darwin at the pivotal stage of the theory of evolution’s development, John Hinton exuberantly takes his audience on a journey through the scientist’s life and discoveries. Armed with an acoustic guitar, Hinton’s Darwin recalls his life from childhood to his groundbreaking overseas expeditions. He even

New Town Theatre, 01:00PM, 05 Aug—23 Aug, not 18th, 20th, Multiple prices

Opening Night of the Living Dead HHHHH In this story of a theatre taken over by zombies, the action is split between a sound and lighting booth— where two friends discuss the dull working life of the techie—and the stage below, where a production of Romeo and Juliet is clumsily running its course. Joe, a techie with a heart of gold, has fallen for the beautiful and unattainable Juliet, played by a sweet career-driven girl named Lydia. As the undead gradually devour the entire cast, it becomes clear that

44 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

provides succinct summaries of five chapters from his seminal work through a catalogue of ditties which are at times brilliant—think Monty Python’s ‘The Galaxy Song’—yet can be, at other times, somewhat unimaginative.

Hinton brings an endearing, almost boyish zeal to his portrayal of Darwin, and his impersonations of Darwin’s family and friends sparkle with spot-on timing and warmth, showing a comical and human side to the scientist’s life. However, described as being “for young and old alike”, the production occasionally caters too much to this broad demographic with safe, disappointingly unoriginal and even cheap

jokes, which set it back despite moments of excellence.

In the way a circus performer might ask for volunteers, Hinton eagerly breaks the fourth wall by including members of the audience in his performance.

Charming perhaps, but the show ventures a bit too far into family-friendly territory. Ending with Darwin transforming into an ape, complete with screeching and chest-beating, it’s moments of base humour like this that mar an otherwise well-written and vivacious piece of comedic theatre.

[Sophie Vukovic]

the Shakespearean tragedy unfolding on-stage will play out against the altogether real tragedy of complete human zombification.

The script is the best thing about this performance. The dialogue is real and unpretentious, and the characters’ desires are believable. The play within the play is an effective means of adding a layer of complexity—and cleverness—to what would otherwise be a somewhat ordinary plotline.

Joe’s delivery of Romeo’s final speech (“a dateless bargain to engrossing death!”) as he awaits his coming life-in-death is quite

excellent, and strangely moving. The periods of what can only be termed “zombie action” where the characters, having undergone the processes of undeath, run around and shriek with the Kaiser Chiefs playing in the background, are less satisfying.

For the most part, however, this is a decent piece of small-scale theatre.

Modest companies such as this abound at the Fringe, but few can make so deft a show from so little. [Frank Lazarski]

Pleasance Courtyard, 12:15PM, 08 Aug—31 Aug, £7.00

C cubed, 10:45PM, 06 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

www.festmag.co.uk

festtheatre Precious Little Talent HHHHH Last year’s Fringe success Eight pushed Ella Hickson into the front rank of young British playwrights, winning numerous awards including a Fringe First. Expectations surrounding her latest work, then, are high; and, fortunately, Hickson delivers again. Precious Little Talent tells the story of an English girl (Emma Hiddleston) who comes to New York to spend Christmas with her estranged father—himself struggling with early onset dementia—only to fall in love with a local (Simon Ginty).

The show impresses with its sharp, witty exchanges, playing on differences between American and English attitudes to life, which is done full justice by

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some strong performances.

Hickson’s script is packed with dry observations and unexpected jokes, along with some established comic tropes – explaining the differences between the English and the Scottish to an American is guaranteed

to cause confusion. Ginty convinces as the endearingly confused, well-meaning Sam, grabbing attention from the start with his physical, highenergy delivery. A minor exhibition of nerves from Hiddleston midway through the performance is a tiny

deviation from an otherwise competent performance.

Expertly weaving together themes of self-doubt and personal sorrow at the loss of what makes a person themself, this one-hour round trip to New York combines an exploration of language barriers with clever wordplay. The production is further enhanced by a strong chemistry between the leading roles. Boasting snappy dialogue and some stand-out performances, Hickson’s second crack at the Fringe fully justifies her burgeoning reputation. There can be few better excuses to spend an August evening celebrating a New York Christmas. [Marthe Lamp Sandvik] Bedlam Theatre, Various times, 06 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd, Multiple prices

03/07/2009 10:42:50

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 45

festtheatre Icarus 2.0 HHHHH Icarus 2.0 is the latest offering from Fringe First winning pair Sebastian Lawson and Jamie Wood. It’s a complex, curious tale:a hybrid story combining a Promethean warning about the dangers of playing God with an exploration of the fatherson dynamic. It follows a geneticist growing his child in a jar in the hope that his scientifically endowed ability to fly will allow them both to escape the confines of an oppressive society.

But this fierce paternal love only serves to construct its own physical and emotional labyrinth within which both characters become trapped. The pair’s isolation is continuously disrupted by intrusions from the outside world, constantly provoking the two, pushing them further towards their goal.

Effective use of movement and a small stage space work to create this feeling of imprisonment.

Lawson and Wood suc-

Lochhead and Laula: Love, Love, Love HHHHH Theirs is a pairing, Liz Lochhead tells us, which has been bubbling under the surface for decades. A collection of piece from poet Lochhead and songs from troubadour Carol Laula, this should be an opportunity to see one of Scotland’s most exciting contemporary poets supported by an equally celebrated Glaswegian singer-songwriter.

For a lot of the time, however, this doesn’t really work. Carol Laula’s polished, soulful vowels sit uneasily alongside the irony, sarcasm and surprise poignancy of

cessfully create a poignant tension that demonstrates their characters’ co-dependence: on the one hand, a son’s need for his father’s affection and on the other, an adult who projects his personal ambitions onto an unwilling child. During this process of introjection, boundaries blur and roles reverse as the development of individual consciousness fails. At times, this sits uncomfortably, and ambitious transformations of character are made too quickly.

Icarus 2.0 examines the dangers of power, inferring that fatherly control can be equated with social engineering fuelled by the use of science and technology. Lawson and Wood suggest the imprudent use of science to overcome human inadequacies can only lead to tragedy.

It’s not an original point, but it is one that is very well made.

[Sarah Clark] Pleasance Courtyard, 03:25PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 1]8th, 25th, Multiple prices

Lochhead’s colloquial Scots drawl. That’s not to say Laula doesn’t possess a cracking voice, and some wonderfully jazzy, gentile chord progressions – she does. But, if anything, she’s a little too committed. Her eyes-closed, heart-wrenching crooning, in a show about “not being 21 anymore,” seems less appropriate than Lochhead’s wry grin. In a sultry blues, ‘putting on my Sunday clothes for you’, Laula does crack a smile, and the sense of relief is palpable.

Where this show really works is where the two genuinely collaborate. A Lochhead poem, ‘My mother’s suitors’, achieves this nicely, Laula’s soaring voice punctuating Lochhead’s gently

46 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

mocking recollections of her mother’s well-groomed princes charming. The pair manage a superb balancing act, here, scuffing the gloss of the fairytale stories, while still retaining the power of nostalgia to move and uplift.

It’s a shame this pair’s run is so short. One suspects that with a little fine tuning, Lochhead and Laula could hold this collaboration throughout. Love, love, love, with lashings of schmaltz, with heaps of sentimentality, but with an unflappable sense of fun might just work. [Evan Beswick] Assembly @ George Street, 06:20PM, 06 Aug—16 Aug, not 8th, 11th, £12.00

www.festmag.co.uk

festtheatre Manband They’re Not a Boyband HHHHH The show’s official Fringe programme entry describes Manband - They’re Not a Boyband as “a musical (kind of),” a misleading declaration considering that the theatre piece boasts only a single, paltry song and dance number by way of a crushingly inevitable conclusion.

It would be more accurate to describe the StoppedClock production as simply theatre at its least innovative and most two-dimensional.

The narrative depicts a man of indeterminate age who, due to his refusal to embrace his paternal role and his ten year old daughter’s penchant for boybands, neglects to buy tickets to see the fleeting pop sensation Static Motion in concert. The father, himself a boyband graduate who once enjoyed a slew of hit singles in Sweden, soon finds himself reuniting the act as his last shot at redemption, hoping to win a supermarket-

Francis, the Holy Jester HHHHH This play is a rare feat of story-telling, depicting the life of a 13th century Catholic monk (albeit the founder of the Franciscan tradition) in a manner bristling with energy and invention. Although written by Nobel Prizewinning satirist Dario Fo, this production is very much the love child of Fo’s longstanding collaborator Mario Pirovano. Eleven years after its premiere in their native Italy, Pirovano is embarking on tour with his English translation.

With a life story often controlled by vested interests

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Trainspotting HHHHH

sponsored talent contest, to enable his daughter to meet her sold-out, choreographed crushes. Naturally, he, his friends and his estranged partner learn a lot about each other along the way.

Saturated with knowingly bad jokes and a kitschy soundtrack, Manband... is most successful when attempting to provide audiences with entertainment as fleetingly satisfying as the genre it celebrates.

Where the show falters is in its efforts to derive pathos and drama from rushed characters and situations completely undeserving of sympathy or attention.

Gritty as the query is, lines such as “What the fuck are you looking at, perv?” have no place in what is otherwise a frothy romp. [Lewis Porteous]

(not least the Catholic church) and often mistakenly depicted today, the eponymous saint receives what is billed as an impassioned depiction of his true, if forgotten, legacy.

Folk tales are weaved together to create an enchanting depiction of 13th-century Italy. The play is structured episodically, choosing four separate events from the life of St. Francis; often illustrating the hardship of life and the redemption Francis finds in his faith.

Pirovano gives a hypnotic performance as a range of characters from 13thcentury Italy: from popes to wolves to St Francis himself.

He manages to create a main character both wholesome

and flawed. Even in asides and ad libs, Pirovano is effortlessly charismatic; his charm creates empathy, enhancing the play’s attempts to portray an uncensored account of Francis’s life. Fo’s touches of wry humour save the play from becoming too embittered, and the obvious pleasure Pirovano takes from the material makes it an overall positive experience.

Thought-provoking and entertaining, Francis, the Holy Jester is an enjoyable feat of storytelling with a keen heart at its core. [Jennifer Blyth]

Sweet ECA, 06:35PM, 06 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

Pleasance Courtyard, 03:00PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th, Multiple prices

Transferring Irvine Welsh’s frank, disturbing novel to the stage is no mean feat, particularly when it already comes with a hugely popular movie in tow. Fortunately, Dan Todd makes for a convincing Mark Renton, the affable antihero forever trying to quit heroin, and despite the odd stumbled line, plays out the extended narration with great talent.

From the outset, when we are greeted by his naked, filthy body, Todd’s enthusiasm for the role is infectious, making the audience feel part of Renton’s life, humour and habit, and endearing us to a character it is sometimes repugnant to like.

In contrast, the supporting cast are far weaker. Aside from a brilliant portrayal of Franco Begbie by Arthur Hailstones and Jordan Bergston’s Sick Boy, the remaining characters fall flat. There is talent on stage, but Todd seems to be carrying several colleagues, whose failure to lose themselves in character results in some uncharismatic, dry scenes.

Much acclaim has been given to Harry Gibson’s adaptation of the novel although its eyecatching non-linear structure, flitting between various depraved scenes in Renton’s life, is in fact borrowed from Welsh’s original work. The complex dynamics of the text seem to tie this production in knots: we end up with a strong start marred by a slow finish, with declining enthusiasm and clumsy set changes.

That said, it’s still an insightful, shocking glance into a world most of us are fortunate enough to avoid.

[Hannah Atkinson] Sweet ECA, 08:10PM, 08 Aug—15 Aug, £12.00

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 47

festtheatre Bongo Club Cabaret HHHHH

The Kosh in The Storeroom HHHHH

Hosted by the authentically decadent Dusty Limits, Bongo Club Cabaret serves as an incestuous showcase for a rotating bill of “desperately poor performers,” many of whom are due to spend their August entertaining under the auspices of Edinburgh’s ‘original multiarts venue’. As Limits announces, to ripples of laughter, that he is to open the event by performing an ode to self harm in the tradition of Cockney music hall, few audience members expect the corseted MC to prove quite so adept in both his vocal delivery and capacity for physical comedy – skills which, in effect, hold the sprawling affair together.

A boundlessly charismatic performer, Limits is capable of evoking the variety and spirit of his entertainment heritage, infusing it with the light, selfconscious cynicism and sense of urban dread which tends to permeate Bongo Club Cabaret.

Over the course of the show’s 75 minute duration, audiences bear witness to an embarrassing wealth of variety as a curiously lecherous comedienne finds herself sharing the stage with an acrobat, a Romanian Gypsy folk duo and a Smurfish starlet.

Naturally, given its ramshackle nature and the diverse range of performers involved, the show is far from consistent. One noticeable lull occurs when Limits speaks of an absent author with what appears to be genuine malevolence, the show’s unscripted nature betraying itself. More often , though, this is refreshingly spontaneous and true to the spirit of the Fringe. [Lewis Porteous]

Fringe veterans The Kosh return with a one-woman theatre piece, which, after a slow start, has all the hallmarks of the quality one has come to expect from them. Telling the story of a showgirl trapped by her love for a married playboy, Siân Williams weaves a web of suspense, that culminates in a memorably dramatic finish.

Technically, the piece is near flawless. The creative use of costume and props, and their well-timed, subtle changes, bring the complex piece together without distracting from the dialogue or movement on stage.

Similarly, the use of stage space is excellent – there are no wasted set pieces or unused corners, magnifying the illusion that Williams isn’t working alone by creating a flowing dominance of the room. The musical arrangement transports one into the showgirl’s world, although of her many talents, singing is probably Williams’ weakest.

The Bongo Club, 10:15PM, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 15th, 21st, £8.00

His Ghostly Heart HHHHH Ben Schiffer, staff-writer on the inexplicably popular E4 teen drama Skins, turns his hand to something rather more philosophical here, teaming up with The Girl Next Door theatre company for His Ghostly Heart – a 30 minute, one act play staged almost entirely in complete darkness. The setup—two characters and a bed—may not leave much room for theatrical frills, but director Dan Herd certainly makes the most of it in this flawed but engaging piece of theatre about denial, selfishness

48 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Sadly, Williams falls prey to the flaw of many one-woman shows in the occasional display of self-indulgence. Whilst she is enjoyable to watch, with graceful, powerful motions, the long solo dances which litter the production sometimes leave eyes and minds to wander. This is especially true at the beginning of the show, in particular the dance incorporating a recorder, but do begin to ease with use

of contemporary ballet in which Williams shines.

Despite this flaw, The Storeroom is a technically impressive piece of new theatre, executed with a passionate and accomplished performance from the female lead. [Hannah Atkinson]

and ego. In the darkness, seemingly innocuous pillow talk between a young couple, Tom and Daisy, soon becomes a search for the truth in their relationship.

As the tension builds from friendly bickering to a series of increasingly bitter exchanges more is revealed about the nature of their relationship, the darkness imposed upon the setting only enhancing the unsettling atmosphere. Despite patches ofweak dialogue, this tension is sustained throughout until the single, brief moment of light at the close, a strikingly effective piece of stage direction that brings the play’s central

theme to its natural conclusion.

It’s a pity then that the dialogue occasionally feels forced and overcooked, as if wedged in to reiterate a point more forcefully where it really wasn’t needed, causing the characters to sound unnatural in a setting where they should sound everyday and familiar. Yet these flaws are disguised by the intense atmosphere this play creates, and made up for by its compelling, disquieting finale. [Andrew Chadwick]

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 01:30PM, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th, Multiple prices

Pleasance Courtyard, 03:45PM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

www.festmag.co.uk

festtheatre David Leddy’s White Tea HHHHH White Tea begins with the audience donning kimonos, and the two-woman cast distributing cups of tea.

This would seem stranger still if we weren’t already disorientated by the experience of walking into Assembly’s tiny Scott room to find its walls covered with papery fabric and bedecked with origami birds. The production is insulated from the outside world; even the light of the fire exit sign is dimmed by white paper.

Inside this bubble unfolds a touching story of loss and friendship. Naomi, a Scot living in Paris, is visited by Tomoko, a Japanese nurse: her estranged mother has had a stroke (endearingly pronounced “su-tro-ku”); A N D Y

J O R D A N

Naomi must go to Kyoto.

Gabriel Quigley’s vulnerable, spiky Naomi agrees to go with reluctance: she’s angry with her mother, who always put her globetrotting career first. Tomoko and

Naomi bond once they get to Japan, aided by the shared ritual of tea-drinking. They become close, despite Naomi’s bluster and Tomoko’s timidity, and together they make some discoveries

which complicate Naomi’s image of her mother. The plot is rather flaky towards the end. A contrived twist fails to generate the intended tension between the characters, and is easily resolved.

Meanwhile, the scene is almost stolen by the scenery: incredibly versatile lighting combines with projected video images brilliantly to evoke a garden, a lake, a humming metropolis.

But although recreating Japan was clearly a labour of love, at heart White Tea is a success because its characters elicit our sympathy, tentatively forming a friendship as they come to terms with the past.[Ed Ballard] Assembly @ George Street, Various times, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th, Multiple prices

P R O D U C T I O N S

‘And now for something completely fantastic...‘ The Johannesburg Citizen

by Roy Smiles Directed by Michael Kingsbury

‘fiercely witty, gloriously silly and wilfully ridiculous....‘ Cape Town Argus E4 UDDERbElly PAStURE CowbARn 7 - 31 AUgUSt (not 18 AUg) 12.45 (14.05) box offiCE 0844 545 8252

www.festmag.co.uk AJP Pythonesque_98x68_festmag.indd 1

7/7/09 7:05:42

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 49

29 25

2 15

14

1 8

24

6 28

10

4

30

9 23

12

5

18

21 13

3 19 22

16

11 33

key venueS 1 Assembly - Assembly Hall Mound Place, 0131 623 3030

11 udderbelly's Pasture Bristo Square, 08445 458 252

21 Sweet grassmarket 61 Grassmarket, 0870 241 0136

2 Assembly - George Street 54 George Street, 0131 623 3030

12 Underbelly 56 Cowgate, 08445 458 252

22 Sweet Teviot Place Teviot Place, 0870 241 0136

3 bedlam Theatre 11b Bristo Place, 0131 225 9893

13 festival Theatre Nicolson Street, 0131 529 6000

23 The grv 37 Guthrie Street, 0131 220 2987

4 The Bongo Club 37 Holyrood Road, 0131 557 2827

14 Fringe Box Office 180 High Street, 0131 226 0026

24 The Hub Castlehill, Royal Mile, 0131 473 2000

5 C Venues Chambers Street, 0845 260 1234

15 Fringe E-Ticket Tent Princes Mall, 0131 226 0000

25 The Stand Comedy Club 5 York Place, 0131 558 7272

6 C too Johnston Terrace, 0845 260 1234

16 Gilded Balloon Teviot 13 Bristo Square, 0131 622 6552

26 The Zoo 140 The Pleasance, 0131 662 6892

7 C central North Bridge, 0845 260 1234

17 Musical Theatre @ George Sq George Square, 0131 651 1292

27 Zoo Southside 117 Nicolson Street, 0131 662 6892

8 C cubed Royal Mile, 0845 260 1234

18 pleasance Courtyard 60 Pleasance, 0131 556 6550

28 Traverse Theatre Lothian Road, 0131 228 1404

9 cabaret voltaire 36 Blair Street, 0131 225 9744

19 pleasance Dome Bristo Square, 0131 556 6550

29 Edinburgh playhouse Greenside Place, 0131 473 2000

10 Dance Base 14-16 Grassmarket, 0131 225 5525

20 Underbelly's Hullabaloo George Square, 08445 458 252

30 Underbelly’s Baby Belly Niddry St South, 0844 545 8252

20

20

27

17

Observer

fest map Key venues There are over 500 venues across Edinburgh which run festival events. Below are the ones you absolutely need to know about Underbelly

Greyfriars Kirk

Based in the cavernous former vaults of the Edinburgh Central Library, Underbelly is the youngest of the socalled big four venues. Recognised as the most self-consciously hip major venue, Underbelly is home to two bars and the late-night comedy showcase, Spank.

