Fest Preview 2018

Theatre Tours International Guy Masterson's 25th

Season

A Christmas Carol

Director George Sully

Co-editors

Evan Beswick & Jo Caird

Sales Executive

Sebastian Fisher

Guy Masterson's spectacular new solo take on Dickens’ classic festive fable - in Summer! (Why not? Australians do it!)

A charming, spectacular tour-de force! Guaranteed to get you into the Christmas Spirit!

HHHHH “Just when you thought you'd seen enough ‘Carols’ to guide you to your grave, along comes one of the best yet!!” (BBC Radio)

The Marilyn Conspiracy

Lead Theatre Critic

Matt Trueman

Artworker

Silvia Razakova

Cover Illustration

Luis Pinto

World Premiere

Marilyn is found dead at 22.30 Sat Aug 4 1962. Verdict: "Probable Suicide". Seven people are with her body before police are called at 04:30 Sunday... What do they talk about? The lid is blown off! Fiction debunked! Lies exposed. Was it suicide? An extraordinary dissection of the most suspicious death in Hollywood history.

Directed by Olivier winner Guy Masterson

Writing Team

Theo Bosanquet, Arnoud Breitbarth, Marissa

Burgess, Ava Davies, Paul Fleckney, Daniella

Harrison, Si Hawkins, Donald Hutera, Katharine

Kavanagh, Laura Kressly, Catherine Love, Becca

Moody, Naomi Obeng, Daniel Perks, Francesca

Peschier, David Pollock, Jay Richardson, Joanna

Trainor, Tom Wicker, Kate Wyver

Radge Media

Publisher

Sophie Kyle

Media Sales Executives

Keith Allan, David Hammond

Bookkeeping & Accounts

Rebecca Sweeney

Fest Street Dates 2018

7, 10, 14, 17, 21 August

Advertising sales@fest-mag.com

0131 467 4630

Contact fest-mag.com

hello@fest-mag.com @festmag

Editor-in-Chief

Rosamund West

Picture Editor

Sarah Donley

Media Sales Manager

Sandy Park

ISSN 2397-2734. Published by Radge Media Limited., 1.9 Techcube, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, Scotland EH9 1PL. Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but we cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate. Show times and prices are subject to changes – always check with the venue. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by More Ltd., Glasgow. Distributed by doortodoordelivery.co.uk

Before we leave...

We celebrate the last festival before the UK leaves its European friends, collaborators and co-stars behind

#MeToo

This year has been one for telling important stories. Those stories continue at the festivals

Comedy

30 Natalie Palamides

Last year’s best newcomer keeps it as fresh as ever

Theatre

59 Cora Bissett

It’s hard to escape the fact: Bissett is a Scottish theatrical powerhouse

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus

86 Tabarnak

All the way from Canada comes divinely inspired circus

Cabaret and Variety

All the best bits

Fest’s distillation of the festivals – the shows you’ve just gotta see

88 Willkommen in Weimar

It’s 100 years since the end of WWI, and the Weimar Republic is back, in so many ways

Musicals & Opera

92 Drive-By Shooting

An opera for people who don’t like opera

Kids

96 What to do; what to see

Some expert advice on keeping your younglings entertained

We’ll Miss EU

United Kingdom

“Cultural collaboration is central to Scotland’s open international cultural outlook and EU membership is a crucial part of this. Currently artists from around the EU work in Scotland, join our performing companies and enhance Scotland’s culture and creative sector. EU citizens travel freely to experience our unique culture and world leading festivals. Unfortunately, the UK Government’s approach to Brexit offers little reassurance for those worried about the impact that leaving the EU will have. – Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, Scottish Government

Germany

“For us as independent artists the access to a festival that has always been a home for boundary-pushing and radical art that questions the society we live in, becomes more difficult” –bambule.babys, performance collective

Belgium

Cold Blood, at the EIF, is a multimedia collabora tion between dancer and choreograper Michèle Anne De Mey and filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael.

Portugal

“Like most of our drinking sessions, Brexit feels like the ultimate hangover for a night we wish had never happened.” – Darias Tabai from Wishful Drinking

Ireland

“Looking at the positive side I can only hope, given everything that we have in common, that the ties between our two nations grow stronger.” – Ryan Murphy, Irish musician with folk band Ímar

Netherlands

“Many comedians we meet in Edinburgh are invited to perform in the Netherlands. It would be a shame to lose that connection!” – Dutch comedian Lisanne Fridsma

Austria

Austrian comic Alice Frick now lives in London, where she organises a monthly comedy show, Laughing Labia

Luxembourg

The Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg are producing no less than four works at this year’s EIF. Quite an output for a nation of 600,000 people.

It’s got to be the Institut Français in Scotland’s annual showcase, Vive le Fringe! ifecosse.org.uk.

Italy

Spain

“Since the Brexit vote, the responses to my act have been like a Spanish FIESTA & SIESTA: FIESTA (when Brexit jokes land) and SIESTA (when they don’t).” – Spanish comedian Sonia Aste

“No more I love yous. We heard there’ll be a pop music embargo: it will be possible to lipsync Annie Lennox’s songs only after express authorisation of the Queen.” – Nina’s Drag Queens

Unbelievably, 2018 marks the last festival before Brexit. Fest takes a tour of each of the 27 EU member states, celebrating a festival that is truly without borders, and speaking to artists about what the future might hold

Finland

There’s more Finland than you can shake an antler at in the (brilliantly named) Finnish showcase, starttofinnish.fi

Sweden

“The most diplomatic way to put it is that Brexit surely won’t help in any way” – Patrik Ågren, producer of Let’s Inherit the Earth

Lithuania

Denmark

What says Denmark more than stories about Vikings? Well, lots of things. But Svend-Erik Engh’s stories in Walk the Oars are, nonetheless, thoroughly Danish.

Slovakia

Slovakian baritone Dalibor Jenis, who is currently playing the lead in Rigoletto at the Sydney Opera House, has performed at the EIF twice.

Poland

“Brexit has given us an awful lot of material, so: we’re taking our cultural differences, our sense of humour and popping it all in a brand new show, Clingfilm” – Lilly Pollard (UK), Izabella Malewska (Poland) and Tutku Barbaros (Turkey), from Plunge Theatre

Slovenia

Slovenia is probably the main reason France, not Scotland, won the world cup in Russia this summer. The 2-2 draw in Ljubljana punted Scotland out of the qualifiers in October last year. Robert Snodgras’s late equaliser just wasn’t enough.

Croatia

Just like Edinburgh, Croatia has its own international arts festival, the Dubrovnik Summer Festival.

Cyprus

Talk about imagining a world beyond borders: Forbidden Stories is a joint Greek-Turkish collab oration focussing on the separation of the island.

Greece

“I left Greece hoping I’d never in my life encounter a government full of incompetent, infighting idiots. But the way Brexit is being handled, it feels like I am back in Greece – only the weather is worse and I have to pay £8 for a kebab” – Greek comedian George Zacharopoulos

“Europe is vastly diverse in terms of traditions, perspectives and talent. Recent political decisions made on the international level seem to suggest that the idea of sharing the uniqueness of our communities is losing its value.” – Kristupas Liubinas, To Have Done With the Judgement of God

Latvia

Edinburgh’s Georgian masterpiece, the New Town, was built partly with timber imported from Riga.

Estonia

Over at the Book Festival, Estonian Andrei Ivanov teams up with Polish writer Jacek Dehnel to talk about their novels based on the reach of the Soviet regime.

Czech Republic

Jakub Hrůša conducts Dvořák Requiem at the EIF with the Bamberger Symphoniker this year.

Bulgaria

Want to know what happens when a Bulgarian musician has a mid-life crisis? The Burning Gadulka is the show for you.

Romania

“Much of our work comes from producers attending fringes and most of it from Edinburgh as the freedom of movement brings so many potential employers” - Iulia Benze from Bubble Show: Milkshake and the Bubble Flower

Hungary

Scotland once had a Hungarian queen. Born into the Hungarian court, Margaret married Malcolm III, becoming Queen of Scots in 1070. She established the ferry to take pilgrims between Edinburgh and Fife, the original Queensferry crossing.

Sir Walter Scott’s last novel, written on his deathbed and unpublished until 2008, is The Seige of Malta. It was inspired by his own trip to Malta in 1831 on doctors’ orders. It didn’t work – Scott died in 1832.

#MeToo

The months following my sexual assault last summer were the hardest and loneliest in my life. I was thrown into deep depression and anxiety, despite many people supporting me. I started attending a group for other survivors. Hearing their stories of healing and frustration, I was flooded with a refreshing feeling of hopefulness and understanding. I wasn’t alone. People know that sexual assault exists, but statistics don’t show the everyday struggles of survivors following their assault. Puffin Island is a true story of going through pre- and post-assault life. My co-writer, Paul Stirrat, is a Scottish native and, since I live in the States, we collaborated across continents. This collaboration drove me to continue connecting to people, instead of giving in to depression and isolation. I credit the collaborative nature of the making of Puffin Island and the brave women in my group for empowering me to tell this story.

It was important for me to expose the actions one might take after being raped, which still seems to be a bit taboo. After my own experience, I sorely lacked any stories about the aftermath I could actually identify with, so I decided to share my own. Over the past years I’ve been doing an extensive research project on men through oneon-one meetings with strangers. The reactions I’ve captured on film, no matter how subtle, are very telling about gender relations and the male gaze. I wanted to show the audience real people in search of attention, validation or some form of intimacy, not a caricature.

Of course, making an accessible performance about rape is tricky. I knew I didn’t want to attack or vilify men or play the victim. It’s more about the often laughable woman/man gender roles, so there is a lot of humour contained in the piece as well. My work has often been described as “an unconventional way of dealing with trauma”, which is funny to me. I mean, what would we define as conventional anyway? Celibacy? Self-harm? In my work, I hope to convey not only how complex it can be to cope with rape, but that there are many ways to handle such trauma.

In an extraordinary year for exposing sexual abuse, artists talk about how their own experiences have impacted their lives and work

Samira Elagoz, Cock, Cock... Who’s There? | Summerhall, 6:45pm – 7:50pm, 3–26 Aug, not 8, 9, 20, prices vary

Cara Corrigan, Puffin Island | Greenside @ Nicolson Square, 3:05pm – 4pm, 3–18 Aug, not 12, prices vary

Credit: Joseph Acquaye

Theatre Uncut’s 2018 theme of “power” is a rich point of exploration for a short play today. I’m personally interested in how power and the exchange of power is erotic, and how this troubles attempts at equal relationships between the sexes. I also wanted to suggest that those who have experienced abuses of power are forced or inclined to inherit the power structures they were subject to, rather than radically reimagining what power can look like.

I wrote Confessions as a palindrome to formally reflect the exchange of power and abuse between the characters, and the abused’s adoption of the abuser’s practice. The exact repetition of the Man’s speech in the Woman’s mouth in the second half of the play confuses our expectations of what a heterosexual relationship exploring domination and submission might look like. Who is doing what to whom; who is receiving pleasure; who is committing violence? These initially clear questions become troubled and ambiguous.

Tom Ratcliffe, VELVET | Pleasance Courtyard, 2pm – 3pm, 1–27 Aug, not 14, prices vary

The prospect of turning something I’m essentially incredibly embarrassed and ashamed of into a huge positive and fantastic opportunity for my career was a significant part of what empowered me to write VELVET. However, I would say that my want to reflect on the theatre industry and society as a whole was the bigger empowerment for me; to delve into our deep, human desire for recognition and how that leads vulnerable people into situations they would otherwise avoid.

VELVET is not entirely autobiographical –my protagonist reacts differently to the situation he is placed in, but it’s very much my way of revealing the experience. It’s empowered me not only to delve into sexual exploitation in our industry, but to do so in, what I hope is, a rounded, honest and interesting way.

Evelyn Mok, Bubble Butt | Pleasance Courtyard, 6pm – 7pm, 1–26 Aug, prices vary

In the excitement of the world finally addressing assault towards women, we women have neglected to consider men and how this conversation may affect them and their feelings.

A date told me he thought the Time’s Up movement was sexist, because it doesn’t take into account female abusers. He called it a witch hunt and lamented over the ruined careers of his heroes.

And I thought: how terrified he must be! Any day now he may be held accountable for something, so I need to sleep with him now before he is officially labelled a douche bag.

I did not know what to reply at the time. Instead I went home and spent the next year writing a whole new show about it. I want nothing more than to be an ally for my male friends in this trying time for them. Come see the show and bring a man!

Cordelia Lynn, Theatre Uncut | Traverse Theatre, 10am – 10:50am, 6 Aug, 13 Aug, £8

Harriet

The #MeToo movement has ignited a seismic shift across the world. Creeps have been toppled, stories have been told. It has been long overdue –but boy did it make Facebook an uncomfortable place for a while. It even made me miss the Ice Bucket Challenge.

Inevitably there’s been backlash. We now have to watch out for Incels (men who can’t get sex and are MAD about it) who are literally causing terrorist attacks and recently described women as “whores riding a cock carousel”. Absolutely terrible…but, errr, can someone invent that please?

My show Slutty Joan was inspired by seeing a lot slut-shaming, from both sexes. Society has tricked us into shaming ourselves! It’s inspired by a study where women rated fictional “Joan” as emotionally unstable and less competent because she was sexually promiscuous even if they had multiple partners themselves. Let’s just say I relate to Joan.