While hosting an active Presbyterian community, the idyllic Greyfriars Kirk has a less-than-secret dual role throughout the year as one of Edinburgh’s regular classical music venues. August continues in this vein with an extensive EIF programme.

Udderbelly

The Queen’s Hall

Easily the most physically distinctive venue in Edinburgh, Udderbelly is literally a giant, upside-down, purple cow.

With a capacity of 400, Udderbelly is the also the Underbelly family's largest performance space and regularly plays host to the biggest names in comedy.

The year-round home of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, this full-size concert hall holds host to an eclectic mix of events for the Edinburgh International Festival, Fringe and the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival throughout August.

56 Cowgate, 08445 458 252

Bristo Square, 08445 458 252

Pleasance Courtyard

60 Pleasance, 0131 556 6550

As the largest single site in Edinburgh for stand-up comedy, the Pleasance Courtyard is something of a hub for comedy enthusiasts. It's the place to discover the next big thing, to see the biggest names and to enjoy an afternoon's celebspotting in the sunshine.

Pleasance Dome

1 Bristo Square, 0131 556 6550

Situated on Bristo Square, the Pleasance Dome spends much of the year masquerading as Edinburgh University's student union. However, during August it plays host to the Pleasance's more avant garde theatre offerings. Moreover, it houses Edinburgh's famous Mosque Kitchen, the place to go for curry at all hours.

Zoo Venues

140 The Pleasance & 117 Nicolson Street 0131 662 6892

Zoo’s two venues—housing five separate performance spaces—are particularly famed for their hosting of new writing.

Modern dance and cabaret are also big here.

Medina & Negociants

45-47 Lothian Street, 0131 225 6313

Home to if.comedy newcomer nominee Mike Wozniak’s debut in 2008, Medina & Negociants are this year attempting to emulate their prior success in the newcomer market by playing host to Time Out’s Rising Star, Geroge Ryegold amongst others.

Sweet Venues

61 Grassmarket & Teviot Place 0870 241 0136

Cutting back in 2009 to 75 select shows, Sweet return to the Fringe in their Grassmarket and Edinburgh College of Art locations. Home to much small theatre and newcomer comedy, Sweet shows can be variable but some pleasant surprises are always found lurking in the programme.

The Stand Comedy Club

5 York Place, 0131 558 7272

Edinburgh’s only year-round independent comedy club, The Stand has become the venue of choice for a group of high profile comedy renegades, such as Stewart Lee and Daniel Kitson, who have shunned the glitzy commercialism of the big four’s Comedy Festival in favour of the Stand’s more intimate and authentic charm.

www.festmag.co.uk

86 Candlemaker Row, 08452 26 27 21

85-89 Clerk Street, 0131 668 3456

Usher Hall

Lothian Road, 0131 228 1155

One of Britain’s leading concert venues, the Usher Hall’s spectacular acoustics, its size and it’s world-famous organ made it a sorely-missed absentee from last year’s programme. But while the £25 million refurbishment won’t be fully complete, the doors will be thrown open in August for the likes of Sir Willard White and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Assembly @ George Street

54 George Street, 0131 623 3030

The former hub of the Fringe before its shift to Bristo Square, George Street is the Assembly rooms’ flagship venue.

In addition to two bars, the stylish Georgian complex continues to attract a mix of big names and hot newcomers – though which of these categories John Smeaton fits into is anyone’s guess.

C Venues

c @ Chambers Street / C too @ Johnston Terrace / C s0c0 @ Chambers Street/ C cubed @ lawnmarket / C Central @ north Bridge, 0845 260 1234

It’s probably fair to say that C Venues live up to their marketing buzz words, “vibrant, vivacious, variety.” With five locations in the centre of the city, there’s a wealth of spaces to fit a huge variety of new work, from the award-worthy to the mediocre.

Traverse Theatre

Cambridge Street, 0131 228 1404

The Traverse is the spiritual home of Fringe theatre. Opened in 1963 on the premises of a former brothel, the venue has long cultivated a reputation as Scotland's premier new writing theatre and represents one of the only 'safe bets' for audiences looking for quality at the Fringe.

Bedlam Theatre

11b Bristo Place, 0131 225 9893

Housed in an impressive neo-Gothic church, Bedlam is the oldest student-run theatre in the country. Although its Fringe programme largely consists of student productions—which can vary wildly in quality—you're likely at least to stumble across a few unpolished gems.

Gilded Balloon

13 Bristo Square, 0131 622 6552

Home of Late 'n' Live—the original and most raucous late-night comedy showcase—the Gilded Balloon, though perhaps the most diminutive of the big-four venues, still offers a staggering 70 shows a day in eight performance spaces.

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 51

festtheatre Anomie HHHHH

The Wayside/Riff HHHHH

Plasma television screens and single mattresses make up the modern urban world in this multimedia piece of physical theatre. Exploring the essential loneliness of individuals amid the relentless drive of city life, award-winning group Precarious presents an ambitious production based around six characters that inhabit the same apartment block but operate as unstable individuals.

Anomie offers a disturbing picture of 21st-century life where human interaction is lost as characters hide behind technology and their own destructive anxieties. One woman tries to “keep calm in my life” with an endless list of superstitions; another finds connection to the world by bringing home handfuls of dark earth. A self-confessed social recluse waits at home for an email he deletes in order to maintain his sense of isolation, while overlooking the action is a surveillance character who films the others from a distance, visually—but never physically— connecting with them.

Led by artistic directors Dan Shorten and Karla Shacklock the performers successfully invoke the energetic madness of the city with a combination of snappy choreography, sound and multimedia effects. Interestingly, the performance as a whole gets lost in its own anomie, with the characters remaining resolutely alienated from the audience as well as each other. This ties in well with the ideas under this theatrical microscope, but the lack of engagement mars an otherwise impressive and vibrant performance. [Jess Winch]

Laila Diallo creeps onstage in plimsoled feet, her delicate frame encased in a oversized anorak. She then wriggles and writhes out of the jacket, her movements exuding energy and vigor.

First in a double bill, The Wayside sets a high standard.

Choreographed and performed by Diallo, the piece is themed around the ideas of departure and loss. Absorbed in memories and pausing for moments of reflection, Diallo subtly commands the stage.

The choreography is expertly executed throughout and, given the unobtrusiveness of the lighting and sound, it’s Diallo herself who takes the credit for creating the many and varied textures of the piece.

Completing this contemporary double act, samples of work from choreographers William Forsythe, Shobana Jeyasingh and Diallo, are skilfully fused together by choreographer and performer Mattias Sperling to

Zoo Southside, 08:30PM, 07 Aug—31 Aug, Multiple prices

Certain Dark Things HHHHH Franco’s brutal dictatorship of the 1950s saw paranoia and secrecy permeate every level of society, seeping into the private lives of families across Spain and the Basque country, tearing communities apart. International theatre group You Need Me examine this era in history – an era that holds personal relevance for some of the cast, whose Basque and Spanish origins infuse the play with a sense of immediacy.

Certain Dark Things effortlessly draws parallels between the wider socio-political landscape

52 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

create Riff.

From the off, the excerpts are easily distinguished with help from a Tube station screen, flashing up the name of each choreographer to match the movement. As the piece develops, it becomes a guessing game as the pace quickens and the screen begins to show fragments of letters and a jumble of names.

At this point, Sperling is powerfully slicing through the space, seamlessly interlinking the physical bursts of movement. In an innovative

approach to choreography, Sperling manipulates the three different styles with ease and succeeds in constructing an eclectic and impressive piece. Cutting edge and complimenting each other perfectly, Sperling and Diallo have succeeded in creating a fresh and exciting showcase of contemporary dance. [Louise Black]

and the micro-drama of a repressed family. The play has a haunting quality that elevates it from a well-produced drama into something entirely unique.

Its soundtrack, performed live onstage by the actors and a lone cellist, burrows into the psyche, hiding, subconsciously, long after the play ends. Meanwhile, the physicality of the acting is nothing short of astounding: with beautiful choreography, the actors move themselves and their props around the stage like one living, breathing organism.

Mime is liberally employed, but never to the degree that the play begins to resemble some sort of dramatic étude.

While the staging is decid-

edly low-tech, every scene has a remarkable cinematic magic about it.

While the story is emotionally involving and intelligently structured, some awkward, clichéd dialogue along the way can be distracting. It is at times all-too obvious that the play was written by the cast, rather than one coherent voice. A pleasingly minor flaw, however, in a production from a theatre group with the enormous talent and subtlety of execution required to stand out in a growing sea of devised theatre. [Adam Knight]

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Various times, 05 Aug—16 Aug, not 11th, Multiple prices

Underbelly, 09:05PM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, Multiple prices

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Are you a budding reviewer?

Amnesty International’s Freedom of Expression Award honours Festival productions of excellent artistic merit which build an understanding of human rights.

If you go to see any of the nominated productions, we’d like to know what you think.

How did it raise awareness about human rights and was it any good?

For a list of nominated productions and to send us your review, see: www.amnesty.org.uk/edinburghfestivals Click on Freedom of Expression Award

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Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 53

festtheatre my name IS Sue HHHHH There’s been a fair amount of buzz, well… buzzing around My Name Is Sue, the absurd musical comedy debuting this August. Already, it has been attracting the attention of Fringe veterans such as Perrier-winning comedian Laura Solon with its heady mix of cross-dressing, falsetto harmonies and frankly surreal lyrics.

Starring the awardwinning Welsh composer Dafydd James, My Name Is Sue tells the banal life story of the eponymous frumpy heroine through a collection of weird and quite wonderful songs. James, although quite obviously in drag, makes an often disconcertingly believable woman, his performance a pitch-perfect parody of a constantly upbeat, slightly insane, piano teacher.

But there’s a darkness about Sue, which sits uncomfortably—and deliberately so—alongside an almost obscenely catchy

soundtrack. My Name Is Sue is often a very bleak play and, as time passes, we are increasingly led to question our host’s sanity. Sue pops pills and, several times, appears on the verge of complete breakdown. This is an interesting device, and one that seems to build up to something in the finale, where Sue’s manner alter-

nates between her breezy, falsetto self and something more akin to Vincent Price.

It looks as though Sue is about to be revealed as a schizophrenic, and the banal madness and drug taking teeters on the edge of making sense.

But this is not where My Name Is Sue ends up. There is no tidy ending, not even a

chronIcleS of long keSh HHHHH For the most part, this story of hardship in HMP Maze (aka Long Kesh) is fairly orthodox in its prison saga methods. Opened in 1971 for the internment of Northern Irish terror suspects, the institution’s 29-year existence is condensed here into a montage of violent, tragic and farcical snippets from sentences served by republicans and loyalists alike.

The guards are vicious and ineffectual (narrator Freddie notwithstanding) and the internees endearingly roguish. Standard fare, then – until the ensemble cast of burly terrorists

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launches into a rendition of a Smokey Robinson hit, all jazz hands and three-part harmonies. Writer-director Martin Lynch’s intentions here are plain: to celebrate the prisoners’ defiant cheer while creating pathos through songs given significance by their incongruity.

But by the halfway mark, these musical numbers begin

to grate, taking the sting out of an otherwise poignant, witty take on the Troubles.

Lynch typically sidesteps the political turmoil outside the Nissen hut walls, his focus turning instead to the human dimension.

Though the characters are mainly prison drama templates, quick-witted, punchy dialogue and consis-

slightly messy one. There’s no real sense of closure and what we are ultimately left with is a production full of ideas that gets swallowed up by unsatisfying ambiguity: it is a play which feels unfinished. [Ben Judge] pleasance Courtyard, 09:45pM, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 22nd, Multiple prices

tently strong performances save them from monotony.

The play may at times miss the point (all we see of the shockingly violent 1983 breakout is a fictional concert held as a decoy) but the hunger strike and institutional brutality at its centre are carried off with devastating effect. While this may at first seem a relatively lightweight successor to the 2008 film Hunger (also set in Long Kesh), behind the singing and the wisecracks is a compelling tale of self-destructive individuals at the mercy of ideology.[Lyle Brennan] assembly @ assembly Hall, 12:00pM, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th, multiple prices

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 55

festtheatre Midsummer HHHHH David Greig is a well-established force on the Scottish theatrical scene, and Midsummer, his collaboration with musician Gordon McIntyre, is a wonderful reminder of the intelligence and wit behind his success.

Midsummer follows the adventures of divorce lawyer Helena and petty criminal Bob, who have a one-night stand which turns into a riot of a weekend in Edinburgh.

The script is a soaring love-letter to the city on midsummer’s night, balancing poignant philosophy and pure fun.

Songs weave in and out of the narrative - although not musically complex, they are perfectly attuned to the intimate space and performed beautifully by Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon. The romance between the two characters is also spot-on; tender without being saccharine, and quirky in the best sense of the word.

Bissett and Pidgeon are both confident and practised in their roles, and make use of the inventive set and staging with gusto.

On the surface, Midsummer is an uninhibitedly joyful race through the highs and lows of one glorious weekend where anything

Gingers! The Musical HHHHH In a festival programme that this year includes musicals about online messaging and the porn industry, Gingers!

The Musical ran the risk of appearing almost tame by comparison. After all, we’ve all surely heard every ginger joke there is, even those of us not cursed with hair the colour of a discarded garden gate.

and everything can happen.

It can certainly be enjoyed on this level, and audience members who reside in the capital will get a kick out of the affectionately-dropped Edinburgh details. However, Greig’s script carries

a delicate undercurrent of philosophy as Helena and Bob, nearing middle age, try to sort out what they want from life and what life wants from them. It is this which allows the play to transcend its elements of madcap comedy

and evolve into a perfect blend of serious questions and exhilarating, emotional drama. [Colleen Patterson]

So, what could Gingers! offer us that isn’t just cheap parody? The answer is lots more cheap parody – but in the form of innumerable song and dance routines. It would be too easy to say that the performers in Gingers! are on fire, or that at least it appears their hair is, but the truth is the cast of this production are uniformly excellent.

Each of them plays a young female redhead drawn from every conceivable youth

stereotype; there’s the goth ginger, the fat ginger, the wannabe-WAG ginger, and the secretly gay ginger.

The plot, which is alluded to for, oh, at least the opening thirty seconds, is they have all come together to a retreat for redheads, to try and come to terms with their hair colour. But in a musical like this, storylines are not important.

It’s the songs we’re here for, and for the most part they are excellent, such as I’ve got

an Obsession with the Ugly One from Girls Aloud.

Some moments can seem a bit too much like youth-theatre, but Gingers! The Musical is none the less an enjoyable romp, a bit throw-away in places, but one that’s certainly worthy of your time and money.[Chris McCall]

56 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Traverse Theatre, Various times, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th, Multiple prices

Musical Theatre @ George Square, 11:15AM, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th, Multiple prices

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festtheatre leaTherface HHHHH It’s every girlfriend’s nightmare: to come home, having been fired from your job, to find your man dressed up as the chief cannibal from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

After such an extravagantly shocking opening scene, one could be forgiven for expecting an hour of over-the-top silliness. Yet what ensues is a gripping and achingly poignant study of human desperation that confirms the continuing relevance of Helmut Krausser’s play, 15 years after its controversial Munich premiere.

Krausser’s text is loosely based on the final hours of Werner Bloy, killed by a German police sniper in 1986 after taking his girlfriend hostage. The chainsaw obsession of Krausser’s

protagonist is a major embellishment of the facts of Bloy’s case, but by no means gratuitous. In a sensitive interpretation by Jim Townsend, the nameless figure’s preoccupation becomes a reflection of suburban

desperation, a sympathetic vision of an introvert in crisis – matchstick cathedrals on steroids, if you will.

Pathetic and terrifyingly volatile in equal measure, Townsend’s performance is ably complemented by

Sarah Brand, who gives a strong showing as his captive girlfriend. She a loud, unemployable alcoholic, he a shy, frustrated poet, the pair’s only common ground is their mutual unhappiness. It makes for moving—if thoroughly unconventional—romance, Brand’s character overcoming an initial terror of her unstable companion to join him in defiant opposition to the waiting police. If anything, her affection is a little too palpable: it’s hard to imagine anyone willingly falling into a violent captor’s arms quite so rapidly, Stockholm syndrome notwithstanding.

Still, this is a powerful, genuinely unsettling production.

[Simon Mundy] Underbelly 12:15pM, 10 Aug–15 Aug, £9.00-£10.00

ROMANCE, REVENGE & RARE GROOVE IN THE NEON-SOAKED MUSICAL COMEDY

Ecstatic… Soars like the Saturday night of your dreams Metro

Enormously entertaining, fullbodied and sexy Sunday Times

★★★★

Book & lyrics

Ché Walker Music & lyrics

Arthur Darvill

7- 30 August Tickets: 0131 228 1404 www.traverse.co.uk (no booking fees)

58 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

15+

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festtheatre Sea Wall HHHHH Sea Wall is about as simple as theatre gets: one man on stage, talking unassumingly under minimal lighting. But thanks to Simon Stephens’s measured, subtle script, and a mesmerising performance from Andrew Scott, it’s a remarkably affecting halfhour.

Alex seems content with life: he speaks rapturously about his beautiful wife and young daughter. His talk meanders good-naturedly – and, it seems at first, aimlessly. However, thanks to Olivier Award-winner Scott’s bashful charm and laconic delivery, the play is immediately compelling. Stephens’ witty script is sensitive to the idiosyncracies of spoken English, and the language never sounds forced as Alex talks about his work, and— more significantly—the arguments he has about God with his Christian father-in-law.

Naturally, Alex’s life isn’t as pleasant as it seems. Out

of nowhere, he makes the startling announcement that “I have a hole running through the middle of my stomach” – only to change the subject immediately. He tells us ominously about the titular sea-wall: a place in the ocean where a shallow seabed suddenly plunges to terrifying depths. Slowly a story emerges, a spiral of regret focussing on a seaside holiday, and a tragedy which the narrative only reluctantly confronts.

It speaks volumes for Stephens’ powers of restraint that the climactic point of his script is when Alex says nothing; that the meaning is plain even though he’s unable to utter the all-important sentence. By the end of this economical but moving piece, Alex’s musings on life and God no longer seem aimless; they have become urgent, and desperately sad.

[Ed Ballard] Traverse Theatre, Various times, 08 Aug—16 Aug, not 9th, 10th, Multiple prices

Don Carlos HHHHH A classic mélange of dysfunctional family drama and political debate, this Friedrich Schiller work presents a naive prince who alone can mitigate his father’s bloodthirsty appetite for war – but, for all the urging of his companion Rodrigo, is hamstrung by an overwhelming preoccupation with his stepmother. It’s a gripping plot, done justice here by student theatre group Incrementum – albeit without a great deal of imagination.

As director, producer, and founder of the company, Thomas Probert is the driving force behind this production.

He’s also a tremendously able actor; his Rodrigo is a

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subtle, thoroughly engaging study of unflinching loyalty and self-sacrificing moral decency. Occasionally, Probert’s talent throws the lesser ability of his colleagues into stark relief – not least that of Paula Chatterjee, as Queen Elizabeth, who sounds as though she’s reading her

lines in an English class.

With a bare stage and prosaic use of lighting, there’s a firm onus on the cast to convey the passion of Schiller’s emotional dialogues. Jack Holden brings home the giddy impetuosity of the title character, and has some sharp exchanges with

a convincingly angst-ridden Princess Eboli (Natasha Cowley).

It’s Rodrigo’s famous defence of liberal government, however, that forms the climax of this play. Probert delivers the stirring prose (“You wish to plant a garden that will flower forever – why do you water it with blood?”) with aplomb, but his interlocutor disappoints: playing the hypersensitive tyrant King Philip as little more than an emotionally stunted patriarch, Luke Rajah misses an opportunity to engage with arguably the most intriguing figure in Schiller’s text. [Simon Mundy] Sweet Grassmarket, 02:00PM, 07 Aug—23 Aug, Multiple prices

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 59

festtheatre Murder Mystery Musical HHHHH Murder Mystery Musical is a distinctly British affair.

It tells the story of Morgan Tremain, a deceased pop impresario who summons his extended family (a host of saucy, buxom women, an estranged brother and an agent) to an exotic island outpost for his funeral.