Polly Creed, Power Play: The Empty Chair | Pleasance Pop-Up: Power Play HQ, 5:30pm –6:30pm, 3–25 Aug, not 7, 14, 21 , £12

Set in a real life Edinburgh house as a site-specific piece (and part of the Power Play showcase), The Empty Chair follows four Hollywood actors at an after-party as they each in turn open up about their experiences. However, these are not in fact the testimonies of fictional celebrities, but based on surveys and interviews with real students in London.

I wrote the play not only to explore the connections between these two very different worlds, but also to examine these revelations in terms of storytelling and audience.

I myself am a survivor of sexual assault, and in the weeks and months that followed #MeToo, I started to tell friends and family about what had happened. Most often this would occur while sat around a table, over a glass of wine or dinner. What struck me most was how mundane these settings were, and how surreal it felt to be discussing what had happened. However, even more shocking was the fact that nearly every time I opened up, female friends (and occasionally male friends too) would reply with an almost identical story of their own, and so often these were also almost identical to the stories that were emerging day after day in the press. I became interested in these recurring patterns and cycles of storytelling, as well as the position of the person receiving this information, as an audience and a witness.

Kemsley, Slutty Joan | Voodoo Rooms, 5:55pm – 6:55pm, 4–25 Aug, not 13, FREE

Credit: Tara Rose Photography

Artists in the Age of Trump

Tim Bano finds out what it means to be an artist in America under Trump. Is art enough when “the country is basically at war”?

America is a strange place to be an artist at the moment. Politics is writing its own narrative more ridiculously and bizarrely than comedians or playwrights ever could. As Donald Trump’s dominance has grown, American artists are having to figure out the place for the arts in a divided nation; their ability to punch up when there’s so much pressure pushing downwards; and whether there’s any point at all when so much is at stake. In comedian Judah Friedlander’s terms: “The country is basically at war. It’s a fight for democracy.”

In a way, Friedlander invented Trump before Trump invented himself. He used to perform as the World Champion, a red and white hat-wearing egotist obsessively insisting on his and his country’s pre-eminence. These days, that persona has taken a backseat. It’s just not that funny anymore.

There’s a similar line of thought among other artists, too. For comedian Jacqueline Novak even mentioning Trump is beneath her. “I’ve had lines that reference him but then you think he’s not a worthy reference.”

Russell Hicks suggests there’s almost an obligation for American comedians to talk about the president. “As an American based in London I’m always seen as a delegate from the United States.” Even though anti-Trump material plays well in the UK, Hicks insists there’s a responsibility to come up with a more intelligent perspective than “just calling him ugly”.

While none of them thinks there are off-limits topics for jokes, many comedians are choosing to respond to the farce of Trumpian politics with straight faces, through action and online activism. Novak has been “helplessly retweeting” information about child refugees separated from their parents.

Friedlander too. Although, he warns, activism and egotism can become dangerously linked in a society that worships celebrity. “I’ve seen celebrities at marches, smiling after they’ve given a little speech. What the fuck are you smiling for? This is serious shit. You’ve got to get narcissism out of activism. America is incredibly narcissistic. That’s why Trump is president.”

The trouble is, the conviction runs deep. Exceptionalism, the idea that one nation is inherently superior, naturally leads to bigotry. And those principles helped found and then sustain the country, according to theatremakers Jennifer Kidwell and Scott Sheppard, whose shocking show The Underground Railroad Game looks at the legacy of racism in America.

“It goes back to the way that the idea of the godhead imposed itself,” Kidwell argues. “You had a bunch of people who put themselves on top of pre-existing societies and convinced the people that’s okay, encouraged them to enact atrocities upon atrocities in the name of—what?—something that actually doesn’t exist? That’s some legacy.”

Underground Railroad Game

Credit: Ben Arons Photography

Their show is based on something Sheppard’s teachers made him play at school. Students were split into Southern Confederates and Northern Unionists, with students in the North attempting to sneak black ragdolls, made to look like enslaved people, past the Confederate students to freedom.

One of the many, many problems with that game, says Kidwell, is that, “by locating all of that trauma in the past, you allow yourself to be off the hook for the traumas that persist today, the othering of the black body today.”

male-dominated profession, there was a pressure to self-edit, particularly when it came to jokes about her body. Notions of shame trickle down from the top – especially when a president criticises a woman for having “blood coming out of her wherever”. Now she feels it’s hugely important to kick back.

Still, Novak is not convinced that comedy is the answer. “We need to be marching,” she insists. “It could be that in a matter of weeks people will ask, ‘How was she even talking about her act when the country was burning?’”

In Man Down, Latinx playwright Hannah Trujillo lays bear the the persistence of racism in the US. Her play is a response to police brutality, especially against people of colour. She started writing the play in 2015, and since then it has been revised as more people have been killed.

Trujillo thinks that Trump has legitimised the voices of white nationalists who’ve always been there. “Look at Charleston, the Black Lives Matter protest was interrupted, a woman was killed. His response was that there ‘are good people on both sides’. That comment has set the bar for where this President stands on people of colour in this country.”

Kidwell and Sheppard also began creating their show under Obama, and they wonder whether some people who had been fighting for equality saw his election as a chance to congratulate themselves. “When I travel to other places there’s a completion of story arc about race in America,” Kidwell says, “but there are still people getting murdered.”

“It’s been intensified by an administration that has consistently shown its hatred of people of colour, immigrants, refugees,” Trujillo adds. “People from Central and South America can no longer seek asylum. There was the Muslim ban. There are the Haitian immigrants granted citizenship after the earthquake who are to be deported.”

But maybe, out of the horror can come a positive: “Because this is so blatantly atrocious and because it is gathering so many different atrocities,” Kidwell says, “the effect is to collectivise folks who haven’t been fighting together. If we can look at an iconic figure and feel safe, then we feel less apt to move. This is something to fight against.”

That’s the impulse behind Novak’s show How Embarrassing For Her, an exploration of shame. She had always felt that, as a female comedian in a

But take Trujillo, a young woman of colour at the beginning of her career. For her, art is action. “It’s very daunting to be an artist of colour in this country at the moment, but we have to keep making work that reflects who we are, and reflects those who have worked so hard to get people of colour, of different sexualities into the spotlight.”

In other words, for some artists making work in Trump’s America, art has never been more necessary. Particularly work that attempts to undo, or at least expose, the knots of injustice that have been forming and tightening in the 250 years since the Bill of Rights guaranteed the ingredients that allowed art to be made in the first place: “Freedom of speech, the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

SHOW: Underground Railroad Game

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, various dates between 2 Aug and 26 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Russell Hicks: Love Song for the Viciously Ambitious

VENUE: Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters

TIME: 5:45pm – 6:45pm, 2–26 Aug

TICKETS: FREE

SHOW: Judah Friedlander: America... Still Number One

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 10:30pm – 11:30pm, 19–22 Aug

TICKETS: £14.5

SHOW: Man Down

VENUE: Venue 13

TIME: 2:35pm – 3:35pm, 4–25 Aug, not 6, 13, 20

TICKETS: £12

SHOW: Jacqueline Novak: How Embarrassing for Her

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 5:45pm – 6:45pm, 1–26 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

“This is something to fight against” – Hannah Trujillo

Comedy Top Picks

Comedy critic Paul Fleckney picks out the best of the best of the Fringe comedy programme

Elf Lyons: Chiffchaff

Pleasance Dome, 1–27 Aug, not 13, 6:50pm

One of those performers who you feel just loves performing. Her chaotic dress-up-box rendition of Swan Lake last year seemed like a childhood ambition come true, and was steeped in joy, talent and natural comic chops. This year her show is a musical that’s named after a type of warbler (“Chiffchaff”) and is about the economy. Now that’s showbiz.

Alex Edelman: Just for Us

Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, 8pm

Natalie Palamides: Nate

Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 6pm

A comic capable of great things, indeed her debut last year, Laid, wasn’t just gloriously messy, it was smart, funny and bold as hell. This year she turns her attentions from femininity to masculinity, dragging up as likeable douchebag Nate. Don’t expect it to be straightforward, do expect it to be memorable.

Clever-clever East Coast American liberal standups are some people’s worst nightmare, but these people are wrong. Edelman won Best Newcomer in 2014 and, despite his youth, he already felt like a standup thoroughbred. He’s back to hopefully prove that was no fluke.

Glenn Wool: Wool’s Gold II (The Iron Pirate)

Monkey Barrel Comedy Club, 2–25 Aug, not 13, 7:30pm

Every year I write that Glenn Wool is the best standup at the Fringe and every year it’s true. It’s a joke that he’s on the Free Fringe, waiting there with his bucket at the end like a rookie, but he doesn’t seem that worried. Go and let a hairy Canadian show you how it’s done.

Credit: Andy Hollingworth Archive

Credit: Nick Rasmussen

Janeane Garofalo: Put a Pin in That

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1–19 Aug, not 13, 9:15pm

Arguably the biggest name to hit the Fringe this year. Garofalo has been doing comedy for more than 25 years now, and has also notched up numerous acclaimed roles on film and TV (Larry Sanders, Ratatouille, The Truth About Cats and Dogs). This year the outspoken standup brings her new show to Edinburgh, Put a Pin in That, marking her third visit after 2009 and 2013.

Flo & Joan: Alive On Stage

Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, not 11 , times vary

Simultaneously twee and dark, Flo and Joan are like Blue Peter presenters who are capable of kidnap. If you haven’t seen either of their two previous shows— or indeed their Nationwide adverts—they write funny songs that are everso English in their politeness, wit and dark underbelly.

Kwame Asante: Teenage Heartblob

Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, not 15, 9:45pm

A standup who’s so nice I’ve wondered whether he’s too damn nice for this standup game. It turns out you can be a gentle soul and bloody funny too, which is a reason for hope. Asante chucked in his career as a doctor to be a comic, and chances are he’ll find your funny bone (sorry).

Sheeps: Live and Loud Selfie Sex Harry Potter

Pleasance Dome, 1–27 Aug, not 10, 11, 25, 7pm

A bunch of mates who have a unique chemistry and write funny stuff together: that’s how a sketch group should be, no? That’s what Sheeps do/ are, and the lads are back after a break with more of their deliciously knowing bantz. NB. Sketchy clever-dicks The Pin are also back and also great.

Credit: Steven Dewall

Jordan Brookes: Bleed

Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, not 14, 8:30pm

A twisty, sinewy standup who always reminds me of Jez in the Rainbow Rhythms episode of Peep Show, Brookes is graphic and confessional, which isn’t original in itself, but the way he does it very much is. Two Edinburgh Comedy Award nominations in, and Brookes may have his eye on the big one.

Kate Berlant: Communikate

Assembly George Square Studios, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 9:15pm

A sharp, charismatic comic who’s on the up up up. She’s best known in her native US for her video series 555, made with fellow standup John Early about Hollywood and its hyper-ambitious residents. She’s a terrific standup too and this is her debut show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Mr. Swallow and the Vanishing Elephant

Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, 7:30pm

Nick Mohammed is one of those renaissance men types who you feel could make a career of anything he puts his mind to. Lucky for us he’s alighted upon comedy, and with his unique comic/ magician creation Mr. Swallow, he has produced outstanding shows in tribute to Houdini and Dracula. This year his show is called Mr. Swallow and the Vanishing Elephant. Surely not…

Mat Ewins: What Sorry? My Mistake!

The Doors Are Not Open; The Show Has Been Cancelled. Do Not Have Your

Tickets Ready!

Just the Tonic @ The Mash House, 2–26 Aug, not 13, 8:50pm

Mat Ewins’ loyalty to his stinking dungeon of a venue has been admirable, but finally he’s branched out to a new room where he will hopefully be seen by more, and more comfortable, people. He’s cheeky, he’s fast-paced, he’s a relentless gagsmith who tells his jokes via “multimedia” (ie screens).

Credit: Rebecca Pitt

Credit: Howard Read

Theatre Picks

Lead Critic Matt Trueman gives the gen on the festival’s top theatrical events

Chase Scenes

Summerhall, 1-26 August, not 6, 13, 20, 2:25pm

A collage of high-speed chases, women running from men: Ming Hon’s low-fi, DIY reconstruction of famous film pursuits sounds like exactly the sort of acute, oddball piece that thrives at the Fringe. A comic, accusatory cultural critique, it should ask why violence against women is such a recurring trope in art.

Carmen Funebre

Pleasance @ EICC, 16-19 August, 9:30pm

Medea Electronica

Pleasance Courtyard, 14–19 August, 6:30pm

Backed by a pulsating synth-pop soundtrack, new company Pecho Mama bring Medea to Maggie Thatcher’s Britain in this arresting piece of gig theatre. Using retro cassettes and Fisher Price players, Medea Electronica makes an ancient myth anew.

Stilted figures stalk the streets to a thumping bass beat in Carmen Funebre (‘Funeral Song’) – a desolate theatrical vision of war. Polish street theatre troupe Teatr Biuro Podróžy pulled in crowds of a thousand-plus when this show played the Fringe 23 years ago. Sadly, it feels mighty timely once more.

Old Boy

Scottish Storytelling Centre, 18-19, 24-26, 11am

Grandfathers and their grandsons take to the stage in this piece by Glasgow-based Junction 25’s sister company Glas(s) Performance. There are toddlers and teenagers and greying grown men. Old Boy reaches across the generations to reflect on what we pass on; a meditation on history, legacy and, yeah, love.