There, a vicious murderer with a taste for camp killings wreaks havoc on the greedy, fearful mourners. Whodunnit? The sex hungry gossip columnist?

Or the silent, postcolonial manservant? As the possible culprits decrease in number, the atmosphere becomes tense and poisonous. The fabulous show tunes, however, keep on coming.

The show’s production team is made up of some of the heavy hitters of musical theatre. Shaun McKenna’s name precedes him, having been behind the scripts for Ben Hur

60 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Live and Lord of the Rings.

Barry Purves, who worked with Tim Burton on Mars Attacks!, has designed a visually effective stage, using little space and subtle touches to great effect.

Furthermore, the cast, on the whole, are superb.

What makes the show worthwhile is the presence of a plotline which, often, is more engaging than the songs which pepper it.

Intrigue abounds throughout, and the arrival of the charming private detective, Gaston Lemon, adds to the aura of suspense. The tunes are generally pleasant, with the pop star Natalie La Belle’s rendition of her hit ‘Breathless’ a stand-out moment of pure camp. In general, this is a fine performance of a new musical.

Think of it as a tragic story of island life – a sexed-up South Pacific. [Frank Lazarski] Musical Theatre @ George Square, 07:10PM, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 24th, Multiple prices

www.festmag.co.uk

Tickets 0131 473 2000 eif.co.uk

by Ong Keng Sen TheatreWorks (Singapore) Singapore Chinese Orchestra

Real stories of home, displacement and identity from around the world. Epic, sensory storytelling with music and cutting edge video art.

Live music score ranges from ancient Chinese music to electronica.

Students and under 18s Half Price!

Supported by

Saturday 15 & Sunday 16 August 8pm The Edinburgh Playhouse

Part of the

Supported by City of Edinburgh Council and Scottish Arts Council.

Charity no SC004694.

festbooks

Back on the road Ahead of his appearence at the Book Festival, Frank Skinner tells Jenny Baldwin about the lure of the Fringe and why the Credit Crunch is good news for comedy

A

decade on from bulldozing the comedy circuit with his amiable West Midlands swagger, Frank Skinner—in his own words, a “mouthy Brummie,who couldn’t give a fuck”—is back in business.

His self-confidence might be wavering (“I’ve been a loser most of my life. I move like a loser, even though I’m a millionaire”), but the 52 year-old comedian is approaching this year’s festival season with the same boyish charm that has characterised his career. It’s a childishness which threatens to leap out excitedly at any given moment, not least at any mention of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh holds a special importance for him: “It is where comedy started for

me. I came up in 1986 and I saw a show at the Pleasance. David Baddiel was on the bill that night, and I just thought it all seemed such a brilliant way to make a living. The following year I did my first stand-up in the city. I had my first good gig and I thought, ‘wow, I can do this.’ I have so many Edinburgh highlights... it has to be between winning the Perrier Award in 1991, and having sex on Arthur’s seat two hours after the ceremony.” In recent years, however, it’s been harder to find a pretext for making the trip up north. “When the festival comes around I think to myself, ‘what excuse could I possibly have to go up to Edinburgh this time?’”.

Thankfully, he wasn’t too hard-

62 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

pressed for an excuse this year. His sell-out West-End show, Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret, has upped sticks and moved to the Assembly Rooms.

Also on the August itinerary is the book festival, where he will talk about his latest book, On The Road, a description of the trials of life as an ageing performer about to re-enter the world of comedy. It follows the success of the bestselling Frank Skinner, first volume of his autobiography. “The first book was more a rags-to-riches tale,” Skinner confesses between chuckles; “On The Road might be described as a riches-torags type of story”.

As far as Skinner is concerned, the credit crunch provides handy material.

“It’s a good time for comedy,” Skinner reckons. “In gloomy times, British people seem to think, ‘Now hold on, we’re not having it, we’re going to go out and have a good time’. Rather than buying a new car, your average Briton decides to watch Live at the Apollo. I think that we all share a very noble quality there.” With two books under his belt, it is not surprising to find Skinner in pensive mode. On The Road exhibits his tendency to philosophise, testament to his assertion that “the life of an ordinary bloke can still be, in a way, extraordinary”.

Perhaps unusually for celebrity biographies, On the Road has been critically well received, with praise focussing on Skinner’s unwavering, and frequently profound honesty. “I kind of got hooked on honesty I suppose,” he confesses.

“When I was younger, I was changed by this book written by Lenny Bruce called How to Talk Dirty and Influence People. I was amazed by how honest it was, I found it exhilarating and it made me do things differently. I remember after I’d read it, I was in a bar with a few guys, talking to these two girls. One of the girls said ‘oh, there’s quite a crowd gathering,’ and I said: ‘Yeah, well we’re hoping that there might be a chance of sexual intercourse.’” He laughs. “I think

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festbooks “I have So many edInburgh HiGHLiGHTS... iT haS To be beTween wInnIng The PerrIer award In 1991, and havIng Sex on arThur’S SeaT Two hourS afTer The CEREMOnY.” it just carried on from that moment. I am very truthful and maybe stupid sometimes, but I’ve certainly maintained my honesty.”

The process of writing has had a profound effect on Skinner. “I would recommend anyone write an autobiography,” he urges. “It’s a brilliant thing to do for your head. It’s a bit like spring-cleaning. At the end of it you have a much clearer sense of who you

are. In fact, there ought to be such a thing as autobiography therapy, where people just sit for a long period of time and write it all down.” One thing that has become clear is that ideas develop in this spontaneous way very quickly for the West Midlander. Indeed, it is often hard for the most consciously-attuned ear to keep up with the rants about West Bromwich Albion-themed bathroom tiles and social networking sites.

Twitter, in particular, comes under most criticism, with Skinner suggesting a re-branding: “Twatter” is his preference.

“I wouldn’t even say some of that stuff to somebody I was sitting next to on the settee,” he concludes triumphantly.

Throughout his ramblings, though, Skinner is alarmingly insightful, and unfailingly funny. “Whenever I go up on to a slightly raised platform, above an audience, I’m just doing the same as I always do – looking for laughs. Book readings aren’t that different from stand-up really.. What’s great about book readings is that people aren’t as shy about walking out if they hate you.

If you have two minutes of down time,

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they’re out of there. It’s brilliant; it really keeps you on your toes as a performer.

“All audiences should operate like that. Last time, I think I lost three out of a few hundred, so I was very pleased.”

I ask what’s next in the pipeline. A novel, perhaps? “I tried to write a novel back in 2006,” he moans. “I got 50,000 words in and I just hated it. My gift is expression rather than invention. I’m not that good at making stuff up, I can only repeat real situations – things that have happened to me. Recently I attempted to revisit that novel. The problem is...”, Skinner pauses, gearing-up the punch line, “when I wrote it, I put a password on the document, and I now I can’t remember it. It’s like the man in the iron mask!” And then a last-ditch scramble of ideas: “I could publish it like that! A national competition to guess the password!” All submissions welcome.

Charlotte Square, 09:30pM, 23 Aug, £9.00 (£7.00) Assembly @ George Street, Various times, 14 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, £10.00

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Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 63

festbooks PrevIewS hIghlIghTS of The lITerary frInge

Tom leonard

lITerary TweSTIval

 21st, 6.30pm, word Power books Poet and polemicist, Leonard has been a steady a guiding voice to many young Scottish writers over the past three decades.

He has been instrumental in promoting vernacular Scots as a legitimate part of the English canon. He will be reading from his new book Outside the Narrative: Poems 1965-2009.

 14 Aug, 8pm, Tea Tree Cafe The aim is to harness the powers of the much abused online social phenomenon, Twitter, in the name of art and experimentation. Guest authors and festival-goers alike will be encouraged to express their creativity in 140 characters or less.

Jack underwood and allan bISSeTT  15 Aug, 3pm, Under the Stairs Death of a Ladies Man is Bissett’s first novel written in standard English – he previously wrote in Scots dialect.

A versatile talent, he will be performing later this year as Moira, in his “one-woman show” Times When I Bite.

His literary partner, Jack Underwood, winner of the prestigious Eric Gregory Award in 2007, is a promising young poet and librettist.

64 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

raJa Shehadeh  13th, 1pm, word Power books A lawyer and human rights campaigner based in Ramallah, Shehadeh’s descriptions of walks taken through Palestine offer an oblique look at the conflict convulsing his homeland. A treat for anybody interested in international law, walking, or the modern Middle East.

douglaS dunn  13 Aug, 3pm, Edinburgh Books Dunn made his name through incisive, socially conscious poetry focussing on working class neighbourhoods. Arguably the most respected Scottish poet of his generation, Dunn is as opinionated as ever. Expect poignant poetry and passion verging on the choleric. [Susan Robinson]

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festbooks

Beyond Charlotte Square

, , The International Book Festival isn t Edinburgh s only literary offering this month.

Ed Ballard checks out the bookish events taking place before the main event gets under way

T

he marquees may still be going up in Charlotte Square, but the few days before the International Book Festival kicks off are the perfect time to explore Edinburgh’s literary fringe, which is flourishing on the other side of town in a cluster of independent bookshops, galleries and pubs.

Based in Word Power, one of Edinburgh’s best remaining independent bookshop, the Edinburgh Book Fringe, which runs from August 12 to 22, has a great lineup, with prominent Scottish poets such as Tom Leonard and novelists including Alan Bissett, who will be reading from Death of a Lady’s Man. The bookshop’s progressive leanings are manifestly clear with talks from Raja Shehadeh on recent Palestinian history and Paul Mason on ‘The End of the Age of Greed’.

Meanwhile, the West Port Book Festival, returning after its successful

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inauguration in 2008, gets going on the 13th in the entertainingly diverse West Port – one of three streets which house bars, vintage clothes shops and, more famously, the strip clubs which give this area its nickname, ‘the Pubic Triangle’.

But its the numerous second-hand bookshops that will be the focus of attention over the next few days—at least in daylight hours—as they play host to WPBF’s eclectic programme.

The festival’s organisers take pains to avoid casting their upstart festival as a competitor to the International Book Festival—”we’re not alternative, we’re just ourselves”, goes the tagline—but nevertheless, the West Port festival, whose events are all free, does have a markedly bohemian air. Its launch party was possibly the first such event ever to offer cake served in portions according to bra size – a cheeky acknowledgement of the West Port’s faintly seedy location in Edinburgh’s Soho. And writers speaking at one particular bookshop will do so under the shadow of the stuffed head of a water buffalo (called Clarence, pictured).

In addition to the impressive lineup of poets and novelists (the eclectic list takes in the omnipresent Alan Bissett, also appearing at the EIBF, a clutch of academics and poets who’ve been translating Catullus into Gaelic, and performance poetry from John Hegley) there are several off-kilter literary events to sample. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the “Literary Twestival”, which gives festival-goers the chance to participate collectively in creative writing games on Twitter. Despite the silly name (surely a frontrunner for 2009’s Inane Portmanteau Award?) the Twestival is more than an attempt to hop on the techy bandwagon: the twitter format—140 characters per “tweet”— has beguiling possibilities for writers, especially when the intended games (pass the Plot, anyone?) get going. Back in the real world, meanwhile, punters will get to sample bookbinding or go on a magical-themed exploration of the old town. Or, if you’ve always been feared because of your skull-like face, now could just be your chance of glory in the intriguing “who looks most like Samuel Beckett?” competition.

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 65

festmusic

The Kid is alright Remixing the Pet Shop the youngest ever artist to do a Radio 1 session, , Boys, becoming , touring the States - it s all in a day s work for Unicorn Kid, the 17-year-old producer from Leith who has been noising up the music industry, discovers Chris McCall

I

t’s been a big week for Oli Sabin, aka Unicorn Kid, aka the hottest music producer in Scotland right now.

Fresh from playing a storming set at the Belladrum Festival last weekend, he proceeded to then blow away a sold-out crowd at the Edinburgh Picturehouse in support of Calvin Harris – the first of two gigs he’ll play as part of this year’s Edge Festival. He’s also has been hard at work preparing for the mammoth US tour he’ll be undertaking in October.

And there was the small matter of him receiving his school exam results.

Oli, you see, is 17. Whilst he clinched an A in Higher Music, as you would expect from someone who became the youngest ever artist to record a live session for Radio 1, he was rather miffed to only get a C in Art. “Can you believe that?” he exclaims. “Despite me getting into art school!” Sabin has deferred entry into the Edinburgh College of Art, wisely deciding instead to concentrate on his music.

The sole creative force behind Unicorn Kid, Sabin merges the electronica worlds of 8-bit and chiptone, and creates something unique and invigorating. It’s dance music, but not as you know it; it’s pop music, but better than you’ve heard it. And people are going crazy for it. Unicorn Kid has taken MySpace by storm (his page has received well over a million hits in 16 months) and has built up a huge worldwide following. As Sabin explains: “the majority of my fan base is over in the USA, about 60 per cent or something.

It’s really big over there. I don’t know why they are so receptive over there, but they seem to love it.”

Not bad for a kid who started making tunes in his bedroom in Leith, I suggest.

Sabin laughs: “I first started producing dance music about two and a half years ago. It started as a muck-about project, but over time the interest just grew and grew. As more people took an interest

66 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

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festmusic "I’m JuST goIng wiTH THE FLOw. iF i geT SIck of IT I can alwayS go back To arT School"

the more serious I took it and the bigger it got. I got a manager last October, and things have just exploded since then.”

Indeed, Unicorn Kid, unlike say, the Arctic Monkeys, is a genuine MySpace musical phenomenon – one of a generation of artists who upload their music straight to the web, cut out the record companies and find fame solely by word of mouth. The music starts as a hobby, but if the tunes are there, it can quickly turn into something much bigger. Sabin agrees. “I’ve always uploaded my stuff.

I wasn’t really bothered about how crap might secretly want him to concentrate they sounded at first, I was uploading on his studies. Instead, he explains for myself.” proudly, they are amongst Unicorn Was he surprised how quickly his Kid’s biggest fans. “They’ve been totally music began to attract attention? “I awesome. They’ve always backed me think I was surprised at the start, but and have put money into it when it’s this is all I do: I do the music, the graphneeded.” ics, the promotion, the admin, I do it all.

Despite this support, Sabin does So I work hard, and I’ve not been too admit he prefers them to stay away surprised that it has reaped results. It’s from gigs – though his mother was in always been an interest of mine, doing attendance for the Calvin Harris show. graphics and making music.

It’s easy to see why his parents have “It’s been a process of taking little such faith in him. Despite his age, Sabin steps, which have built up. I did a sessounds wise beyond his years, and sion for Radio 1 when I was 16 for Vic has set himself no agenda other than Galloway. But there’s been no kind of enjoying himself and completing his big event so to speak where I thought: debut album, to be released next year.

‘Oh, this has got really big’.” Even when Does he see Unicorn Kid as a long term he was asked to remix the Pet Shop project? “I’m just going with the flow.

Boys? “That was mad! I was on Twitter, I’ve had offers of doing song writing speaking about the Pet Shop Boys, and from other people, which is something [NME journalist] Peter Robinson said I’m going to pursue.” back: ‘You should do them a remix.’ He He laughs: “If I get sick of it, I can knew their manager, who then got in always just go back to art school.” touch with mine. So it was a nice stepping stone.

Unicorn Kid But even with all hisNAY success to date, 694 festival advoltaire 3:Layout 1 30/7/09 cabaret 06:00pM, 15 Aug it’s easy to think that Sabin’s parents

 ‘Amazing’ Edinburgh Evening News  The Scotsman  The Herald

Edinburgh & Glasgow 15th August 6th September 2009 www.nayofestival.com

0131 229 2921 Dovecot (Venue 198) · Mon 17 – Sat 29 Aug (not 23rd) 3pm (1hr) + extra Saturday shows at 12 noon £10 (£8) · 0131 226 0000 / www.edfringe.com

www.festmag.co.uk

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 67

10:4

festmusic The STranglerS HHHHH It might seem strange that in the fresh and exciting atmosphere of the Edinburgh festival season, the directors of the Edge festival should choose to launch their own programme with a last hurrah from an ageing 70s punk band. The decision, it turned out, was inspired.

Being perhaps the most technically proficient of the British punk scene, The Stranglers always had a knack for walking the tight and tricky line between artistic credibility and chart success, despite their 23 top 40 hits and 17 top 40 albums often being overlooked by rock historians. It’s the strength of their back catalogue that shines through tonight, making The Stranglers a highly appropriate

reminder of what a highly creative counter-culture can be.

Classics like ‘Golden Brown’ and ‘Peaches’ in particular get the ecstatic reception they deserve from a crowd largely dominated by middle aged die-hards, while the anthemic ‘Always The Sun’ and their classic interpretation of the Bacharach penned ‘Walk On By’ are given polished outings in a very strong greatest hits set. Second encore ‘No More Heroes’ especially brings the house down in spectacular fashion.

The band themselves put on an excellent show as front duo Jean-Jacques Burnel and recent recruit Baz Warne give a lively performance, dancing their way through an almost endless back catalogue blending jagged and sprawling guitars

with Burnels superb pulsating bass lines – amongst the finest in the whole punk canon. All this against the ever reliable backdrop of Dave Greenfield’s Doorsinspired keyboard riffs and 70-year-old drummer Jet Black’s solid beats.

Of course they did their best to spoil it. Strangely convinced that they can still produce relevant music, the band spent a good proportion

of the set playing inevitably mediocre new material. Very few bands are capable of producing exciting new material after a near 35-year career.

Sadly The Stranglers aren’t one of them. But fortunately they have enough to get by, and with rumours of a forthcoming retirement, it seems a shame that the band’s first Edinburgh show in 18 years might also turn out to be their last. [Lee Bunce]

A thriving, 3-roomed venue that hosts the best-known club events in the Capital. Catering for all genres of underground music, inc. the Utah Saints award-winning club Sugarbeat and the East Coast home of Glasgow’s legendary Optimo. Hugely popular free entry weekly Tuesday drum n bass night, Split and Indie/Electro free entry Thursdays - Sick Note. Book a booth in the Speakeasy, Cabaret Voltaires’ exclusive private area which is both sumptuous and sexy, for VIP service and cocktails at no extra charge.

Regarded as the premiere Edinburgh venue to visit to see the finest in emerging live music talent, Cab currently presents around 30 gigs a month and stages performances by local bands, nationally known artists & international breaking acts.

“Edinburgh’s most forward thinking venue” The List.

68 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

festmusic

preview: Raising the tone

P

layIng a show dedicated to one particular album has become something of a craze amongst bands of certain vintage, whether it be Teenage Fanclub touring their seminal Bandwagonesque record, or even Gomez, who this year toured their much-loved but often forgotten Liquid Skin.

The Bluetones, currently recording their sixth full length album, are the latest to jump onto this bandwagon.

Their army of hardcore fans are being treated to a full rendition of their debut, 1996’s Expecting to Fly. With their close harmonies and chiming guitars, the Houndslow-based four-piece tend towards the poppier end of the spectrum of guitar bands who exploded onto the scene in the mid-1990s. Nonetheless, they remain one of the few groups from that time who haven’t quit or descended into self-parody.

“When the idea to do the Expecting to

Fly tour first came about, I have to admit that I wasn’t that crazy about it,” says guitarist Adam Devlin. “For me, it seemed like we were looking to the past a little bit too much. But as soon as we started rehearsals I began to really enjoy it, and the first lot of gigs went well. There are a couple of songs on it which we hadn’t played for ten years or so before this tour.”

Despite diminished commercial success since the turn of the century, the band still has a loyal following. For Devlin, enjoyment is the key to the Bluetones’ longevity. “I think that more than anything, we’re still going because we still want to make music. If it had been important for us to always be an NME band then we’d probably have jacked it in about ten years ago – but that has never been the case.”

Thursday’s show at the Picture House provides an opportunity for fans, old and new, to witness a band clearly

content with what they do. Whilst he has enjoyed revisiting the past, Devlin is still looking to the future: “Those days were a very giddy and wonderful time, but now we’ve all got young children and we don’t work every hour that God sends. I guess we’re part time rock stars but that suits our purpose. We’re still a very happy band.” [Rod MacNeil] Studio 24 07:00pM, August 13, £13.50

edinburgh corn exchange FRIDAY 28TH AUGUST DIRECT FROM THE USA

live with his orchestra

TICKETS FROM £20

SEATED, STANDING & VIP TICKETS AVAILABLE

BOX OFFICE: 0131 443 0404 FRINGE BOX OFFICE: 0131 226 0026 www.ece.uk.com www.festmag.co.uk

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 69

festlistings Edinburgh International Festival 0131 473 2000 www.eif.co.uk

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 0131 226 0026

www.edfringe.com admin@edfringe.com

Edinburgh International Book Festival 0131 718 5666

www.edbookfest.co.uk admin@edbookfest.co.uk

Edinburgh Art Festival 07825 336 782

www.edinburghartfestival.org info@edinburghartfestival.com

Edinburgh Military Tattoo 0131 225 1188

www.edintattoo.co.uk edintattoo@edintattoo.co.uk

festival listings Stuck for choice? Whether you’re in Edinburgh for one day or the entire month, Fest’s comprehensive listings are essential for planning your Festival experience.

The listings are arranged by type (Comedy, Theatre and Music) and then chronologically.

Listings are always subject to change, so remember to check with the venue before planning ahead.

using the listings Time of the show

Edge Festival

What it’s called

www.theedgefestival.co.uk

02:10pm

Edinburgh Mela

♥ Adam Riches: Rogue Males HHHH

0131 3472600

www.edinburgh-mela.co.uk

West Port Books Festival westportbookfestival.org info@westportbookfestival.org

70 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug – 31 Aug where it is one of our favourites

Dates when it’s on

www.festmag.co.uk

comedylistings 10:00AM MacAulay and Co Venue 150 @ EICC, 10

Aug—21 Aug, not 15th, 16th

10:15AM Evening of Culture: Faith County II Pilrig Studio, Mon 10th

10:30AM Most Important Show of the Day B’est Restaurant, 05

Aug—31 Aug, not 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th

10:45AM Front Row

Pleasance Courtyard, 19 Aug

10:50AM Shrimps - Improv Workshop Sweet ECA, Sat 22nd, Sun 23rd

11:00AM Loose Ends

Pleasance Courtyard, 22 Aug

Shrimps - Improv Workshop Sweet ECA, 18 Aug—30

Aug, not 19th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 28th

11:30AM Big Comedy Breakfast

Sweet Grassmarket, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

12:00PM About Comedy: Stand-Up Comedy Courses Laughing Horse @ Edinburgh City Football Club, Multiple dates

Odd Half Hour

Pleasance Courtyard, 20 Aug

The Guardian Live at the Gilded Balloon Gilded Balloon Teviot, 10 Aug—28 Aug, not 15th, 16th, 22nd, 23rd

www.festmag.co.uk

12:10PM

01:10PM

01:40PM

Enough Rope

Best of Edinburgh The Showcase Show Pleasance Courtyard, 07 Aug—30 Aug

It’s Not the End of the World (But You Can See it from Here) The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug,

The Durham Revue: ‘Knees Up Mother Brown and Other Obituaries’ Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

6 Feet Blunder Sweet ECA, 24 Aug—31

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th, 26th

12:20PM Best Of The Five Pound Fringe The GRV, 08 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Collings and Herrin Podcast Live!

Underbelly, 19 Aug—23 Aug

12:25PM Early Edition

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 07 Aug—30 Aug

12:30PM Devlin’s Daily

The Stand Comedy Club, Multiple dates

Elaine Malcolmson & Niall Browne: All Kinds of Everything

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Free & Easy

The Stand Comedy Club, Multiple dates

Lunchtime Club

Downstairs at the Tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

12:45PM HELEN KEEN: THE PRIMITIVE METHODIST GUIDE TO ARCTIC SURVIVAL

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Oh, Sitcom!

The Vault, 25 Aug—31 Aug

12:50PM John Hegley: The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet

Pleasance Courtyard, 12 Aug—31 Aug, not 24th

01:00PM

Aug, not 19th

01:15PM

Aug

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Thankless Child Pleasance Dome, 05

Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

01:20PM

02:00PM 2 by 2

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 08 Aug—20 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Jojo Sutherland Stands Up For Herself The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Betrayal of Penguins Sweet ECA, 07 Aug—31 Aug

Mark Watson’s Earth Summit The GRV, 23 Aug—30 Aug Martin White Presents ... Accordions of the Gods?

The GRV, 16 Aug—22 Aug

Pleasance Live 25 1984 and All That

Pleasance Courtyard, Multiple dates

The Summer I Did the Leaving

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 06 Aug—28 Aug

02:05PM Rich Hall’s Campfire Stories

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Speak of the Devil

02:10PM

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

After the Bomb Zoo Southside, 07

01:30PM Amused Moose Comedy’s Hot Starlets: 10th Anniversary Special Multiple locations, Sat 15th, Sun 16th

Domestic Goddi 2: How to Cope

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Laughs and Loves of Henry Blofeld Venue 150 @ EICC, 15

Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of the Fringe

Survival of the Thinnest

Underbelly’s Hullabaloo, 08 Aug—30 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

01:45PM

Seymour Mace Presents Funshine!

Al Murray - The Pub Landlord

Pleasance Courtyard, 26 Aug—29 Aug

not 18th

Aug—16 Aug

Aug—31 Aug, not 19th, 26th

Russell Kane’s Fakespeare: The Tragickal Saveings of King Nigel

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

02:15PM Jo Caulfield Radio Show

Pleasance Courtyard, 20 Aug

Just A Minute

Pleasance Courtyard, 18 Aug

02:20PM

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Yianni Agisilaou in MP3Some: A love triangle. Set to music.

Downstairs at the Tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

02:30PM Minority Report

Multiple locations, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Apocalypse Roadshow Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Long Tooth

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—29 Aug, not 12th

Mackenzie Taylor:No Straightjacket Required Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—29 Aug, not 8th, 16th

02:35PM Amused Moose Laugh-Off Final The Bongo Club, 23 Aug Isma Almas Bombs The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

02:40PM Superclump The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

02:45PM Five Characters in Search of Susan Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Improvised History of Absolutely Everything Augustine’s, 24 Aug—31 Aug

02:50PM Showstopper!

The Improvised Musical- Special Guest Matinees Musical Theatre @ George Square, Mon 17th, Mon 24th

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

02:55PM Mick Sergeant: Lifeboat The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 71

comedylistings 03:00PM Alex And Helen’s Radio Nowhere Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

All’s Well That Ends The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 08 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

Amused Moose Comedy’s Hot Starlets: 10th Anniversary Special Multiple locations, Fri 21st, Sat 22nd

Hot Pink Breakthrough Balloon Show

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 22 Aug

King of Everything The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug Kit & the Widow: All That Twitters Stage by Stage Edinburgh Academy, Sat 15th, Wed 19th

Oxford Imps

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Sketchatron: Nano Bedlam Theatre, Sun 9th, Sun 16th, Sun 23rd

Storytellers’ Club

Medina & Negociants, Thu 20th, Thu 27th

Tim: Against All Odds Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

03:05PM Etch a Sketch Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Undercover Blondde (Double DD) The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 21 Aug—22 Aug

03:07PM At Home With Holly Holly’s House, 06

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

03:15PM Afternoon Delight

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Bec Hill in: If You Can Read This, My Cape Fell Off

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 29th

Hour of the Lynx

03:45PM Ava Vidal: Remember, Remember the 4th of November

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Maggie Service With a Smile

Grandee Way Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Who Killed Dead Man in a Box? The Vault, 18 Aug—23 Aug

Aug, not 19th

Kiosk of Champions 2: Kiosk of Champions!

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

03:20PM

03:50PM

♥ Jason Cook: Fear HHHH

Lights! Camera!

Improvise!

C central, 07 Aug—31

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

03:25PM Scenes from Communal Living C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

03:30PM Colin Hoult’s Carnival of Monsters Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Comic Fringes

Pleasance Courtyard, 19 Aug

Leather Dinner Party Diverse Attractions, 10 Aug—15 Aug

♥ Rogue Males HHHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Sarah Bennetto is Lucky

Medina & Negociants, 16 Aug—30 Aug, not 20th, 27th

Unbelievable Truth

Pleasance Courtyard, 25 Aug

03:35PM Captain Improv The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Matt Harvey Wondermentalist Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Aug

04:00PM Find me the Funny

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 18 Aug

Footlights in ‘Wishful Thinking’

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Jarlath Regan Man of Very Little Mystery HH

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Kit & the Widow: All That Twitters Stage by Stage Edinburgh Academy, Sun 16th, Sun 23rd

Me & Jezebel

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

The Muffia: Tight Women Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

The School for Scandal

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Tiernan Douieb: 28 Years Later Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Two Left Hands Another Mouthful

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

72 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

04:05PM Jason John Whitehead: Emotional Whitemale

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Simon Munnery’s AGM09

The Stand Comedy Club, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

04:10PM G3 - The Ginge, the Geordie and the Geek Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

04:15PM Amused Moose Comedy’s Hot Starlets: 10th Anniversary Special Multiple locations, Fri 28th, Sat 29th

Comedy and Cake Augustine’s, 25 Aug—31 Aug

Evening of Culture: Faith County II Pilrig Studio, Tue 11th Just A Minute

Pleasance Courtyard, 18 Aug

One Man Show-off

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

04:20PM Blow Up - The Credit Crunch Musical!

The GRV, 06 Aug—28 Aug, not 22nd

The Body Tights Man Show

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th, 26th

04:25PM With Sails and I Hopkins and Glover Udderbelly’s Pasture, Wed 19th

04:30PM Anthology (Volume 6)

Fergus Craig Still Watches Neighbours HHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

I’ll Always Think of You That Way

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 25th

Paul Merton’s Impro Chums

Pleasance Courtyard, 14 Aug—29 Aug, not 18th

TeakShow

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

The Sunday Defensive: Friend and Foe Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

04:35PM Scenes of a Sketchual Nature C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug

04:40PM Alistair McGowan and Charlotte Page: Cocktails With Coward Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

04:45PM ♥ Brian Gittins: Roadside Cafe Owner HHHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Jonny Sweet: Mostly About Arthur HHH Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Nick Mohammed in Apollo 21

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug

Nick Page - Jailbait

Medina & Negociants, 06 Aug—20 Aug, not 19th

Regret Me Not H

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Wilson Dixon’s American Dream

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Laughing Horse @ City Cafe, 07 Aug—30 Aug

04:50PM

Dan March Goldrunner

Bussmann’s Holiday: The Worst Date Ever

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Assembly @ George Street, 24 Aug—30 Aug

www.festmag.co.uk

comedylistings Great Big Comedy Picnic - Free

Laughing Horse @ Espionage, 06 Aug—30 Aug

04:55PM Jeff Kreisler’s Get Rich Cheating

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Roger McGough That Awkward Age Assembly @ George Street, 24 Aug

05:00PM Bamboozlement!

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Britain’s Best Mates Pleasance Dome, 05

Aug—31 Aug, not 10th, 19th

Charlie Chuck, Uncle Peter and Me

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—29 Aug

Get Up Stand Up! The Jazz Bar, 10 Aug—30 Aug

John Robins Skinny Love

Downstairs at the Tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre Company’s Oh! What a Shitty War Zoo Southside, 07

Aug—29 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Simon Brodkin: Still Not Himself

Pleasance Courtyard, 08 Aug—31 Aug

Victims of Romance

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 08 Aug—20 Aug, not 9th, 16th

05:05PM

Thought Thief

Sweet Grassmarket, 24 Aug—31 Aug

Tommy and the Weeks: Wonderbang Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

05:15PM Gerry Howell’s Incubation Hour Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

05:20PM Another Heartbreaking But Ultimately Life-Affirming Show About Death The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Inside Alan Francis & Barnaby Power

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Lady Garden

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

Simon Donald and Maff Brown

Pleasance Courtyard, 13 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th, 25th

www.festmag.co.uk

05:45PM Avatar and Cleanskin (Double Bill) The Space@Venue 45, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Cardinal Burns HH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Elvis McGonagall: One Man And His Doggerel

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Oh

C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug Princess Cabaret

Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, 16 Aug—31 Aug

VaryTales The Vault, 10 Aug—23 Aug, not 17th

05:30PM A-Team - The Musical Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Eurotrash

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 10 Aug—31 Aug

List Operators

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Shirley & Shirley - The Shirley & Shirley Show Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Nicholas Parsons’ Happy Hour

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

05:25PM

Stacy Mayer: The Funeralogues C cubed, 06 Aug—31 Aug WitTank

05:10PM

not 17th

Sketch, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll C Soco, 16 Aug—31 Aug Tomorrow’s Leaders Pleasance Dome, 05

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Mould & Arrowsmith’s Inventions Pleasance Dome, 05

Aug, not 17th

Life Of Si The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug,

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Laura Solon: Rabbit Faced Story Soup Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug

05:40PM

Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

05:35PM Comedy Bitch Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Regina Monologues

Seymour Mace and Peter Slater: Sundayland

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Tiffany Stevenson: Along Came A Spider H

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Big Trout in a Small Pond

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 08 Aug—20 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Brigitte Aphrodite in Suburban Hell Zoo Southside, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Daniel Rigby: The Mothwokfantastic

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Find me the Funny

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 18 Aug

Ginger & Black: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Harold Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Luke Wright - The Petty Concerns of Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Mike Wozniak: Clown Shoes

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

New Art Club: This Is Now

Two Episodes Of Mash

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

05:50PM Double Art History

Underbelly’s Hullabaloo, 07 Aug—23 Aug, not 12th

With Sails and I Hopkins and Glover Udderbelly’s Pasture, Tue 18th

06:00PM Best of Irish Comedy The Stand Comedy Club,

What Men Want The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 24 Aug—29 Aug

06:10PM 81/2 Songs About Love (and Other Myths) The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

Instant Sunshine Pleasance Dome, 16 Aug—22 Aug

Rants of Ringo Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Socially Retarded The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

06:15PM Mark Thomas: The Manifesto The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 05 Aug—18 Aug, not 12th

Rosie Wilby: The Science Of Sex

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th

The Boom Jennies Pleasance Dome, 05

NewsRevue 30th Anniversary

The Fever’d Imaginings Of ...

Love the Concept

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

07 Aug—31 Aug

4 Poofs and a Piano - Smoke and Mirrorballs

Sammy J: 1999 Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Special Reserve Comedy Benefit

Pleasance Courtyard, 26 Aug

Tom Basden: Now That’s What I Call Music-Based Comedy!

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

06:05PM

Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

06:20PM Alexis Dubus: A R*ddy Brief History of Swearing

Downstairs at the Tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Des Clarke - Clarxism HHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Bit of the Other

Kim Noble Will Die

Silence of the Trams

Pippa Evans Your Evening’s Entertainment

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 21 Aug—22 Aug, not 22nd The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Assembly @ George Street, 25 Aug—30 Aug

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—28 Aug

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 73

comedylistings Umbrella Birds: Sketches in a Shop Changing Room

ivan Brackenbury’s all new hospital radio Show

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Jack Mink at world’s End

06:25pM

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, Multiple dates

alex maple’s Press release underBelly, 06 Aug—30

06:45pM

Aug, not 18th

06:30pM

barry cryer & Ronnie Golden at their pique!

Bridget Christie: my daily mail hell

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 22 Aug—30 Aug

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 17th

paddy Lennox - who Does He Think He is? gIlded BAlloon teVIot,

Keith Farnan: no Blacks. no Jews. no Dogs. no irish.

All welcome. underBelly, 06 Aug—30

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

phil Kay - London Aye!

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 07 Aug—21 Aug

Aug, not 18th

Topping & Butch - Twisted!

philip Escoffey: Six more Impossible Things Before Dinner gIlded BAlloon teVIot,

the StAnd CoMedy CluB III & IV, 19 Aug—30 Aug

06:34pM

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th

vladimir mcTavish the Top 50 greatest Scots of all Time ever Part Two

The Divine comedy hour C SoCo, 07 Aug—31 Aug

the StAnd CoMedy CluB II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

06:50pM Abracadabra German Humour goes global

06:40pM Anna & Katy HHH

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug

underBelly’S hullABAloo, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Charlie Baker - The world’s greatest Show-Off

Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret ASSeMBly @ george Street, 14 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

JuSt the tonIC @ the CAVeS, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

The Animals of Butter Bridge C SoCo, 16 Aug—31 Aug The Edinburgh Comedy awards Shows MultIPle loCAtIonS, 30 Aug—31 Aug, not 30th

william Andrews: nitwit

PleASAnCe doMe, 05 Aug—31 Aug

06:55pM Jollie: Abreast of culture underBelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 15th

Max and ivan: Televisionaries C CentrAl, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

godley’s world PleASAnCe doMe, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Hardeep Singh Kohli - The nearly naked chef

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 6th, 18th

James Sherwood - At the piano the grV, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th, 26th

Jon Holmes: Rock Star Babylon

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 17 Aug—30 Aug

07:00pM African perspective: westerners Calm Down! HHH the lot, 07 Aug—31 Aug Amateur Transplants: in Theatre

MedInA & negoCIAntS, 14 Aug—22 Aug, not 18th

Best of popcorn comedy the grV, thu 6th, wed 26th comedy bus

CluB ClASS BuS, Multiple dates

Daniel Sloss - Teenage Kicks HHH PleASAnCe doMe, 05

Aug—31 Aug, not 16th, 24th

Eleanor Tiernan - Trouble

geoff norcott - The Shocking Truth About Men and women

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Kit & the widow: all That Twitters

StAge By StAge edInBurgh ACAdeMy, Multiple dates

Rebus McTaggart

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 07 Aug—16 Aug

Rob Brown: what a load of kabul!

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Ross Lee: not a lot of Sex lies and Videotape

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Shed Simove: ideas Man BeluShI’S, 07 Aug—30 Aug The aspidistras JuSt the tonIC @ the CAVeS, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Tom wrigglesworth’s Open Return Letter to Richard Branson PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Trevor McDonald’s horse orchestra Sweet eCA, 16 Aug—30 Aug

07:05pM bit of the other the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 21 Aug—22 Aug, not 21st

Hugh Hughes in ... 360 HHH

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 17th

07:15pM AAA Stand-Up

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Actions Speak Louder Than Birds Zoo SouthSIde, 07

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Jack whitehall nearly rebellious

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Matt Green: Truth & Pleasure

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

paul Zerdin: Sponge Fest underBelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Tom Craine Comfort Blanket

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

the strong breast revolution AceDome, 16:40 - 17:40 5-31 August ’09 (EXCLUDING 17 & 24 ) th

th

The Space on the Mile @ Radisson (venue 39)

2.45pm mon-sat

0845 508 8316 74 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

comedylistings 07:20PM Alistair McGowan: The One and Many HHH Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Hannah Gadsby - Kiss Me Quick I’m Full of Jubes

Pete Firman - The Pete Firman Magic Show

The Big Value Comedy Show - Early

With Sails and I Hopkins and Glover Udderbelly’s Pasture,

Tom Allen: Women!