Credit: Brian Hartley

Credit: Murdo MacLeod

Credit: Dahlia Katz

Queens of Sheba

Underbelly, 2-26 August, not 13, 6:50pm

Greeted with a roar of approval on a trial run at Camden People’s Theatre, Queens of Sheba recounts the story of four black women turfed out of a nightclub over the shade of their skin. A young interdisciplinary company backed by Black Theatre Live, Nouveau Riche picked up an Underbelly Untapped Award to bring this show to the Fringe.

Status

Summerhall, 1-26 August, not 2, 13, 7:55pm

It’s quite the Edinburgh collaboration: four-time Fringe

First-winner Chris Thorpe and Rachel Chavkin, director of the TEAM. Status has been brewing for a while, but it’ll be served up right on time. A reflection on what it means to reject your nationality – the sort of scab Thorpe picks better than anyone.

Square Go

Roundabout @ Summerhall, 1-26 August, not 2, 7, 14, 21 , 8:20pm

Local boys Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair team up to look at likely lads in this new show about early-onset toxic masculinity. Or are they going head-tohead? Square Go is the story of a schoolyard fist fight, as two boys battle it out for playground supremacy. This could be a knockout.

La Maladie de la Mort

Lyceum Theatre, 16-19 August, times vary

Over the last decade, Katie Mitchell has become one of the most significant directors on the continent, largely thanks to her live cinema stagings. Her Edinburgh International Festival debut is long overdue and Marguerite Duras’s 1982 novella, a thriller about a woman hired to fall in love, sounds perfectly suited to her spot-on feminist gaze.

Credit: Nouveau Riche

Credit: Stephen Cummiskey

Credit: The Other Richard

On the Exhale

Traverse, 2-26 August, not 6, 13, 20, times vary

Director Christopher Haydon has kept a keen eye on the US at the Trav. Grounded and The Christians both delved into its core. He’s back this year with Martín Zimmermann’s scrutinous look at its gun laws; a searing solo show set in the wake of a school shooting.

My Left / Right Foot – The Musical

Assembly Roxy, 1-27 August, not 8, 14, 21, 6:10pm

It’s almost 30 years since Daniel Day-Lewis won his first Oscar for playing a man with cerebral palsy in My Left Foot. Disability-led company Birds of Paradise team up with National Theatre of Scotland to spoof actors ‘cripping up’ in this witty new musical about a right-on am-dram company that gets it all wrong.

Big

Aftermath of a Small Disclosure

Summerhall, 1-26 August, not 13, 20, 2:50pm

A split couple forms the core of Magne van den Berg’s play – one wants to go, the other to stay. If that feels potent, the combo of Purni Morell’s translation and Actors

Touring Company’s reputation makes this a must-see. Even the smallest of disclosures can send shockwaves. Expect Big Aftermath to do much the same.

Drip Feed

Assembly George Square Theatre, 1-26 August, not 14, 2:30pm

A rip-roaring, raggedy one-woman show, Karen Cogan’s Drip Feed will inevitably draw comparisons to Fleabag Shortlisted for the Verity Bargate Award, this account of being a young, queer woman in Ireland puts the shag into shaggy dog story.

Kids Picks

It’s never easy keeping little ones entertained during the Fringe. Let Fest find the best for the toughest of critics

Charlie Baker Presents: The Greatest Goat of All Time, ages 8+

Assembly George Square Gardens, 2–26 Aug, not 21 , 3pm

There are probably two things you need to know about Charlie Baker. First: he’s a collaborator with Harry Hill on Harry Hill’s Tea Time. Ergo, expect anarchic fun. Second: he’s as close to an oldschool song-and-dance man as you’re likely to find. Expect songs sung beautifully, and dances danced delightfully.

Chores, ages 0+

Assembly George Square Gardens, 2-26 Aug, not 13, 20, 12pm

Woogie Boogie, ages 3+

Summerhall, 2–26 Aug, not 13, 20, 10am

South Korean Brush Theatre have become a bit of a Fringe institution over the past four years. They present vivid and imaginative works for young audiences, including this colourful work about a boy and a turtle on a sea adventure. They have a second show, The Little Musician, part of the Korean Season.

This acrobatic spectacular about two naughty boys attempting—not very successfully—to tidy up their messy room before mum comes home was a hit at the Adelaide Fringe this year and will surely go down well in Edinburgh too. Expect silliness, slapstick and plenty of inventive mess-making that might just give your kids some ideas – good luck!

Shhh... The Elves Are Very Shy, ages 0+

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh –John Hope Gateway, 5-26 Aug, not 6, 13, 20, times vary

Early-years specialists

Ipdip Theatre are back in the charming environs of the Royal Botanic Gardens with a new multisensory show for the Fringe’s youngest audiences. Little ones will love helping Dr Greenwood the “elfologist” to track down evidence of her two tiny friends, and you can explore the gardens afterwards too.

Credit: Katie Bennett

Musical Picks

The festivals are bursting with musicals, operas and special concerts – we’ve picked out a handful of gems from this year’s programmes

Pussy Riot: Riot Days

Summerhall, 10-19 Aug, 7pm

You don’t need us to tell you that this will be an unforgettable gig. Some things you might not know: it’s based on the book about what happened to the irreverent Russian punk collective after they displeased Vladimir Putin with a protest concert in a cathedral in 2012; and as such, though it’s listed in the music programme, Pussy Riot themselves consider this show a work of theatre. Buckle up.

Thor and Loki

Assembly Roxy, 1-26 Aug, not 13, 7:15pm

The Beggar’s Opera

King’s Theatre, 16–19 Aug, times vary

It doesn’t quite have the tuneful razmatazz of the EIF’s flagship production of Rossinni’s La Cenerentola, but in some ways John Gay’s Georgian work is a more interesting affair. Full of dark, mournful, scathing ballads, this production of The Beggar’s Opera is particularly interesting for its period orchestration, throwing into relief the thoroughly modern themes.

Ring Cycle, move over, there’s a new musical extravaganza about Norse gods in town. Except this one is only 75 minutes long, is a comedy, and features a chorus of tap-dancing trolls. A must for Wagner afficionados, and everyone else besides.

Jan Tait and the Bear

Summerhall, 8–16 Aug, not 10, 11, 12, times vary

Part of the Made in Scotland Showcase (celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, FYI), this is a new opera from Scottish/ Canadian composer Emily Doolitte. It’s a funny, folklore-infused tale of a Shetlander transported to Norway, and is absolutely not stuffy opera. For ages 8 and above.

Credit: Patrick Berger

Accessible Picks

Singing Hands Summer Spectactular

Gilded Balloon at the Museum, 17–19 Aug, 12pm

Suzanne and Tracy, the duo behind Singing Hands are, it seems, a bit of a thing online. Their stock-in-trade is family-focused songs and dances involving Makaton signing, and an anything-goes approach to creativity designed to ensure that no one misses out. Both have childen with communication needs, so sing joyfully with the voice of experience.