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Mon 17th

07:30PM

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

07:35PM

How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse Zoo Southside, 07 Aug—31 Aug

Paul Foot - By the Yard Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Stewart Lee: If You Prefer a Milder Comedian, Please Ask for One

Jo Caulfield: Won’t Shut Up! HHH The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Joey Page - Eccentric Treasure of the Future Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

4 at the Fringe

Dixie’s Tupperware Party

Pappy’s Fun Club’s World Record Attempt: 200 Sketches In An Hour Pleasance Courtyard,

The Stand Comedy Club, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Adams & Rea: Blissfully Unaware HH Pleasance Dome, 05

Assembly @ George Street, 11 Aug—31 Aug, not 24th

07:50PM

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

She’s Not Just Quiet ... She’s Dead

Scott Agnew: Scottish Comedian of the Year 2008 Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

Randy’s Postcards from Purgatory Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Stephen Carlin Blows the Lid Off the Whole Filthy Business The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

The Mark Watson Edit Assembly @ George Street, 12 Aug—13 Aug

07:25PM

Pleasance Courtyard, 19 Aug

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Comedy Gala 2009 Festival Theatre Edinburgh, 24 Aug

Fascinating Aida 25th Anniversary Tour

Pleasance Courtyard, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Kit & the Widow: All That Twitters

Stage by Stage Edinburgh Academy, Fri 14th, Sat 15th, Fri 21st, Sat 22nd

Phil Cool! Who’s he?

clubWEST @ Grosvenor Hilton, 15 Aug—22 Aug

Edward Aczel - Explains All the World’s Problems ... and Then Solves Them Underbelly, 07 Aug—30

Puppetry Of The Penis

Pajama Men: The Last Stand to Reason HHH

Aug

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

www.festmag.co.uk

The Queen’s Hall, 21 Aug—23 Aug, not 21st

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 06 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

07:40PM

08:00PM

Alistair Barrie - Happiness

Downstairs at the Tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Greg Behrendt Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Shappi Khorsandi: The Distracted Activist

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

07:45PM

About the Scots Beehive Inn, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 8th, 17th, 24th

Bob Doolally: Straight in the Bawbag

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, Mon 24th

Comedy Cabaret Freemasons Hall, 13 Aug Dirty Love Presents C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Dylan Moran: What It Is

Ricky Gervais: Science

Carey Marx: The Doom Gloom Boom HHH

Edinburgh Playhouse, 25 Aug

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Sarah Millican Typical Woman

Celia Pacquola in Am I Strange?

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 12th

Aug, not 17th

Edinburgh Playhouse, 10 Aug—11 Aug

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Gone With The Script Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—19 Aug

Jason Manford & Friends at the Fringe Assembly @ George Street, 17 Aug

John Bishop: Elvis Has Left the Building Pleasance Courtyard, Mark Walker - Scorpio Gilded Balloon Teviot, Miles Jupp: Telling It Like It Might Be

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Sam Simmons - Problems

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Tartan Ribbon Comedy Benefit 2009 Pleasance Courtyard, 18 Aug

Trevor Lock - Some Kind of Fool The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug

08:05PM Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Life, But Didn’t Care to Ask The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

08:10PM Clever Peter

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 75

comedylistings John Gordillo: F**konomics HHH Pleasance Dome, 05

Unsupervised Detention

Susan Calman - The Last Woman On Earth Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

08:20PM

Aug—31 Aug

Aug, not 19th

08:15PM Colm O’Regan in Hindsight

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Craig Hill - 40 Love ... ?

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Evening of Culture: Faith County II Pilrig Studio, Wed 12th Idiots of Ants: This is War

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Jason Byrne: The Byrne Supremacy Multiple locations, 10

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Rudi Lickwood Food for Thought

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

The Reduced Edinburgh Fringe Impro Show

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug

Twelve Angry Sketches

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 14th

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Elis James: The Most Cautious Little Boy in Wales The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Jake Yapp Presents Hallo, Music Lovers!

Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

LAWV Chillers: The End of the World C central, 07 Aug—18 Aug

Lucy Porter Fool’s Gold

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Wil Hodgson: Punk Folk Tales Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

08:30PM Black Comedy

Quaker Meeting House, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Bob Doolally: Straight in the Bawbag

Clive James in the Evening: More to Say Gilded Balloon Teviot,

08:40PM

Janeane Garofalo HH Gilded Balloon Teviot,

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

♥ Jon Richardson: This Guy at Night HHHH

Micky Flanagan: Spiel Pleasance Courtyard,

16 Aug—21 Aug

06 Aug—15 Aug

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Penny Dreadfuls Present ... The Never Man

08:50PM Adam Hills: Inflatable Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 15th, 22nd

Simon Amstell: Do Nothing The Bongo Club, 14

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 25th

Sean Hughes: What I Meant To Say Was ...

Gilded Balloon Teviot,

VaryTales The Vault,

22 Aug—30 Aug, not 27th

Tom Deacon Indecisive

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Zoe Lyons: Miss Machismo HHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug

08:35PM David Longley: No Going Back

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Chris Cox: Mind Over Patter Pleasance Dome, 05

Julian Clary: Lord of the Mince

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Richard Herring Hitler Moustache Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Neil Delamere: Bookmarks

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, Mon 17th

Chris McCausland - 7 Strikes

05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Rhod Gilbert and The Cat That Looked Like Nicholas Lyndhurst Pleasance Courtyard,

Aug

Jim Jeffries: The Hits Udderbelly’s Pasture, 17

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Marcus Brigstocke: God Collar

Aug—21 Aug

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 22 Aug—30 Aug

One Man Lord of the Rings HHH

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—16 Aug

Aug—30 Aug, not 24th

08:45PM Anil Desai - StandUp Chameleon

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Des Bishop: Desfunctional Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Fudge Show The Fudge Kitchen, 10 Aug—29 Aug, not 17th

Wil Anderson - Wilosophy Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

09:00PM Frisky and Mannish’s School of Pop Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

All That Gomez Zoo Southside, 07 Aug—31 Aug

Amateur Transplants: In Theatre Medina & Negociants, 14 Aug—22 Aug, not 18th

Kevin Bridges: An Hour to Sing for Your Soul Pleasance Dome, 05

Andrew Maxwell - The Lamp

Pete Johansson: Naked Pictures of My Life Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Dave Thornton - Allow Me To Introduce Myself

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Aug, not 17th

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Hoipolloi present

Hugh Hughes in...

Pleasance Courtyard 5 – 31 August (not 11,17) 7.05pm (ends 8.05pm) Tickets: 0131 556 6550 www.pleasance.co.uk www.hoipolloi.org.uk

76 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

comedylistings Gordon Southern: The Unofficial Annual 2009

Downstairs at the Tron, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd

Jamie Kilstein Revenge of the Serfs Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Mark Restuccia and Toby Brown: Undiluted C Soco, 06 Aug—31 Aug Phil Nichol: A Deadpan Poet Sings Quiet Songs Quietly ...

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Rob Rouse: My Family ... and the Dog That Scared Jesus HHH Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Stephen Grant One Week Only

Downstairs at the Tron, 16 Aug—22 Aug

09:05PM Carl Donnelly Relax Everyone, It’s Carl Donnelly!

Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Ian Kendall’s 18th Birthday Magic Show The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 16th, 25th

The Sticky Bivouac C cubed, 06 Aug—26 Aug, not 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th

09:10PM 7 Deadly Sketches C central, 07 Aug—15 Aug

09:15PM Axis Of Awesome: Infinity Rock Explosion HHH

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th, 26th

Dick Biscuit: Private Eye

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—23 Aug

Felicity Ward’s Ugly As a Child Variety Show

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

John Shuttleworth: Southern Softies

Pleasance Courtyard, 18 Aug

Patrick Monahan: Cowboys and Iranians

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 13th, 20th

09:20PM Dan Antopolski Silent But Deadly HH Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Denis Krasnov Versus Shane Healey Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Kent Valentine - How to Love Everyone (Even the Arseholes) The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Russell Kane: Human Dressage

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

09:25PM Paul Sinha: 39 Years of Solitude The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

09:30PM

Shambles Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—30 Aug

Terry Alderton

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 27 Aug—30 Aug

The Comedy Reserve Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Best of Scottish Comedy

The Stand Comedy Club, 07 Aug—30 Aug

Amsterdam Underground Comedy Collective HH Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

09:35PM Andrew Lawrence - Soul-Crushing Vicissitudes of Fortune!

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Eric Davidson’s Second Day Soup!

Andrew Stanley - On Sale Now

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Dan Atkinson: Death By a Thousand Pricks Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Jimmy Carr Rapier Wit

Venue 150 @ EICC, 20 Aug—30 Aug, not 24th, 25th, 26th

Jimmy McGhie’s Northern Meeting

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Nathan Caton: Can’t Tell Me Nothin’ Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Philberto: Philberto’s Animal

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Rosa Waxes Lyrical

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—26 Aug, not 18th, 25th

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 11 Aug—29 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th

09:40PM Foil Arms and Hog Sketch Comedy Show Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Justin Moorhouse: Seven Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Stephen K Amos The Feelgood Factor Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 18th

09:45PM Gary Little: He Was Only Jail Gay The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Abacus Danger and the Pits of Panic

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Andy Hamilton’s ‘Hat of Doom’ The Queen’s Hall, 29 Aug ♥ Bourgeois & Maurice - Social Work HHHHH Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Danielle Ward Lies

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Lloyd Langford: Every Day I Have the Blues

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Luke Toulson: Too Many Last Cigarettes Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Nick Doody: Schizo

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

09:50PM Tim Key - The Slutcracker

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

10:00PM Aaaaaaaaaarrghhh! - It’s Bollock Relief! - The Malcolm Hardee Award Show Gilded Balloon Teviot, 28 Aug

An Evening With Ben Dover: Innocent ‘Til Proven Filthy!

Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

REELING & WRITHING AND PLATFORM PRESENTS

by TIM NUNN

THURS 6 – SUN 30 AUGUST 2009 ASSEMBLY@7 HOLYROOD ROAD (VENUE 320) TICKETS: 0131 623 3030 / OR ON THE DOOR WWW.REELINGWRITHING.COM NOT SUITABLE FOR UNDER 16s

www.festmag.co.uk

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 77

comedylistings Chippendales: The ultimate Girls’ night Out

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 27th, 28th

I wish I could be Like Andrew watts C SoCo, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Jason Manford & Friends at the Fringe ASSeMBly @ george Street, 17 Aug

Mick Ferry - The Comedy Final

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

10:15pM Barry & Stuart: powered By Demons underBelly, 07 Aug—30 Aug

GEORGE RYEGOLD TramPle The weak, hurdle The dead MedInA & negoCIAntS, Multiple dates

Monsters from my iD SPotlIteS @ the MerChAntS’ hAll, 05 Aug—31 Aug

next Door But One Sweet grASSMArket, 24 Aug—30 Aug

Monsieur Montpellier: Entertainer Extraordinaire!

PleASAnCe doMe, 05

Robin ince - Bleedingheart liberal MedInA & negoCIAntS, 19

Puppetry of The penis

Sammy J in the forest of dreams

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

the queen’S hAll, Fri 21st Reginald D Hunter: The Only Apple in the Garden of Eden and niggas udderBelly’S PASture, 16 Aug—30 Aug

Rhys Darby: it’s Rhys Darby night

udderBelly’S PASture, 06 Aug—15 Aug

The Big Value Comedy Show - Late JuSt the tonIC @ the CAVeS, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

10:05pM Kristen Schaal & Kurt Braunohler - Double Down Hearts ASSeMBly @ ASSeMBly hAll, 21 Aug—30 Aug

Aug—30 Aug, not 25th

udderBelly’S PASture, Multiple dates

Scottish falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre goes to hollywood gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—30 Aug

10:20pM Andrew O’neill: Occult Comedian downStAIrS At the tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Gavin webster’s falderal the StAnd CoMedy CluB II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Geraldine Quinn Hex and the City underBelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 24th

Marcel Lucont: Sexual metro underBelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Matt Kirshen - Shorter than napoleon PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

10:25pM Sketches before bedtime

Sweet grASSMArket, 06 Aug—23 Aug

10:30pM 4 at the Fringe

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 19 Aug

Ali McGregor’s Late-nite Varietynite night ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th

Best of ‘So You Think You’re Funny?’ gIlded BAlloon teVIot, Multiple dates

Brendon Burns: comedy good yeah Silly Side c**t

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 28 Aug—29 Aug

David O’Doherty: David O’Doh-party

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Dead Cat Bounce ... wired

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

rich hall ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Sound & Fury’s Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

10:50pM Alun Cochrane ...

Is a daydreamer (at night)

the StAnd CoMedy CluB III & IV, 07 Aug—30 Aug

10:40pM Jack Mink at world’s End

Showstopper! The Improvised musical

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, Multiple dates

MuSICAl theAtre @ george SquAre, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th, 24th

Jim Smallman - The boy next door Gone wrong the grV, 17 Aug—30 Aug The dark Party

10:55pM

underBelly’S hullABAloo, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 18th

The noise next Door: Otherworld C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

10:45pM Aidan Bishop - no Sissy Stuff

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Comedy Zone

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Old Rope in the Balloon

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Shrimps - Scared Scriptless!

Sweet grASSMArket, 17 Aug—23 Aug

The abi roberts Experience underBelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

The Moonfish rhumba Show

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 9th

michael fabbri

the StAnd CoMedy CluB III & IV, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

whose Play Is it Anyway?

C SoCo, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

11:00pM bbc comedy presents

PleASAnCe doMe, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Chortle Student Comedy Award Final PleASAnCe doMe, 25 Aug Get Happy in Edinburgh C SoCo, 06 Aug—31 Aug Is the daily mail Dead Yet? JuSt the tonIC @ the CAVeS, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Jerry Sadowitz: Comedian, Magician, Psychopath 2009 edInBurgh PlAyhouSe, 29 Aug

Jonathan Mayor and Auxiliary heterosexuals the grV, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

SIMON FIELDER IN ASSOCIATION WITH

FRANK THE MAN, THE MUSIC, THE MAFIA.

The Space @ Royal College of Surgeons Preview: 7–8 August Playing 10th–29th August (Mon–Sat) 22:15 Box Office: 0845 508 8515

A NEW PLAY BY A R COX & SIMON RAE • DIRECTED BY DAVID KELLER 78 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

comedylistings Late Night Gimp Fight!

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

Late Night Impro Fight C central, 07 Aug—31

11:15PM Warren & Hanbury: All To Bare

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Aug

11:20PM

Serate Bastarde (Bastard Nights) C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug,

Best of Scottish Comedian of the Year Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

not 17th

Sketchatron: Unwieldy

Pleasance Courtyard, 27 Aug

The Downage

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—16 Aug

The Edinburgh Comedy Awards Shows Multiple locations, 30 Aug—31 Aug, not 31st

The Gadabouts

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Time Out Comedy Presents ... For One Night Only

Pleasance Courtyard, Fri 14th, Fri 21st, Fri 28th

We Made a Funny

Aug

11:30PM Andrew Stanley’s Comedy Mish Mash

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 11th, 17th, 24th

Chippendales: The Ultimate Girls’ Night Out

Gilded Balloon Teviot, Multiple dates

GEORGE RYEGOLD TRAMPLE THE WEAK, HURDLE THE DEAD Medina & Negociants, Multiple dates

Jason Byrne: The Byrne Supremacy Multiple locations,

11:40PM

11:59PM

Electric Cabaret C central, 07 Aug—31 Aug

A Night of Comedy for Ray - Hosted by Michael McIntyre

F*cking Funny for a Fiver

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 23 Aug

Downstairs at the Tron, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Adam, Jason & Friends

11:45PM Comedy Countdown Gilded Balloon Teviot, Multiple dates

Girls with Guns

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 13 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 18th, 19th, 24th, 25th, 26th

Phil Kay - Edinburgh Gilded Balloon Teviot, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 25th

Purple Ronnie’s Stand-Up Poetry Club Udderbelly’s Pasture, 20 Aug

Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams

Udderbelly’s Pasture, Fri 14th, Sat 15th, Fri 21st, Sat 22nd

Underbelly’s Birthday Blowout

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Fri 21st, Sat 22nd, Fri 28th, Sat 29th

11:05PM

11:35PM

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 30 Aug

Kevin Tomlinson: Truth or Dare?

Wild Colonial Boys

11:50PM

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug

11:11PM Die Roten Punkte - Robot/ Lion Tour HHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

www.festmag.co.uk

The Stand Comedy Club II, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Bethany Black - Love and a Colt 45 Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Britain?

The Vault, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 17th

Aug, not 17th

11:55PM

Hans Teeuwen

Sketch Crunch C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug,

Udderbelly’s Pasture, Multiple dates

not 17th

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 13 Aug—16 Aug

Best of the Fest 2009

Multiple locations, Multiple dates

Daniel Kitson at the Stand

The Stand Comedy Club, 09 Aug—30 Aug, not 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 28th, 29th

For One Night Only The GRV, 11 Aug—30 Aug Frank Skinner’s Credit Crunch Cabaret Assembly @ George Street, Thu 27th, Fri 28th, Sat 29th

Stand Late Show

The Stand Comedy Club, Multiple dates

Stand Up For Freedom Assembly @ Assembly Hall, Wed 12th, Wed 19th

Supper Club Assembly @ George Street, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th

12:00AM Fordy’s Lock-In Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 09 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 30th

Spank Underbelly, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 30th

Take The Empire: The Great Big Marvellous Victorian Game Show C central, 08 Aug—30 Aug, not 30th

12:15AM Just the Tonic Comedy Club Midnight Show Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 30th

12:30AM Improverts Bedlam Theatre, 06 Aug—28 Aug, not 28th

12:40AM After Hours Pleasance Dome, Multiple dates

12:45AM Late Show Underbelly, Multiple dates

01:00AM Late ‘n’ Live Gilded Balloon Teviot, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 30th

Mark Watson’s Last Ever 24-Hour Show Pleasance Dome, Aug 18

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 79

theatrelistings 09:00AM World Is Too Much: Theatre for Breakfast Traverse Theatre, Multiple dates

09:30AM Okinawa 1945

Church Hill Theatre, Mon 10th

World Is Too Much: Theatre for Breakfast Traverse Theatre, Multiple dates

10:00AM Been So Long

Bite-Size’d ‘Breakfast in Bedlam’ Bedlam Theatre, 10 Aug— 29 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Dawn of Quixote: Chapter the First Venue 13, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd

Little Gem

Traverse Theatre, Fri 28th

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st Oddball

Pilrig Studio, Wed 12th

Orphans

Traverse Theatre, Tue 11th, Sat 15th

Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st, Wed 26th, Sun 30th

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th

Doubtful Guest Traverse Theatre, Tue

Red Room

18th, Sat 22nd, Thu 27th

Mother Courage

The Space@Venue 45, 24 Aug—28 Aug

Orphans

Traverse Theatre, Thu 20th, Tue 25th, Sat 29th

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Wed 19th, Sun 23rd, Fri 28th

Shakespeare for Breakfast C, 05 Aug—31 Aug Story Shakespeare: Measure for Measure C too, 17 Aug—22 Aug

10:15AM Been So Long

Traverse Theatre, Wed 12th, Sun 16th

Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Pilrig Studio, Tue 18th Three Musketeers Church Hill Theatre, Sat 15th

10:20AM Native American Tales Pilrig Studio, 17 Aug—20 Aug, not 18th, 19th

Red Noses

Pilrig Studio, Thu 13th

Skin of Our Teeth

Church Hill Theatre, Fri 14th

10:30AM If That’s All There Is Traverse Theatre, Wed 19th, Tue 25th, Sun 30th

Jerktown

Pilrig Studio, Fri 21st

Life in Three Acts Traverse Theatre, Tue 18th, Sun 23rd, Sat 29th

Little Gem

Traverse Theatre, Sat 22nd

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Thu 27th

Shakespeare Shattered Pilrig Studio, Wed 19th Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Thu 20th, Wed 26th

10:45AM

Ringside

The Signet Library, Fri 28th

♥ Sea Wall HHHH Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th

Sylvia Plath - Three Women, The First Revival Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug

Taiwan Song Jiang Battle Array

Meadowbank Sports Centre, 10 Aug—13 Aug

11:10AM From Me to 3792

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th

11:15AM

Danceforms - ‘The 48th International Choreographers’ Showcase’ Zoo Southside, 09

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Church Hill Theatre,

One Small Step

All in the Timing

Aug—13 Aug

Assembly @ George Street, 24 Aug—29 Aug

10:55AM Trapped

Zoo Southside, 23 Aug—31 Aug

11:00AM Faites L’Amour Pas La Guerre

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 09 Aug—14 Aug

Little Gem

Traverse Theatre, Tue 11th

80 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Mon 10th

Church Hill Theatre, Fri 14th

Amadeus

Multiple locations, 18 Aug—29 Aug, not 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd

Austen’s Women

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Sat 15th

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th Third Breast Augustine’s, 18 Aug—29 Aug, not 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th

Triple Bill Greenside, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Wild Goose Chase

Quaker Meeting House, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

11:25AM Don’t Forget To Breathe C Soco, 05 Aug—22 Aug Lord of the Flies Augustine’s, 10 Aug—15 Aug

11:30AM Celtic Caledonia - The Curse C, 05 Aug—15 Aug Charlie Cox Runs With Scissors

Church Hill Theatre, Thu 13th

Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-theMoon Marigolds Church Hill Theatre, Tue 11th

East 10th Street HHH

Head of the Fork Bedlam Theatre, 24

Little Gem

I Don’t Live Here Anymore Bedlam Theatre, 10

Traverse Theatre, Wed 12th Traverse Theatre, Sun 16th

Aug—29 Aug

Aug—22 Aug, not 16th

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings not Spain

the SPACe@Venue 45, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Q&A

new town theAtre, 25 Aug—30 Aug

Tree duet

new town theAtre, 16 Aug—22 Aug

Unthinkable the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, Multiple dates

11:40AM

Unknown Album underBelly, 06 Aug—30

Matinee

11:55AM

Miles & Coltrane: Blue (.)