Sirens

Pleasance Courtyard, 1-27 Aug, not 13, 20, 3:35pm

The Flop

Summerhall, 3-26 Aug, not 13, 20, 4:55pm

Inclusive theatre company Hijinx, who had a hit with puppetry show Meet Fred at last year’s Fringe, are back with this collaboration with clowning supremos Spymonkey. Telling the true story of a 17thcentury aristocrat who can’t get it up, The Flop is guaranteed to shatter any preconceptions audiences might harbour about the work of disabled artists.

Three Greek sirens find themselves washed up on Hastings beach in this devised piece from awardwinning theatre company The Zoo. Featuring a cast of deaf and hearing actors, creative captioning— where captions are worked into the aesthetic of the show—and British Sign Language, Sirens is a great example of a promising new wave of inclusive theatre breaking over the British arts scene.

Lost Voice Guy: Inspiration Porn

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 4pm

Back in 2016, Lee Ridley (aka Lost Voice Guy) was still sending out his own press releases. Not so anymore: Ridley became a household name this year as the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. Incredibly, Ridley cannot talk, so his jokes are truly as inclusive and accessible as comedy can possibly be. Oh, and really funny, too.

While accessibility at the Fringe is still not perfect, it has come a long way. Here are some top shows that champion or incorporate disability in their work

Cabaret and Variety Picks

More triple-threats than you can shake a diamond-encrusted microphone at, the Fringe always does well with cabaret; here are some glitzy highlights

Jonny Woo’s All Star Brexit Cabaret

Assembly George Square Gardens, 2-27 Aug, not 13, 20, 6pm

If you only see one Brexit satire this Fringe, this should be it. Whether you’re a Remainer or...a Remainer (may as well face facts, there aren’t likely to be all that many Leavers among Fest’s libtard readership), you’ll find it hard to resist the killer combo of songs by Richard Thomas (he of Jerry Springer The Opera) and drag superstar, Jonny Woo, plus a cast including Jayde Adams as Boris Johnson.

Michael Griffiths: Songs by Kylie

Assembly George Square Theatre, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 5:20pm

Hot Brown Honey

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3–27 Aug, not 8, 15, 23, 7:30pm

If you haven’t seen it yet, then it sucks to be you. Part of the Briefs Factory powerhouse, this is a sassy, catchy, energetic, frenetic assault on the patriarchy, on comfortable postcolonialism, on easy stereotypes. It’s aggressively subversive and yet very very easy to swallow. You’ll go out singing catchy tunes aiding revolution.

He’s done Madonna, Annie Lennox and Cole Porter. It seemed inevitable that the Australian cabaret star would turn to his homeland and channel the Princess of Pop. To think this incongruous is to underestimate Griffiths’ ability to sensitively draw out the intricacies of a musical persona. It’s less impersonation than inhabitation.

Lady Rizo: Red, White and Indigo

Assembly Hall, 2-19 Aug, not 8, 13, 9:10pm

Liberal New Yorker Lady Rizo has found herself apologising on behalf of her nation a fair bit recently, and in this new show, which she performed to glowing reviews in Australia, she tackles her dysfuntional relationship with her motherhood through stories and songs. Think of it like taking the knee, but in cabaret rather than American football.

Thunder from Down Under: Our Picks from Adelaide Fringe

In case you hadn’t heard, Fest launched in Australia in February of this year. Here’s a roundup of our top reviewed shows at the Adelaide Fringe coming to Edinburgh - it was all about the comedy and cabaret this year

Fringe Wives Club: Glittery Clittery

Assemby Roxy, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 8:50pm

“This show knocks it out of the park. It is a raunchy, sassy, feminist call-to-arms.”

Midnight Marauders

Assembly Checkpoint, various dates between 2-26 Aug, 11:30pm

“Carla Lippis mixes energetic songs—backed by her tight band—with dry humour, and introduces a range of acts to the stage.”

Yummy

Assembly Roxy, 1–26 Aug, not 8, 14, 21 , 9:40pm

“A variety spectacular that questions the gender binary and turns preconceived notions of ‘drag’ on its head.”

Kids

The Bean Counter

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 18–26 Aug, 12:45pm

Josh Glanc: Karma

Karma Karma Karma Chamedian

Comedy Music

Underbelly, Bristo Square, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 5:30pm,

“Absurd, dynamic sketch comedy, furnished with props, costumes and musical cues, and infused with warmth and care.”

The Travelling Sisters: Toupé

Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1–27 Aug, not 15 , 6:15pm,

“In each grotesque caricature they perform, they find something vulnerable, resilient or triumphant to share with the audience.”

Demi Lardner: I Love Skeleton

Assembly George Square Studios, 1-26 August, not 13, 8:05pm

“She’s a master of character work, in this show effortlessly switching between human and animal.”

Ukulele Death Squad

Leith Depot, 9pm, 3–12 Aug, not 4, 6, 10, 11

“The sheer talent and vivacious nature of the boys is clearly apparent as they dance, croon and play their way into the audience’s hearts.”

“While the concept is modest, Cooper has the theatrical skills to make it excruciating.”

Focus On: Natalie Palamides

Last year’s Best Newcomer is back with a new show, only this time she’s a man. Paul Fleckney finds a performer still unafraid to break a few eggs

We are quickly learning that Natalie Palamides doesn’t do things by halves. Her debut show last year, Laid, was a wild and messy ride, and involved her secreting a lot of eggs about her person – eggs she would then either fry onstage or raise as a child. When Natalie and I speak about her new show, Nate, she’s at home in Los Angeles creating a painting of a naked woman with a tuna casserole in front of her vulva.

Aside from the obvious issue of what on earth a tuna casserole is (I understand it’s mainly an American thing), this is a good marker for what kind of comedian Palamides is. That is, full-throttle and visual, yet substantial too. In my review of Laid last year, I described her as peddling “carnage with purpose”, and Nate promises to pull off a similar trick.

Whereas Laid was study of femininity, Nate is a study of masculinity, and if it’s about any one thing, it’s about consent. Palamides drags up as Nate for the entirety of the show, much like Zoë Coombs Marr did for her 2016 anti-misogyny tour de force, Trigger Warning. The difference here, though, is that Palamides clearly feels a lot of warmth for her creation.

“Nate’s just a stupid, lovable guy. I love playing him so much, I get to say really stupid stuff. People may think he’s a douchebag at first, but as you get to know him you realise he’s a lovable character. He’s kind of been affected by toxic masculinity and he’s pro-consent – that’s something that comes up again and again. He says, ‘all you gotta do is ask’.

“He does get into a difficult situation, but because he’s so lovable it makes the situation tough for

the audience to say what’s right or wrong.”