Aug, not 18th

I’ll be bert the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

12:00pM plane Food Cafe

new town theAtre, 17 Aug—30 Aug

Heroin(e) for breakfast underBelly, 06 Aug—30

amadeus

Tears of a Clown

Appel/Ring Cycle

Aug, not 17th

the SPACe on the MIle @ Jury’S Inn (V260), Multiple dates

The yellow wallpaper C SoCo, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

11:45AM collector the VAult, 18 Aug—22 Aug Dawn of Quixote: chapter the first Venue 13, Multiple dates Gertrude Stein Venue 13, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd

Tap & chat with Lionel Blair

Sweet grASSMArket, Multiple dates

Tempest in a Teacup AuguStIne’S, 11 Aug—15 Aug

MultIPle loCAtIonS, 18 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, Fri 14th

barflies

trAVerSe @ the BArony, Mon 24th, tue 25th

Chronicles of Long kesh HHH ASSeMBly @ ASSeMBly hAll, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Dialogue dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, Sun 16th

Home of the wriggler underBelly, 16 Aug—30 Aug

Johann Faust the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

Malaje - The Flamenco Circus

new town theAtre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

PleASAnCe doMe, 05 Aug—26 Aug, not 17th, 24th

MultIPle loCAtIonS, Sat 15th

Mind Out C, 23 Aug—30 Aug Once a Catholic C, Multiple dates Post Show Party Show

theAtre workShoP, 24 Aug—29 Aug

rites

dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, Mon 10th

Something about others

dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, wed 12th

Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies C, Multiple dates The Prime of miss Jean Brodie

ASSeMBly @ ASSeMBly hAll, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

walden

doVeCot, Sat 22nd, Sat 29th

watch iT!

dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, Sat 15th

your number’s up

Selective Hearing

ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—23 Aug, not 18th

the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

12:05pM

Storm in a Teacup

much ado about nothing

MultIPle loCAtIonS, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th

nightfall Sweet eCA, 07 Aug—23 Aug

12:10pM The State we’re in ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Unravelling

the SPACe@Venue 45, 10 Aug—15 Aug

12:15pM

tue 11th

Ups and Downs and whoopsie daisies Zoo SouthSIde, 16 Aug—28 Aug, not 24th

Virginia Monologues - why it’s great to be old

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

12:20pM Land without words JuSt the tonIC @ the CAVeS, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

red noses

Fahrenheit 451 the VAult, 10 Aug—22 Aug,

12:25pM

not 16th, 17th

Flowers for Algernon ChurCh hIll theAtre, Sat 15th

lotte’s gift ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th

Ofsted inspector Calls

wrong woman

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead PIlrIg StudIo, wed 19th

the CAMeo CIneMA, 21 Aug

Three musketeers ChurCh hIll theAtre,

Coarse Acting Show 2 PIlrIg StudIo, tue 11th

♥ wayside/ riff HHHH

dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, thu 13th

the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 24 Aug—29 Aug

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 10 Aug—15 Aug

PIlrIg StudIo, wed 12th

One Up One Down MultIPle loCAtIonS, 16 Aug—31 Aug, not 24th

e for apple/ Something Blue the VAult, 10 Aug—15 Aug home

the Zoo, 07 Aug—15 Aug

12:30pM American women PIlrIg StudIo, Mon 17th bob’s date C SoCo, 05 Aug—22 Aug

11 -16 AUGUST 2009

For full details and booking tickets

www.fringebythesea.com 82 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

BTS Ad 68x46mm.indd 1

2/7/09 12:47:23

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings Box The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Wed 19th

East 10th Street HHH Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th

Life Out Loud The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Fri 21st

Little Gem Traverse Theatre, Tue 18th, Sun 23rd, Sat 29th

12:40PM New Town Theatre, 17 Aug—30 Aug

Flhip Flhop: Everything Happens on the Break Zoo Southside, 07

Forever Young Augustine’s, 18 Aug—31

12:55PM

My Darling Clemmie

After Magritte C Soco, 19 Aug—31 Aug

Plane Food Cafe

Aug, not 23rd, 24th

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

My Mind’s Eye Sweet ECA, 24 Aug—31 Aug

12:45PM

Love’s Labour’s Lost C central, 07 Aug—31

Been So Long

Man-made: 1,2,3 C, 05 Aug—30 Aug

Bully

Aug

Platform 88

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th, Tue 18th, Sat 22nd, Thu 27th

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

If That’s All There Is Traverse Theatre, Wed

Aug—31 Aug

Almost 10

Assembly @ George Street, 16 Aug—21 Aug

Shade Ain’t Right C Soco, 05 Aug—18 Aug

01:00PM

Sweet Grassmarket, 07 Aug—23 Aug, not 17th

St Cuthbert’s Parish Church, 17 Aug—23 Aug, not 20th, 23rd

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

12:50PM

Gravediggers

Beside Myself

Cavedwellers

www.festmag.co.uk

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sun 16th

♥ Wayside/ Riff HHHH

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

Castle Rocks Breakdance Championships 2009 City Edinburgh, 15 Aug

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Watch iT!

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Sat

Pythonesque

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Multiple dates

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Multiple dates

01:05PM

Best of John Betjeman

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

The Stand Comedy Club III & IV, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Unthinkable

Losing Susan

As You Were

Susie Baxter’s Guilty Women

Gagarin Way

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st

Re-Union Canal Boats Ltd, 14 Aug—23 Aug

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Fri 28th

Aug, not 17th

Bedlam Theatre, 10 Aug— 29 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Thu 13th

3 Sisters

Telenovela C, 23 Aug—31 Aug

God: A Comedy

By Woody Allen Pleasance Dome, 05

19th, Sun 23rd, Fri 28th

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Wed 12th

George in the Dragon’s Den Zoo Southside, 07

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sat 15th

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Don Juan in Soho C cubed, 23 Aug—31 Aug

Escape

Appel/Ring Cycle

After Circles Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Something About Others

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Mon 10th

Clive James in Conversation

26th

12:35PM

Dialogue

Aug—23 Aug, not 18th, 20th

Doubtful Guest Traverse Theatre, Wed

Life in Three Acts Traverse Theatre, Wed 19th, Tue 25th, Sun 30th

Rites

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Shakespeare Shattered Pilrig Studio, 18 Aug—21 Aug, not 19th, 20th

Cry From Underground HHH New Town Theatre, 05

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Tue 18th

Aug—31 Aug

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 08 Aug—20 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Fri 14th

Venus and Mars and Other Myths of Mr and Ms

22nd

01:10PM

Much Ado About Nothing

The Event

Multiple locations, 10 Aug—22 Aug

Our Country’s Good The Space@Venue 45, Multiple dates

Pip Utton

New Town Theatre, 24 Aug—30 Aug

RE____

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 20th, 24th

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

01:15PM All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Church Hill Theatre, Fri 14th

Coffee

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 83

theatrelistings Fear and Misery of the Third Reich HH Sweet ECA, 07 Aug—16 Aug

Gertrude Stein Venue 13, 10 Aug—22 Aug,

Tomb To Womb The Space@Venue 45, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

01:20PM Plane Food Cafe

not 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th

New Town Theatre, 17 Aug—30 Aug

Little Gem

Antigone

Traverse Theatre, Wed 12th

My Grandfather’s Great War

Multiple locations, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd

Big Mac

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 08 Aug—16 Aug

Sweet ECA, 17 Aug—23 Aug

Opposite of Waiting Venue 13, Multiple dates

Midsummer Night’s Dream Sweet ECA, 17 Aug—23

Orphans Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st, Wed 26th, Sun 30th

Red Room Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Thu 27th

Aug, not 20th

Play On Words Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Two The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

01:25PM Diary of a Madman Underbelly, 16 Aug—30 Aug

Nine Lives of Bua Lydia Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

01:30PM Chronicles of Irania

Pleasance Courtyard, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 11th, 18th

And Then He Said ...

Diverse Attractions, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Charlie Cox Runs With Scissors

Church Hill Theatre, Mon 10th

Kosh in the Storeroom HHH

Lucky Dip C, 05 Aug—31 Aug Max and Beth Underbelly, 09 Aug—15

The Play About Charlotte C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Aug

01:40PM

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Tue

Futurist Orchestra and Human Puppet Show The Vault, 17 Aug—23 Aug

11th

Okinawa 1945

Church Hill Theatre, Sat 15th

Orphans

Traverse Theatre, Wed 12th, Sun 16th

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Thu 20th, Tue 25th, Sat 29th

RealiTV The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

♥ Sea Wall HHHH Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th

Light Bites C Soco, Multiple dates

Tasty Treats C Soco, Multiple dates

Her Yellow Wallpaper Sweet ECA, 24 Aug—31 Aug

Jigsaw Augustine’s, 10 Aug—16 Aug

Moll Flanders The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

Poets’ Corner Just the Tonic @ The Caves, 06 Aug—23 Aug, not 18th

Stalag Happy Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

MUSIC FROM THE

AT THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL Thursday 13 to Saturday 15 August 10pm The Queens Hall Clerk St, Edinburgh 0131 668 2019 thequeenshall.net

84 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings The Sociable Plover Assembly @ George Street, 08 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Zoo Lodge

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug

01:45PM

Lemn Sissay: Why I Don’t Hate White People Underbelly, 23 Aug—30 Aug

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Sun

01:50PM

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sun 16th

World’s Wife

Balloon Boutique C too, 06 Aug—29 Aug

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Comico’s Prodigously Prestigious Troupe Presents Commedia Dell’Arte

16th

01:55PM

Myriad The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug,

Crave

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—29 Aug

One Way Street The Vault, 10 Aug—31 Aug,

Facebook Fables

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 15th

Flying Forward The Zoo, 24 Aug—31 Aug Four Quarters The Zoo, 07 Aug—23 Aug, not 17th

Last Night Things Happened ...

Underbelly, 06 Aug—22 Aug, not 17th

www.festmag.co.uk

not 18th, 26th

not 17th, 24th

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Tue 11th, Sat 15th

The Dandelion’s Story C, 05 Aug—31 Aug The Devoured Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Appel/Ring Cycle

Forgotten Things Pleasance Dome, 05

Multiple locations, 10 Aug—31 Aug

02:00PM

Jewish Chronicles Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Jumpers

Sweet ECA, 11 Aug—13 Aug

♥ David Leddy’s ‘White Tea’ HHHH

Light Bites C Soco, Multiple dates

Assembly @ George Street, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Me Too - A Sideshow New Town Theatre, 05

Dialogue

Moscow State Circus

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Wed 12th

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Meadows Theatre Big Tops Moscow State Circus, Mon 31st

Plane Food Cafe

Don Carlos HHH

Sweet Grassmarket, 07 Aug—23 Aug

Ousia

New Town Theatre, 17 Aug—30 Aug

Funny

Drawing Blood

Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 11 Aug—30 Aug, not 15th, 16th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th

Assembly @ 7 Holyrood Road, Multiple dates

14th Tale

National Gallery Complex - Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, 29 Aug

Pleasance Courtyard, 19 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Encounters 1

Acute Psychotic Episode (II) The Vault, 10 Aug—16 Aug

I-Witness

Traverse Theatre, 10 Aug

Theatre Workshop, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Private Peaceful Michael Morpurgo

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

RAW Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Sat 15th, Sun 16th, Sat 22nd, Sun 23rd

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 85

theatrelistings Rites Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Thu 13th

Simplicity of Grasping Air Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, 10 Aug

Something About Others Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Fri 14th

02:05PM Dear Mr!

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Destination GB

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Don Quixote - Theatre of the Blind The Bongo Club, 05

Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Sat

Folding House

Stuck in a Rut Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Steelopolis Tales

15th

Aug, not 17th

Success Story

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Taiwan Song Jiang Battle Array Meadowbank Sports Centre, 10 Aug—13 Aug

Tasty Treats C Soco, Multiple dates ♥ Wayside/ Riff HHHH Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sat 15th

Who’s Afraid of the Brothers Grimm The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Woyzeck

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—16 Aug

Faith Healer King’s Theatre, Sun 16th

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd

02:10PM Against the Tide: A Portrait of a Marriage The Vault, 26 Aug—30 Aug Graceless

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Importance of Muffins

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Tempest

Quaker Meeting House, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Therese

Augustine’s, 25 Aug—29 Aug

Turn the Blue Light Down

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

02:15PM Flowers for Algernon Church Hill Theatre, Mon 10th

In the Beginning venue251, Tue 11th Innovation

Church Hill Theatre, Mon 24th

02:25PM Our Country’s Good The Space@Venue 45, Multiple dates

Party Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

02:30PM

Revenge of the Rhyming Rapscallion Church Hill Theatre,

3 Sisters

Tue 25th

Re-Union Canal Boats Ltd, 14 Aug—23 Aug

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Pilrig Studio, Fri 21st

A Midsummer Night’s Dream McEwan Hall, Sun 16th,

Stars on the Ceiling C central, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Sweeney Todd: His Life, Times and Execution!

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 22nd

Sat 22nd, Sun 23rd

American Women Pilrig Studio, Sun 16th Auld Sangs and New Rhymes - The Life of Burns St Serf’s Church and Hall, Sat 22nd

Warehouse 364 C cubed, 06 Aug—31 Aug,

Best of John Betjeman

02:20PM

St Cuthbert’s Parish Church, Thu 20th, Sun 23rd

not 18th

Book of Days by Lanford Wilson Pilrig Studio, Thu 20th British Subject

Box The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Fri 21st

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Encounters 2

Ernest and the Pale Moon

Faulty Towers the Dining Experience B’est Restaurant, 10

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

Native American Tales Pilrig Studio, Wed 19th Red Noses

Pilrig Studio, Tue 11th

Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop

Traverse Theatre, 24 Aug

Aug—31 Aug, not 15th, 22nd, 29th

First Class

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Go To Gaza, Drink The Sea

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Hatches, Matches and Dispatches

Saughtonhall United Reformed Church, Sat 15th

Jerktown

Pilrig Studio, Mon 17th

Life Out Loud

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Sat 22nd

Lost Letters of Mr Corrigan

Quaker Meeting House, 10 Aug—15 Aug

New Art Club: The Visible Men

Pleasance Courtyard, 17 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

♥ Precious Little Talent HHHH Bedlam Theatre, 10 Aug— 29 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Ruskin Live!

National Gallery Complex - Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, 24 Aug—28 Aug, not 25th

Tale Of Two Cities St Ninian’s Hall, Sat 15th, Sat 22nd

Wha Wadna Follow Thee?

St Peter’s, Sat 22nd Woody Sez

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

The Return of Ulysses

The Edinburgh Playhouse, Mon 24th

MAGAZINE 09

ALEX HETHERINGTON – DAVID McALLISTER Saturday 15 August to Sunday 30 August Open daily 11am-5pm, late opening on Thursday 27 August, 11am-8pm, Free admission Twitter: www.twitter.com/EdSculpture MySpace: www.myspace.com/edinburghsculpture Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, 25 Hawthornvale, Newhaven, Edinburgh EH6 4JT Telephone: 0131 551 4490

www.edinburghsculpture.org

86 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings Optimism

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Sun 16th

Peter and Wendy Multiple locations, Run over

02:35PM Matthew Sharp in ...

Finklestein’s Castle Pleasance Courtyard, Multiple dates

Matthew Sharp in ... Johnny’s Midnight Goggles

Pleasance Courtyard, Multiple dates

Scaramouche Jones Assembly @ George Street, 24 Aug

Splinters of Light Sweet ECA, Multiple dates Ultimately Doomed Life of Charlie Cumcup Sweet ECA, Multiple dates

One Eye Gone Venue 13, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd

Opposite of Waiting Venue 13, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th

Strong Breast Revolution

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

The Other Side

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

The Rap Guide To Evolution HHH

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Time Out of Joint C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug

02:50PM

Bane

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Barflies

Traverse @ The Barony, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 28th, 29th

Cavedwellers

Something About Others Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sat 15th

TALES OF TOLSTOY The Lot, 10 Aug—15 Aug, not 13th, 14th

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 17 Aug—20 Aug, not 18th, 19th

Walden

Dialogue

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Wed 12th

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Thu 13th

East 10th Street HHH

Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th

Etty

The Vault, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Francis, the Holy Jester HHH

Watch iT!

Crush

If That’s All There Is Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sun 16th

King of the Gypsies Pleasance Courtyard,

Wrecked (A Guardian Reader’s Quest to Save Africa) The Edinburgh Sleep Centre, 15 Aug—26 Aug

Reserection Greenside, 17 Aug—22

Penelopiad Augustine’s, 18 Aug—23

Geoffrey Chaucer Lives!

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Stroke of Genius Pleasance Dome, 05

Ritter, Dene, Voss

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Two Loves

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

02:45PM Baba Yaga Bony Legs Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—16 Aug

Crime of the Century Zoo Southside, 07 Aug—30 Aug, not 12th, 19th, 26th

Fall of Man

Pleasance Courtyard, 07 Aug—30 Aug

Faustus

venue251, Sat 29th

Killing Me Softly

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug

King Arthur

New Town Theatre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 9th, 17th, 24th

Little Gem

Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th, Wed 19th, Tue 25th, Sun 30th

www.festmag.co.uk

Aug

Universal Arts @ St George’s West, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

The Girls of Slender Means

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 08 Aug—20 Aug, not 9th, 16th

GOSPEL OF LUKE The Lot, 13 Aug—18 Aug, not 15th

Life in Three Acts Traverse Theatre, Thu

Dentist

Doctor Faustus

Multiple locations, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th

Gravediggers The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Multiple dates

20th, Wed 26th

Puppet-Show Man

02:55PM

Mercy Madonna of Malawi

Fresh Start Augustine’s, 10 Aug—23

The World @ St George’s West, 06 Aug—31 Aug

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 10 Aug—23 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Miller

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Tue

Aug, not 17th

C Soco, 09 Aug—31 Aug

03:00PM Alba Flamenca Alba Flamenca, Sat 15th,

Sun 16th, Sat 22nd, Sun 23rd

Appel/Ring Cycle

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Mon 10th

Art House The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 17th, 18th, 25th

Assassination of Paris Hilton

Assembly @ George Street, 13 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

18th, Sun 23rd, Sat 29th

Modern/Contemporary Dance Program Stage by Stage Edinburgh Academy, 19 Aug—20 Aug

Moscow State Circus

So He Made Me Some Soup ... and Other Tales The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 24 Aug—29 Aug

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th, 10th

Stranded ...

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Sweet C, 05 Aug—31 Aug

03:20PM Audience - Michael Frayn Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—15 Aug

Doctor Whom?

My Search for Samuel Johnson Assembly @ George Street, 22 Aug—31 Aug, not 26th

Oedipus Rex C, 16 Aug—22 Aug

Becoming Marilyn

Sound of My Voice

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Rites

Fairytaleheart

Aug, not 17th, 24th

Rapture

On The Razzle C, 23 Aug—31 Aug

Cool Cutz C cubed, 06 Aug—31 Aug,

Shut Up, Play!

Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—31

05 Aug—31 Aug, not 8th, 18th, 25th

03:10PM

Meadows Theatre Big Tops Moscow State Circus, Multiple dates Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Fri 14th

Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

♥ Wayside/ Riff HHHH

03:05PM

Aug

All in the Timing

Church Hill Theatre, Mon 10th

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

not 19th

Thu 13th

Dovecot, 17 Aug—29 Aug

Angle of Incidence The Zoo, 07 Aug—30 Aug,

02:40PM

03:15PM All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Church Hill Theatre,

not 17th

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 17 Aug—22 Aug

Out of Chaos Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

03:25PM ♥ Icarus 2.0 HHHH

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Me, Mum and Dusty Springfield Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 87

theatrelistings 03:30PM

His Ghostly Heart HHH

Booking Dance Festival Edinburgh 2009 Venue 150 @ EICC, 12

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-theMoon Marigolds Church Hill Theatre,

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Aug—16 Aug

Wed 12th

If That’s All There Is Traverse Theatre, Thu 27th

Okinawa 1945

Church Hill Theatre, Fri 14th

Origins by Steven Canny and John Nicholson Pleasance Dome, 05

Aug—29 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Fri 28th Super Situation The Bongo Club, 05

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 23rd

Tale of Lady Stardust Underbelly, 06 Aug—29 Aug

Why Do All Catherines Call Themselves Kate?

Zoo Southside, 07

Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

03:35PM A Respectable Wedding C, 05 Aug—15 Aug

03:40PM Oh, My Green Soap Box

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Teechers

Augustine’s, 25 Aug—29 Aug

West Lethargy

The Space@Venue 45, Multiple dates

03:45PM Absolutely Legless

Acoustic Music Centre @ St Bride’s, 14 Aug—15 Aug, not 14th

Been So Long

Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th, Wed 19th, Sun 23rd, Fri 28th

Kaguya Hime (The Moon Princess)

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Wed 12th

Nun the Wiser

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Othello

The Vault, 10 Aug—16 Aug

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Sat 22nd

03:50PM Controlled Falling Project

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 12 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 24th

Importance of Being Earnestina Greenside, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th

People

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Pullman Car Hiawatha Augustine’s, 10 Aug—14 Aug

03:55PM Manolibera C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

04:00PM 3 Sisters

Re-Union Canal Boats Ltd, 14 Aug—23 Aug

Appel/Ring Cycle

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Wed 12th

Bitter Kiss Goodnight Bedlam Theatre, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Dialogue

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Fri 14th

Dream On

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—28 Aug

Gannet

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

Grave Situation

Pleasance Courtyard, 08 Aug—22 Aug

Heads Up

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, 19 Aug—22 Aug

Hou Hou Shahou’s Chorus of Descent Bedlam Theatre, 10 Aug—15 Aug

In a Thousand Pieces Pleasance Courtyard, 23 Aug—31 Aug

Noir

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—16 Aug, not 6th

One and the Many The GRV, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Orphans

Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th, Tue 18th, Sat 22nd, Thu 27th

Ousia

Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 11 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Rendition Monologues

St John’s Church, 17 Aug—23 Aug

Ringside

The Signet Library, 24 Aug—28 Aug

Rites

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sat 15th

Shadow Orchestra New Town Theatre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Something About Others

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sun 16th

Special Boy The Vault, 25 Aug—31 Aug Sshhh, Don’t Tell Anyone!

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 08 Aug—20 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Stitches

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

The Contest

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

88 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Watch iT!

Hotel

♥ Wayside/ Riff HHHH

Innovation

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Thu 13th

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Mon 10th

04:05PM spectrum C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th AllTheLonelyPeople and Me

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—13 Aug, not 9th

Be My Eyes

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

Assembly @ George Street, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Church Hill Theatre, Sat 22nd, Tue 25th

Oddball

Pilrig Studio, Mon 10th

One Eye Gone Venue 13, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th

Revenge of the Rhyming Rapscallion Church Hill Theatre, Sun 23rd

♥ Sea Wall HHHH Traverse Theatre, Sat 15th

Steelopolis Tales

Sky, Death and Wonder

04:10PM

Soft Murders Venue 13, 07 Aug—15 Aug

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th

Horse

Underbelly’s Hullabaloo, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 12th, 19th

Emma C Soco, 16 Aug—31 Aug Hangover The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug Morecambe

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Only Water Between C Soco, 09 Aug—15 Aug

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 17 Aug—23 Aug

Three Musketeers Church Hill Theatre, Fri 14th

04:20PM Book of Days by Lanford Wilson Pilrig Studio, Sun 16th, Fri 21st

Odyssey

Pleasance Dome, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Skin of Our Teeth

Church Hill Theatre, Tue 11th

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

04:25PM

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 06 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

Faust in the Box Underbelly, 06 Aug—29

Ward No 6 C cubed, 06 Aug—31 Aug,

Hat

West Lethargy

Timeshare Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—31

not 18th

The Space@Venue 45, Multiple dates

Words of Honour: The Mafia Exposed Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

04:15PM Catch

The Zoo, Multiple dates

Aug

Augustine’s, 10 Aug—23 Aug, not 17th

Aug, not 18th

04:30PM Celebration by Harold Pinter

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—29 Aug

American Women Pilrig Studio, Tue 18th

www.festmag.co.uk

Winner of a Double Gold Medal at the prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition, 2009.

7.1 Top straplines 1) short strapline

2) long strapline

7.2 Bottom straplines 1) short strapline

2) long strapline

7.3 Lead-in statements 1) short statement

2) long statement

EXTRAORDINARY PURITY IN EVERY DROP

7.4 Lead-out statements 1) short statement

2) long statement The SMIRNOFF word & associated logos are trade marks Š The Smirnoff Co. 2009.

theatrelistings Box

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Thu 20th

Circa

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Doubtful Guest Traverse Theatre, Thu 20th, Tue 25th, Sat 29th

Dream Big The Vault, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Jerktown

Pilrig Studio, Wed 19th

Lady Boys of Bangkok

Meadows Theatre Big Tops Lady Boys of Bangkok, Sat 15th, Sat 22nd, Fri 28th, Sat 29th

Life Out Loud

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Tue 18th

Longhardt Look at Love - with Chad Longhardt The Bongo Club, 21

Killing Alan Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Tue

Normality (Starring Pedro Kruger) Pleasance Dome, 05

11th, Sun 16th

Still Breathing Zoo Southside, 07

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Ugly One The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 24 Aug—29 Aug

04:35PM Barry Pull Your Finger Out! Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 19th

Night Maneuver By Howard Korder The Vault, 18 Aug—23 Aug

04:40PM A Compas Flamenco The Bongo Club, 08

Aug—31 Aug, not 23rd

Mind Magic of Cole Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Modern/Contemporary Dance Program Stage by Stage Edinburgh Academy, 19 Aug—20 Aug

Ranganika, Island of Dance

The World @ St George’s West, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Screwloose

Shakespeare Shattered Pilrig Studio, Thu 20th

Quaker Meeting House, 10 Aug—29 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Aug—16 Aug, not 11th, 12th, 13th

Billy Budd C too, 16 Aug—22 Aug Boh C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th Dinner

Sweet ECA, 24 Aug—31 Aug

From Me to 3792 The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd

Front Man’ By Glyn Maxwell Underbelly, 07 Aug—22 Aug

Aug, not 18th

Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

The Shadow Within Underbelly, 23 Aug—30 Aug

04:45PM 14 Seconds The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Once Upon a Time: Naughty Fairytales Your Mother Never Told You Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, 24 Aug—31 Aug

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st, Wed 26th, Sun 30th

Pan Pa’ Tim

New Town Theatre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Red Room

Traverse Theatre, Tue 11th, Sat 15th

You Fancy Yourself Universal Arts @ St George’s West, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 18th, 24th

04:50PM Dylan Thomas, Return Journey: Bob Kingdom Assembly @ George Street, 17 Aug—23 Aug

Words With AL Kennedy

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

05:00PM Appel/Ring Cycle

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Thu 13th

Assassination of Paris Hilton

Assembly @ George Street, 13 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Columbinus Sweet ECA, 17 Aug—23 Aug, not 20th

Crucible

Diverse Attractions, 13 Aug—15 Aug

♥ David Leddy’s ‘White Tea’ HHHH

Assembly @ George Street, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Dialogue

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sat 15th

Jane Austen’s Guide to Pornography Zoo Southside, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Little Gem

Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th, Thu 20th, Wed 26th

Miles & Coltrane: Blue (.)

Multiple locations, Thu 13th

Moscow State Circus Meadows Theatre Big Tops Moscow State Circus, Multiple dates

Oua Umplute C too, 06 Aug—15 Aug Ousia

Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Sat 15th, Sun 16th, Sat 22nd, Sun 23rd

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Wed 12th, Sun 16th

Rites

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Sun 16th

Robert Burns Scotland’s Radically Enlightened Poet St Mark’s artSpace, Tue 11th, Sun 16th, Sun 30th

Watch iT!

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Fri 14th

♥ Wayside/ Riff HHHH

Dance Base - National Centre for Dance, Wed 12th

05:05PM Kataklo Athletic Dance Theatre’s ‘Love Machines’

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

05:10PM Critic C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th Stronger

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th

Subsist

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—23 Aug

Lola

the life of lola montez

6.45pm, 9 - 30 Aug

New Town Theatre (Fringe Venue 7) 96 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 3DH Box Office: 0844 477 1000 www.universalartsfestival.com

90 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings Titanic - and the Band Played On C, 23 Aug—30 Aug

05:15PM All in the Timing

Church Hill Theatre, Tue 11th

Canterbury Tales Multiple locations, Multiple dates

Durang/Durang By Christopher Durang

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th, Wed 19th, Tue 25th, Sun 30th

Nancy Sleekit/The Herd of Standlan Diverse Attractions, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Shakespeare Bingo - Hamlet!

The Space@Venue 45, 08 Aug—21 Aug, not 9th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 19th

Show Down C, 10 Aug—15 Aug

05:20PM Jugglers

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Lamplighter’s Lament Bedlam Theatre, 10 Aug—29 Aug

The Overcoat

Pleasance Courtyard, 13 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Venezuela Viva Venue 150 @ EICC, 05

Aug—23 Aug, not 10th, 17th

www.festmag.co.uk

05:25PM Look Back in Anger

By John Osborne The Vault, 10 Aug—16 Aug Beachy Head HHH Pleasance Dome, 05

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Cardenio C cubed, 06 Aug—28 Aug Djupid (the Deep)

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—31 Aug

Self-Murder C central, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

05:30PM

Elvis Still My Heart Pleasance Dome, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Janis

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 24th

Life in Three Acts Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st My Life With the Dogs

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th

Ootlaw

Duddingston Kirk Manse Garden, 11 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th, 17th

3 Sisters

Parents’ Evening Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—30

Alice Through The Looking Glass

Robert Burns With Hare

Re-Union Canal Boats Ltd, 14 Aug—23 Aug

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Averse to Personal Publicity

Diverse Attractions, 17 Aug—22 Aug

Aug, not 17th

05:40PM Four Epaulets The Vault, 25 Aug—26 Aug

05:45PM

Taming of the Shrew The Royal Scots Club, 17

Couples Counseling Venue 13, 08 Aug—22 Aug,

Funny

not 17th

East 10th Street HHH

Traverse Theatre, Sat 15th

Iago

The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

If That’s All There Is Traverse Theatre, Fri 28th

27th

Spaceman

The Arches at St Stephen’s, 09 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th

Miss Landmine Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 19th

Stefan Golaszewski Is a Widower Traverse Theatre, Tue

Borges and I The Zoo, 07 Aug—28 Aug,

The Rebel Cell

not 17th, 24th

Underbelly’s Hullabaloo, 07 Aug—31 Aug

Charlie Cox Runs With Scissors

What Women Want Diverse Attractions, 17

Tap Kids

05:35PM

Church Hill Theatre, Sat 15th

Aug—22 Aug

18th, Sun 23rd, Sat 29th

New Town Theatre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 06 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

Hayton on Homicide Multiple locations,

Underground: A Forgotten World Sweet ECA, 16 Aug—30

Multiple dates

Aug

Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-theMoon Marigolds Church Hill Theatre,

Mother/Son

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

05:50PM

Dolores

Mon 10th

Quaternary C Soco, 07 Aug—15 Aug

06:00PM

1984, a Comedy The Vault, 25 Aug—31 Aug

Life in Three Acts Traverse Theatre, Thu

St Mark’s artSpace, Multiple dates

Up and Over It! An Irish Dance Spectacular C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Blondes

Udderbelly’s Pasture, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Aug—22 Aug

Assembly @ 7 Holyrood Road, 10 Aug—30 Aug, not 11th, 18th

21 Girlfriends Sweet ECA, 08 Aug—15 Aug

Acting Suspiciously

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 17 Aug—22 Aug

Ae Fond Kiss

Multiple locations, Sun 16th

Best of John Betjeman

St Cuthbert’s Parish Church, 17 Aug—23 Aug

Creole Choir of Cuba

The World @ St George’s West, 06 Aug—31 Aug

If That’s All There Is Traverse Theatre, Sat 22nd

Moscow State Circus

Meadows Theatre Big Tops Moscow State Circus, Sun 16th, Sun 23rd, Sun 30th

Ousia

Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 11 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Picture of Dorian Gray

clubWEST @ Grosvenor Hilton, 15 Aug—22 Aug

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 91

theatrelistings Taiwan Song Jiang battle array MeAdowBAnk SPortS Centre,

Unsung dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, 19 Aug—22 Aug

06:05pM year of the horse ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Dolls Don’t Bite SPotlIteS @ the MerChAntS’ hAll, 05 Aug—09 Aug

Exodus 10:21 the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 10 Aug—15 Aug

god bless the child - An Evening with billie holiday greenSIde, 17 Aug—29 Aug

06:20pM book of days by Lanford wilson PIlrIg StudIo, Mon 17th 100 wounded Tears Zoo SouthSIde, 07 Aug—15 Aug

An Audience with Tappy wright Rock Roadie: Backstage and Confidential ASSeMBly @ george Street, 18 Aug—23 Aug

Catwalk Confidential ASSeMBly @ ASSeMBly hAll, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

lochhead & Laula - Love, Love, love HHH ASSeMBly @ george Street, 06 Aug—16 Aug, not 8th, 11th

native American Tales PIlrIg StudIo, tue 18th

The Grind Show C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

red noses

06:10pM

06:25pM

Burn

Look Back in Anger

By John Osborne the VAult,

MultIPle loCAtIonS, Multiple dates

06:15pM Coarse Acting Show 2 PIlrIg StudIo, wed 12th etty

the VAult,

hard hearted Hannah and other Stories

theAtre workShoP, 24 Aug—29 Aug

lord of the flies AuguStIne’S,

PIlrIg StudIo, Mon 10th

Knuckleball unIVerSAl ArtS @ St george’S weSt, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

06:30pM American women PIlrIg StudIo, wed 19th box the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, tue 18th

PIlrIg StudIo, tue 11th

Chauntecleer and pertelotte (A Beasty-Babel-Fable) Zoo SouthSIde, 07

Revenge of the Rhyming Rapscallion ChurCh hIll theAtre, 22

Considering Georgia O’Keeffe

oddball

Aug—25 Aug, not 23rd, 25th

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead PIlrIg StudIo, Sun 16th Snarl-up SPotlIteS @ the MerChAntS’ hAll, Multiple dates

Aug—31 Aug, not 19th

ACouStIC MuSIC Centre @ St BrIde’S, 10 Aug—11 Aug

EOnn-ic Eclections the SPACe on the MIle @ Jury’S Inn (V260), 08 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Jerktown

PIlrIg StudIo, thu 20th

life out loud the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, thu 20th

Lilly Through the dark

BedlAM theAtre, 10 Aug—29 Aug, not 18th

Lysistrata - The Sex Strike

quAker MeetIng houSe, 17 Aug—22 Aug

norman Conquests the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 24 Aug—29 Aug

peter Duncan’s Daft and Dangerous PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 26th

poverty Monologues the SPACe@Venue 45, 17 Aug—22 Aug

Secret life of Robert Burns

SyMPoSIuM hAll, 19 Aug—20 Aug

Stefan Golaszewski Is a widower trAVerSe theAtre, wed 12th

Tea Dance

PleASAnCe doMe, 09 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

This mortal coil

quAker MeetIng houSe, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Under Milk wood

quAker MeetIng houSe, 24 Aug—29 Aug

waiting for Godot

06:45pM Canterbury Tales MultIPle loCAtIonS, 10

MeAdowS theAtre BIg toPS lAdy BoyS oF BAngkok, 10 Aug—31 Aug

Generation F

Miles & Coltrane: Blue (.)

Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

grossladies C SoCo, 27 Aug—31 Aug

Rhythm Migrants the MuSIC Box, 07

♥ Sea wall HHHH trAVerSe theAtre, tue 11th, Sun 16th

Unit 46 C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

06:50pM Lady windermere’s Fan

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 24 Aug—29 Aug

06:55pM Cigarettes and chocolate C SoCo, 05 Aug—15 Aug

07:00pM a midsummer night’s Dream MCewAn hAll, 14 Aug—23 Aug

Beige Adventures of Ay and Bee

by order of ignorance

Beggars Belief C CuBed, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

chair

the Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug

Manband - They’re not a Boyband HH Sweet eCA, 06 Aug—31 Aug

92 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

trAVerSe theAtre, Fri 14th, wed 19th, Sun 23rd, Fri 28th

neville’s island C SoCo, 16 Aug—22 Aug

06:35pM

Am i ... naked?

C, 09 Aug—15 Aug

Orphans

plagiarismo!

new town theAtre, 09 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, Multiple dates

not 17th

MultIPle loCAtIonS, Fri 14th

Lola: The Life of Lola Montez

St JAMeS PuBlIC toIletS, 25 Aug—31 Aug

Oleanna By david mamet the VAult, 10 Aug—23 Aug,

lady boys of Bangkok

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Caucasian Chalk Circle Sweet eCA, 23 Aug—30 Aug

cavedwellers

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, wed 19th

famous Taste of Scotland with Three Scottish Tenors

the StABleS At PreStonFIeld, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 8th, 14th, 15th, 22nd, 27th, 29th

new town theAtre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 16th

Aug—10 Aug, not 9th

Scottish Dance Theatre - A Visitation Zoo SouthSIde, 20 Aug—30 Aug, not 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 27th, 28th

Scottish Dance Theatre - Luxuria Zoo SouthSIde, 18

Aug—28 Aug, not 20th, 21st, 24th, 25th, 26th

Tao of everest

edInBurgh ACAdeMy, 07 Aug—31 Aug

This is a Picture of a person i Don’t Know dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, 05 Aug—16 Aug, not 11th

Timekeepers

Sweet grASSMArket, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Unthinkable

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, Multiple dates

07:05pM Anwesha Company: A Mind’s Journey in Search of Destiny C, 05 Aug—31 Aug Legend of Kaulula’au

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Territory

the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

07:10pM 6.0: How Heap and pebble Took on the world and won PleASAnCe doMe, 05

Aug—31 Aug, not 6th, 7th, 8th, 12th, 17th, 24th

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings Blame Game

The Space@Venue 45, Tue 25th, Fri 28th

Caterwaul

The Space@Venue 45, Wed 26th, Sat 29th

Hospitable

The Space@Venue 45, Mon 24th, Thu 27th

Suckerville C cubed, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

07:15PM Auto-Da-Fe by Tennessee Williams

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 10 Aug—25 Aug, not 16th, 23rd, 24th, 25th

Absolutely Legless

Acoustic Music Centre @ St Bride’s, 14 Aug—15 Aug

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten Church Hill Theatre, Wed 12th

Been So Long

Traverse Theatre, Multiple dates

Burton

Venue 13, 19 Aug—30 Aug

Chatroom The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug Emptymouthing

Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, 18 Aug—31 Aug

Faustus

venue251, 27 Aug—29 Aug, not 29th

Frozen

Sweet Grassmarket, 17 Aug—30 Aug

In the Beginning venue251, 10 Aug—12 Aug

07:30PM

Instant Burns - Just Add Haggis The Vault, 25 Aug—31 Aug

Desmorphia

Love Shop Augustine’s, 10 Aug—16

A Man For All Seasons

Aug

ME (Mobile/ Evolution) Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 14 Aug—27 Aug, not 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th

Third Breast Augustine’s, 18 Aug—29 Aug, not 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th

Up

The Vault, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

07:20PM Does This Piano Make My Ass Look Big? The Bongo Club, 07

Aug—29 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Wondering Greenside, 10 Aug—15 Aug

07:25PM 3 Thrayaa Greenside, 10 Aug—26 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

Chilangai Greenside, 27 Aug—29 Aug, not 28th

Hamlet C, 07 Aug—31 Aug Insensed Greenside, 28 Aug

The Voodoo Rooms, 12 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 18th, 24th, 25th

Brunton Theatre, 28 Aug—29 Aug

Ae Fond Kiss

Multiple locations, 10 Aug—29 Aug, not 15th, 22nd

Auld Sangs and New Rhymes - The Life of Burns

St Serf’s Church and Hall, 10 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th, 22nd

Flanders Field

Diverse Attractions, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Great Zimbabwe Columcille Centre, 15 Aug—29 Aug, not 17th, 21st, 24th

Hatches, Matches and Dispatches

Saughtonhall United Reformed Church, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Havana Rumba! - The Hottest Cuban Salsa Party in Town!

Venue 150 @ EICC, 05 Aug—30 Aug

La Dispute

Ragamala Dance Presents Yathra (Journey) St John’s Church, 10

Aug—23 Aug, not 13th, 20th

Robert Burns Scotland’s Radically Enlightened Poet St Mark’s artSpace, Sun 23rd

Romeo+Juliet: Les Filles En Scè Diverse Attractions, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Trilogy

The Arches at St Stephen’s, 09 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Diverse Attractions, 17 Aug—22 Aug

Faith Healer King’s Theatre, Multiple

Last of the Red Hot Lovers

Faust

Brocante Sonore: The Mechanicians C, 16 Aug—31 Aug

Little Gem

Peter and Wendy Multiple locations,

Charlie Cox Runs With Scissors

Man For All Seasons

Bitter Belief of Cotrone the Magician Sweet in the Firth of Forth, 08 Aug—16 Aug

Church Hill Theatre, Tue 11th

Crime and Punishment

Diverse Attractions, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Dancing Forth - the Scottish Show Edinburgh Academy, 11 Aug—15 Aug

Edge of Darkness

Murrayfield Parish Church Centre, 12 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th Traverse Theatre, Fri 21st

Duddingston Kirk Manse Garden, 05 Aug—23 Aug, not 10th, 11th, 17th, 18th

♥ Midsummer (A Play With Songs) HHHH Traverse Theatre, Fri 14th, Thu 20th, Wed 26th

Palace of the End Traverse Theatre, Thu 13th, Tue 18th, Sat 22nd, Thu 27th

Blackhall St Columba’s Parish Church Hall, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Promised Land

Evening with Psychosis Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

Puppet-Show Man

Aug, not 18th

94 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 20 Aug—29 Aug

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, Sat 22nd, Sun 23rd

dates

Royal Highland Centre, Lowland Hall, Ingliston, 18 Aug—22 Aug

Run over

07:35PM In Bed With Poets

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

07:40PM Blame Game

The Space@Venue 45, Mon 17th, Thu 20th

Caterwaul

The Space@Venue 45, Tue 18th, Fri 21st

Hospitable

The Space@Venue 45, Wed 19th, Sat 22nd

Nouvelles Folies New Town Theatre, Multiple dates

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings Stand By Your Van

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th, 25th

Strike

be bop a lula Sweet eCA, 16 Aug—30

optimism

Aug

royAl lyCeuM theAtre, 15 Aug—17 Aug

bollocks

diaspora

new town theAtre, Multiple dates

the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 26 Aug—29 Aug

Tale of Two cities St nInIAn’S hAll, 10

Fistful of Snow C SoCo, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Aug—22 Aug, not 16th

07:45pM doubtful guest trAVerSe theAtre, Fri 21st, wed 26th, Sun 30th

Dream Big the VAult, little gem

If That’s all There Is trAVerSe theAtre, tue

the edInBurgh PlAyhouSe, 15 Aug—16 Aug

Experimentum Mundi

MultIPle loCAtIonS, run over

18th, Sun 23rd, Sat 29th

08:05pM

Life in Three Acts trAVerSe theAtre, Fri 28th

Destroy powerpoint C SoCo, 19 Aug—31 Aug

metamorphosis C too, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not

Lady Bug warrior

7th, 8th, 18th

My Queer Valentine

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

trAVerSe theAtre, Sat 15th, thu 27th

unIVerSAl ArtS @ St george’S weSt, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

miser

Orphans

Sweet eCA, 20 Aug—30 Aug

moscow State circus

pigeon Affair

The Montana Ranch C CentrAl, 07 Aug—31

red room

The Shape of Things C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

St Peter’S, 26 Aug—29 Aug

MeAdowS theAtre BIg toPS MoSCow StAte CIrCuS, 13 Aug—31 Aug, not 16th, 19th, 23rd, 26th, 30th, 31st

Mutiny the Zoo, 07 Aug—29 Aug wha wadna Follow Thee?

St Peter’S, 11 Aug—22 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 22nd

07:50pM koi

C CuBed, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 18th

08:00pM Alba Flamenca AlBA FlAMenCA, 10 Aug—30 Aug

trAVerSe theAtre,

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Lesson

Aug

luck

Skin of Our Teeth

ChurCh hIll theAtre, Sat 15th

underBelly’S hullABAloo, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

08:25pM

Trainspotting HHH Sweet eCA, 08 Aug—15

Stay!

the Zoo, 24 Aug—29 Aug

Aug

08:15pM

08:30pM

Antigone

MultIPle loCAtIonS, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th

Coarse Acting Show 2 PIlrIg StudIo, Mon 10th

acute Psychotic Episode (ii) the VAult, Anomie HHH Zoo SouthSIde, 07 Aug—31 Aug

east 10th Street HHH

cross Purpose C CuBed, 06 Aug—31 Aug,

innovation

death of a Samurai the VAult, 10 Aug—23 Aug,

trAVerSe theAtre, tue 11th, Sun 16th

not 18th

ChurCh hIll theAtre, Fri 21st

island

not 17th

east

the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Kindertransport

quAker MeetIng houSe, 10 Aug—15 Aug

AuguStIne’S, 10 Aug—23 Aug, not 17th

Found

dAnCe BASe - nAtIonAl Centre For dAnCe, 05 Aug—16 Aug, not 11th

trAVerSe theAtre, wed 12th, Sun 16th

08:10pM

Stefan Golaszewski Is a widower trAVerSe theAtre, thu

blame game

Life in Three Acts trAVerSe theAtre, Sat

08:35pM

caterwaul

Monday C SoCo, 05 Aug—31 Aug, oddball

the SPACeS @ royAl College oF SurgeonS, 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

13th, wed 19th, tue 25th, Sun 30th

True dare kiss

CABAret VoltAIre, 17 Aug—23 Aug

The Return of ulysses

the edInBurgh PlAyhouSe, 21 Aug—24 Aug, not 24th

michael clark

the edInBurgh PlAyhouSe, 28 Aug—31 Aug

the SPACe@Venue 45, wed 26th, Sat 29th the SPACe@Venue 45, Mon 24th, thu 27th

hospitable

the SPACe@Venue 45, tue 25th, Fri 28th

Love Letters On blue Paper by Arnold wesker

22nd

not 17th

PIlrIg StudIo,

Three musketeers ChurCh hIll theAtre,

wed 12th

08:20pM

the SPACeS on the MIle @ the rAdISSon, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Jordy pordy: Taking the Bull by the Horns Sweet grASSMArket, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Mong-Yeon (A Love in Dream) C, 05 Aug—31 Aug Johnny Meister and the Stitch

08:40pM beast

the VAult, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

blame game

the SPACe@Venue 45, tue 18th, Fri 21st

BLOW UP! THE CREDIT CRUNCH MUSICAL

The collapse of international finance amusingly explained with the help of a five-piece

oompah band The GRV (Venue 274), 37 Guthrie Street 16:20 - 17:20 www.festmag.co.uk

6th - 28th August (not 22nd) Tickets only £5

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 95

theatrelistings Caterwaul

The Space@Venue 45, Wed 19th, Sat 22nd

Changing The Wheel - Bert Brecht and Me

Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, 05 Aug—31 Aug

Hospitable

The Space@Venue 45, Mon 17th, Thu 20th

Normal

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 17 Aug—29 Aug, not 23rd

Tears of a Clown

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), Multiple dates

The ‘Amicable’ Solution Underbelly, Multiple dates The Fuss

Underbelly, Multiple dates

08:45PM Boy in Darkness The Zoo, 07 Aug—22 Aug

Faulty Towers the Dining Experience B’est Restaurant, 10

Aug—31 Aug, not 15th, 18th, 22nd, 29th

Miles & Coltrane: Blue (.)

Multiple locations, 13 Aug—16 Aug, not 13th, 14th

RAW

Dance Base @ Out of the Blue Drill Hall, 14 Aug—27 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Sea Spray and Cuckoo Spit Augustine’s, 18 Aug—31 Aug, not 23rd, 24th

Zemblanity

Bedlam Theatre, 06 Aug—29 Aug

The Yalta Game King’s Theatre, 29

Aug—30 Aug, not 31st, 2nd, 3rd

Afterplay

King’s Theatre, 31 Aug, not 2nd

09:05PM

Pullman Car Hiawatha Augustine’s,

Tondal’s Vision Canongate Kirk, 24

Puppet-Show Man

Aug—25 Aug

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, Fri 21st

09:25PM

09:35PM

10:05PM

Lover

Micaela Leon: Kabarett Berlin C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

Snatch Paradise by Van Badham HH Underbelly, 06 Aug—30

C Soco, 05 Aug—17 Aug

Weepie C Soco, 18 Aug—31 Aug

09:30PM And All the Children Cried

Sweet Grassmarket, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Brazilian Fever C central, 13 Aug—31 Aug Cocorico

New Town Theatre, 05 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

Crave

Multiple locations, Multiple dates

Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-theMoon Marigolds Church Hill Theatre,

Revenant

♥ Sea Wall HHHH Traverse Theatre, Wed

Real Inspector Hound/Black Comedy The Space@Venue 45, 24

Ivanov

12th

Aug—29 Aug

Slave Trader

09:10PM

Sweet Grassmarket Swimming Pool, 20 Aug—30 Aug, not 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 29th

JooCeBox

Merchant of Venice

08:55PM The Tartuffe C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug

09:00PM Beige Adventures of Ay and Bee

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, Multiple dates

Burlescque

Edinburgh Sports Club, 11 Aug—29 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 23rd, 26th

Capoeira Knights: The Boys from Brazil

The World @ St George’s West, 06 Aug—31 Aug

Augustine’s, 25 Aug—31 Aug

Lewis Barlow Close-Up Magician C central, 16 Aug—31 Aug

09:15PM All in the Timing

Church Hill Theatre, Wed 12th

Detaining Mr K

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 15th, 16th, 23rd

Lady Boys of Bangkok

Meadows Theatre Big Tops Lady Boys of Bangkok, 10 Aug—31 Aug

not 18th

My Name is Sue

Pleasance Courtyard, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 22nd

Safe In Numbers

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, 07 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

Tears of a Clown

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), Multiple dates

F**ked

How to Giftwrap a Chicken

The Space@Venue 45, 12 Aug—15 Aug

Bedtime Stories C cubed, 06 Aug—31 Aug,

Hitler Alone

Chanel and the Smelly World of Market Street Sweet ECA, 06 Aug—30 Aug

Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, 09 Aug—15 Aug

09:45PM

09:50PM

♥ Certain Dark Things HHHH Underbelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

not 17th

Thu 13th

Memento Mori

The Space on the Mile @ Jury’s Inn (V260), 07 Aug—15 Aug, not 9th

Or[f]unny C Soco, 05 Aug—31 Aug,

Inlingua Edinburgh, 12 Aug—26 Aug

Diverse Attractions, 10 Aug—15 Aug

Sweet Grassmarket Swimming Pool, 19 Aug—29 Aug, not 20th, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 28th

Okinawa 1945

Church Hill Theatre, Tue 11th

Ophelia (Drowning) Sweet Grassmarket Swimming Pool, 05 Aug—18 Aug

Sorry People Universal Arts @ St George’s West, 18 Aug—29 Aug

There Are a Thousand Ways to Kneel and Kiss the Ground Diverse Attractions, 10 Aug—29 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

96 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

Assembly @ George Street, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 18th, 25th

Keep the Change C, 17 Aug—22 Aug The Sugar Dandies: Ladies Not Required C, 05 Aug—15 Aug

09:55PM Beast

The Vault,

10:00PM Auto-Da-Fe by Tennessee Williams

The Spaces on the Mile @ The Radisson, Mon 24th, Tue 25th

Clockwork Orange C, 05 Aug—22 Aug Hope Gap C, 23 Aug—31 Aug Little Johnny’s Big Gay Musical Pleasance Dome, 05

Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th

Ministry of Burlesque’s High Tease The Voodoo Rooms, 12

Aug—23 Aug, not 17th, 18th

Aug

10:10PM Art

C central, 07 Aug—31 Aug

Broken Holmes

The Space@Venue 45, 06 Aug—22 Aug, not 9th, 16th

10:15PM ♥ Bongo Club Cabaret HHHH The Bongo Club, 07

Aug—30 Aug, not 15th, 21st

Dragged, Kicked and Screaming The Vault, 10 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Flowers for Algernon Church Hill Theatre, Tue 11th, Wed 12th

Frank The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons, 07 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church’

By Daniel Kitson Traverse Theatre, 06

Aug—30 Aug, not 10th, 17th, 24th, 29th

Reality Chokes

New Town Theatre, 05 Aug—30 Aug

Snarl-up Spotlites @ The Merchants’ Hall, Multiple dates

Vagina Monologues The Vault, 10 Aug—23 Aug, not 17th

10:20PM King Ubu The Zoo, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th, 24th

Skin of Our Teeth

Church Hill Theatre, Mon 10th

Unfolding King Lear a Model The Vault, 25 Aug—30 Aug

www.festmag.co.uk

theatrelistings 10:30pM

The church of Salsa the world @ St george’S weSt, 12 Aug—29 Aug, not 16th, 17th, 18th, 23rd, 24th, 25th

Hayton on Homicide MultIPle loCAtIonS, 10 Aug—29 Aug

10:35pM

Accidental nostalgia trAVerSe theAtre, 11

Hayton on Homicide MultIPle loCAtIonS, 10

Aug—30 Aug, not 17th, 24th

doctor faustus MultIPle loCAtIonS, Multiple dates

escape BedlAM theAtre,

Sun 23rd BedlAM theAtre, 06 Aug—29 Aug, not 9th, 16th, 23rd

10:55pM

(a Tall Tale from the) Fame Factory AuguStIne’S, 25 Aug—31

Zeitgeist C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

The inconsiderate Aberrations of billy the kid

Burn

Opening night of the Living Dead HHH C CuBed, 06 Aug—31 Aug

Aug—31 Aug, not 20th

a lot of nerve

10:40pM

10:45pM

inventing the Sky Zoo SouthSIde, 07

10:50pM

Aug—29 Aug, not 16th, 23rd

JuSt the tonIC @ the CAVeS, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 18th

Honeymoon

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 05 Aug—25 Aug, not 17th

PleASAnCe doMe, 06 Aug—31 Aug, not 11th, 17th, 24th

Aug

Generation Crunch presents BedlAM theAtre, Sun 16th,

Rachel Rose Reid: And They Lived ...

11:00pM

Queer

AuguStIne’S, 25 Aug—31 Aug

Tragical History and glorious demise of Doctor John Faustus the SPACe@Venue 45, 17 Aug—22 Aug

ballad of the Skull fairy underBelly, 06 Aug—15 Aug

Missing Alice the SPACe@Venue 45, 11 Aug—15 Aug

Bone House underBelly, 06 Aug—30 Aug, not 17th

12:10AM

wicker Man

Assassination of paris Hilton

11:20pM

ASSeMBly @ george Street, Fri 21st, Sat 22nd, Fri 28th, Sat 29th

PleASAnCe CourtyArd, 07 Aug—31 Aug, not 17th

The Trial C SoCo, 05 Aug—31 Aug

11:25pM

MultIPle loCAtIonS, Multiple dates

11:35pM

An Audience with John Smeaton

ASSeMBly @ george Street, 17 Aug—30 Aug, not 24th

11:30pM Tales of the apocalypse

gIlded BAlloon teVIot, 05 Aug—16 Aug

12:20AM Meesterlijk - Showcasing the Best of dutch Theatre the grV, 06 Aug—29 Aug, not 14th, 15th, 29th

12:25AM Searching for Eden: the Diaries of Adam and Eve C, 05 Aug—31 Aug, not 31st

WOOLMERCHANT THEATRE COMPANY presents

Bedales Production

Oedipus of

Rex

Oedipus Rex A5 Flyer P4.indd 1

www.festmag.co.uk

10/7/09 11:21:24

Aug 12 - 15 edinburgh festival guide 2009 fest 97

festsnapshot

James Robertson

Unlikely Flatmates: George Square L-R: Megan Riordan: American actress and prolific gambler regaling Edinburgh with Luck, an account of her exploits in Vegas and beyond Dennis Crow: Legendary pianist who played for two US presidents and accompanied Ella Fitzgerald, now serenading audiences at the Underbelly Hullabaloo Bridge Markland: German performance artist specialising in onstage gender transformations; performing a miniature version of Goethe,s classic in Faust in the Box

98 fest edinburgh festival guide 2009 Aug 12 - 15

www.festmag.co.uk

t h e F e s t i val CC t h e F e s t i val C Ctth he eF Fe essttiival val

Teatro Che y Moche TeatroChe Chey yMoche Moche Teatro eatro CheUmplute y Moche Oua

Exeter University Footlights

Oua Umplute Oua Umplute Oua Umplute

6 - 15 Aug at 5.00pm 15Aug Augatat5.00pm 5.00pm 66- -15 - 15 Aug at 5.00pm

ClearSky SkyTheatre Theatre Clear

Clear Sky Theatre

Don’tForget Forgetto toBreathe Breathe Don’t

Don’t Forget Clear Sky Theatre

to Breathe

22Aug Augatat11.25am 11.25am 55- -22 Don’t Forget to Breathe

5 - 22 Aug at 11.25am

University Footlights Exeter University Footlights IExeter Love You, You’re Exeter University Footlights

’09 ’09 ’09 ’09 ’09

Perfect,

LoveYou, You,You’re You’re Perfect, IIILove Love You, You’rePerfect, Perfect, Now Change Now Change Now 5 - 31 Change Aug at 9.00pm

Now Change 31Aug Aug 9.00pm 55- -31 atat9.00pm

5 - 31 Aug at 9.00pm

CompleteWellness WellnessProductions Productions Complete

Complete Unit 46Wellness Productions Unit Unit46 46

Complete Wellness Productions

5- -31 31Aug Aug 6.45pm 5 Unit 46atat6.45pm

5 - 31 Aug at 6.45pm

Exciting.Different.

Different. Unexpected.Over Over150 150shows showsinin19 19performance performancespaces spacesas as Exciting.

- 22 Aug at Different.

11.25am Unexpected.

5 - 31 Auginat19 6.45pm Exciting.

Unexpected.

Over 150 shows performance spaces we celebrate our 18th year at the Fringe.

We come of age with more comedy, we celebrate our 18th year at the Fringe. We come of age with more comedy, as we celebrate our 18th yearinternational at the Fringe.

We come ofbefore. age with more comedy, physical theatre and international work than ever before.

See all.

Exciting.

Different.

Unexpected.

Over 150 shows in 19 performance spaces as physical theatre and work than ever See ititall.

venues vibrant vibrant vivacious vivacious variety variety venues

physical and at international than ever before. it all. we celebrate ourtheatre 18th year the Fringe.work We come of age with See more comedy, C Cphysical theatre and international work than ever before. See it all.

C vibrant vivacious variety boxvenues officehotline hotline0845 0845260 260 1234online onlineprogramme programme www.CtheFestival.com box office 1234 www.CtheFestival.com office hotline 0845 260 1234 online programme www.CtheFestival.com Cboxvenues vibrant vivacious variety