The 28-year-old comic and actor was crowned Best Newcomer last year, and returns once again with Phil Burgers as director of her show – that’s Doctor Brown, who won the 2012 Edinburgh Comedy Award for the spellcheck-defying Befrdfgth. Palamides says in jest that she enjoys playing Nate so much that she’s considered staying in character for the whole month. But does she feel different performing as a man? Does it bring any sense of freedom?

fest-mag.com

“I feel so much freedom playing him! I get to be gross, sexual, I get to be a badass as well. He allows me to enter arenas that I couldn’t normally as myself. Although I’m not sure it’s playing a male that gives me a privilege [so much] as being onstage. When I’m on stage, I can do whatever I want.”

And that’s a privilege Palamides embraces more than most. / Paul Fleckney

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 6pm – 7pm, 1–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

“People may think Nate’s a douchebag at first, but as you get to know him you realise he’s a lovable character”

Credit: Nick Rasmussen

Holy Jokes

Jay Richardson explores an unusually spiritual perspective on making people laugh

Conventional wisdom suggests that all comedians are flawed somehow, seeking laughter to plug holes in their corrupt souls. But acute hypochondria notwithstanding, the genially upbeat Luca Cupani thought he confounded the stereotype. Until a backstage chat set him right, as he reveals in his latest show, God Digger.

“The other comics said, ‘Well, you are Catholic, so that feels like a flaw to us’,” the Italian standup says with a laugh. “Having faith was felt to be odd, considered somewhere between something fake and an addiction.”

A former altar boy, Cupani rejected pressure to join the priesthood because he wanted a girlfriend. Nevertheless, he remained “fascinated by the stage, the ritual”—the performance—of Mass. Anecdotally, plenty of comics have kicked against the pricks of their parents’ religion. The volume of corrupt priest and overbearing mother jokes you hear on the circuit is reflective of a disproportionate number of lapsed Catholics and non-observant Jews performing standup. Yet the 2015 So You Think You’re Funny winner still manages to both have his communion wafer and eat it.

“When I was little, [Catholicism] was a very good

story, almost a fairytale,” he reflects. “I’m used to people not sharing my optimism about the afterlife, especially in standup.

“But you can have arguments with God. I like the idea of someone who thinks about me, makes me feel special and loves me. But since he’s a father figure, let’s say sometimes I have father issues. And I share them.”

Equally, “a collateral effect of being Catholic is realising you are presented with a beautiful story, but this story is told by people who are not necessarily beautiful. It’s like being part of a club that has high moral values but not so high practised standards. You quickly learn of this contradiction and the funniness in it, you require humour to digest it. I like to try and fill in the things they don’t tell you in the Bible because there’s a lot of fun in it. And it makes me more human.”

As a teenager, Ashley Blaker wanted to be a Catholic comic too. Or at least a football-going, Jewish teenager trying to be, like Frank Skinner, a Catholic. “But I had nothing to say,” the UK’s only Orthodox Jewish standup concedes. “I had no experience, no identity.” So instead he became a facilitator of others’ comedy careers, producing shows like Little Britain. Meanwhile, as he recounts in his Fringe debut, Observant Jew, he’d begun to embrace his religion more devotedly. And when a rabbi asked him to give a talk at synagogue about his career, he realised he’d found his calling.

“I had to become Orthodox in order to find not just an identity but something I wanted to talk about,” he says. But the largely atheistic, even hedonistic, late-night environs of live comedy don’t exactly complement attending synagogue for morning prayers. Or having six children, which, as Blaker continues ›

A Catholic, an Orthodox Jew and a Sufi walk into a gig. No, really.

Ashley Blaker Sunday Service with Ola

says with a chuckle, is about “bang-on average” for his community.

“Outwardly, it’s lunacy,” he admits. Gigging is “such a hassle for me in so many ways, so why do I still do it?” Obliged by a precept of Judaism known as ‘Kiddush HaShem’ to sanctify God’s name with his act, Blaker justifies it with an appeal to Elijah’s acclamation of two comedians in the Talmud. Also relevant is the fact that “nothing else has ever given me more meaning in my life”.

and sinners, he’s focusing instead on the “middle path that emerges naturally through having experienced those two extremes. And, I have to say, approaching middle age with certain patterns emerging.”

Likewise, Ola has lent on his Christianity in hard times. He’s adamant that an angel counselled him after some tough early gigs, “esoteric as that sounds. But I’ve embraced it as a supernatural encounter”. And he spontaneously uttered God’s name when an audience member slashed him with a knife.

Not to mention material. As a producer, being unable to shake hands with women has caused no end of social awkwardness. “My response to that is where my creativity comes in,” he says.

He’s excited by his first Edinburgh run. His recent Goyish Guide to Judaism on Radio 4 gave Blaker a “confidence that people are interested. You’ve heard lots of Jewish comedians but from a more-orless secular perspective. You’ve never heard anyone talking about this.

“I can make a real case for how great it is, how impressed I am by this Orthodox world. I talk about the charm and naïvety to it. There’s a real charming innocence.”

Contrastingly, Imran Yusuf, bored of the club circuit, recently considered quitting standup and returning to the gaming industry. Television exposure following his 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination had waned, yet his Muslim faith remained constant. Adjusting his spiritual outlook from a binary conception of morality, Saint, Sinner, Sufi reflects his efforts to find some moderation and inner peace, “to talk about something I don’t get to talk about in a club environment. I don’t want it to be just gag, gag, gag.

“I just realised that I wanted and need to do more with my standup, because what it effectively is, is transformation through self-expression.” Rather than fully commit to Sufi Islam or Sufism however, he’s using it as a model for his comedy, reining back his animated delivery for a more thoughtful, less judgemental perspective.

“Sufism for me is a lot more inward-looking and personal,” he explains. “It’s not looking for something external to justify or validate it, an external monolith. It’s more relaxed and about an emotional response to the world you live in.” Rejecting conceptions of saints

Yet he too was recently wrestling with the uniformity of the standup circuit, was concerned about his wife’s pregnancy and “having a bit of a crisis of faith, really struggling to go to church”. But where Yusuf has looked inwards, Ola instead adopted the communal model of his church for standup, cancelling all his regular gigs and devoting himself to Ola’s Sunday Service Mixing standup sets from guest comics—including Yusuf—with debates about topical issues, semi-serious anthemic singing and audience confessionals, it features Ola himself, often unseen on the ‘God mic’ at the back of the room. His role? “Just gently guiding” his fellow comics onstage, “as I get out of my own way to make the best show possible”.

The show’s genesis was “social relevance”, he ventures. “There are aspects of church that are very, very useful, even for those who don’t necessarily believe. It’s the one place I go to a week that contextualises what I’m seeing in the world and helps me navigate it.

“We have some very funny and talented standups. But when they apply themselves to a topical and poignant issue, it has much greater impact.”

/ Jay Richardson

SHOW: Ashley Blaker: Observant Jew

VENUE: Underbelly, Bristo Square

TIME: 3pm – 4pm, 1–26 Aug, not 4, 11, 18, 25

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Imran Yusuf: Saint, Sinner, Sufi

VENUE: The Stand’s New Town Theatre

TIME: 5:30pm – 6:30pm, 2–26 Aug, not 6, 13, 14, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Luca Cupani: God Digger

VENUE: Underbelly, George Square

TIME: 5:20pm – 6:20pm, 1–27 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Sunday Service With Ola

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 5:15pm – 6:30pm, 5 Aug, 12 Aug, 19 Aug, 26 Aug

TICKETS: £14

“I had to become Orthodox in order to find something I wanted to talk about” – Ashley Blaker

Focus on: Beth Vyse

Anyone who has witnessed Olive Hands, the alter ego of Beth Vyse, knows she’s unfit to be a mother. Well, too late. Beth has a baby, and Olive isn’t afraid to use him

Plenty of Fringe shows aspire to connect with our inner child. Few, though, are willing to risk sharing the spotlight with an actual breathing, bawling infant. Still, Henry is an old showbusiness hand – 15 months old in fact.

Appearing at the Machynlleth Festival at four weeks, he made his Soho Theatre debut less than two months later. “Discovered” at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe, when his mother took one of the pregnancy test kits she’d been using as a prop—“getting the audience to lick it”—he was, she calculates, “roughly conceived” at Latitude.

“I’d got drunk on gin with my partner Luke, Ali Brice and Spencer Jones. And the rest is history.”

Beth Vyse laughs about a double act that’s doubling down on her surreal turn as deranged daytime TV host Olive Hands. Can a woman really have it all, both family and career, asks The Hand That Rocks the Cradle? Especially if that woman is a dissolute madwoman who only had a child to get back on television?

Vyse intended to perform a version of Rocks the Cradle at last year’s Fringe, but postponed due to Luke’s extreme ill health. And having previously devised an acclaimed standup hour about her breast cancer, she’s overcome significant setbacks to flesh out the character of Olive, established piece by piece in former shows with more and more of her own biography.

“It’s a heightened persona now,” she explains. “The character is filled with my life and child.” Olive wants to be the greatest daytime television presenter of all time. But her shows always end up in a big mess. After fucking up the last time, she thought she’d have a baby who she could co-host with. She pitched it to ITV9, who loved it. What could possibly go wrong?

Prophetically, one of Olive’s bygone degradations portrayed Les Dawson as the Angel of the North telling her that she would give birth to the greatest daytime television show host of all time. And with

her high camp, leopardskin-sporting personality (at least partially based on Vyse’s own mother) Olive is truly blurring fantasy, reality and outright lunacy.

“It’s about being a real mum but still wanting your career,” Vyse reflects. “It’s about me wanting to hold onto my old dreams instead of evolving with my child and discussing that problem.” Yet Olive also channels Vyse’s Caesarean section into a gameshow; her “handmaiden” (Alwin Solanky of the Weirdos collective) is milked; acting advice that David Jason once gave Vyse is invoked; and there may even be another birth, live on air.

Meanwhile, there’s a real child appearing on stage with its own agenda. As mime comic Trygve Wakenshaw delightfully showed last year, improvising around his baby son Phineas, that can make for some unpredictable but endearing memories. “I hope Henry has fun and remembers it,” Vyse says. “I’d never put him in a dangerous position. There’s a childminder and Luke backstage. And the handmaiden onstage. So I can do my crazy thing while the baby is at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

“But we don’t know what will happen. There’s definitely room for spontaneity and I’ll go with him. The audience will wonder if he’s my baby and whether I should be bringing him on. It opens a discussion up. But he’s also that extra added element of surprise.” /

Jay Richardson

VENUE: Monkey Barrel Comedy Club

TIME: 3:45pm – 4:45pm, 1–26 Aug, not 15

TICKETS: £5

Credit: Idil Sukan

Focus on: Sindhu Vee

Comedian Sindhu Vee talks

motherhood and the darkness of love ahead of her debut Fringe hour, Sandhog

“Say ‘hi’ to your mom for me,” Sindhu says with a wink as we part ways. Most of our conversation concerned mothers. Indeed, motherhood is a topic which frequently features in Vee’s work, alongside a “brutally honest” approach to our inner lives and relationships with our families. After an increasing number of gigs and television appearances over the past months, she’s branching out to debut Sandhog, her first hour-long solo show at the Fringe.

“Oh my god, I’m so excited,” Vee says. “There’s a certain darkness to the show, which wasn’t on purpose but I think it’s very valuable. If you don’t learn how to play with the dark and light in love then you’re always gonna end up with a broken heart.”

In Sandhog, Vee largely talks about her own family – especially her children. But what do they think of it? “They don’t pay attention. I’m their mom. For them, I’m the person who says, ‘Eat your broccoli! Stop picking your nose!’ I maintain a very big separation between my comedy persona and home persona because I was a mom for much longer.”

Vee fell into comedy a few years ago, after a colleague at the investment bank where she worked emailed about a charity standup gig she was doing. “I thought: ‘You’re not very funny, how are you doing standup?’” She gave it a go herself, found it “compulsive”, and had to do it again. “I learnt a lot about it and

had to mould my life around it. I had three kids who had school. I couldn’t be out gigging until midnight.”

Going from being an investment banker to comedian may seem like a huge step, but comedy has always been part of Vee’s life, she says. As a child, she would “risk her life” to watch Carol Burnett on television at night, as well as being the “class clown”, though her mother pulled her from the school play due to a poor maths grade: “[She told me] she was going to marry me off and I thought, ‘This lady means business’.”

a certain darkness to the show”

Most recently, Vee was on the judges panel of the prestigious Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction, which controversially did not award a winner. She remains tight-lipped as to why: “There were so many funny books but the prize is a very high standard.” Would she ever consider writing comic fiction herself? “I think my own head would explode with joy.” / Daniella Harrison

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 4:30pm – 5:30pm, 1–26 Aug

TICKETS: £6-£10

“There’s

Edinburgh Festival Fringe | 1 - 27 Aug 2018

assemblyfestival.com 0131 623 3030

THRONES! THE MUSICAL PARODY

Assembly george squAre

1 – 26 Aug, 22:30

SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR

Assembly HAll

2 – 26 Aug, 14:30

ALI MCGREGOR: DECADENCE Assembly HAll

2 – 12 Aug, 18:00

MAX AND IVAN’S PROM NIGHT

Assembly HigH

24 Aug, 21:00

Daily line-ups @AssemblyBOTF

BEST OF THE FEST

Assembly HAll

3 – 26 Aug, MIDNIGHT

BRIEFS: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Assembly HAll

2 – 26 Aug, 19:15

LADY RIZO: RED, WHITE AND INDIGO

Assembly HAll

2 – 19 Aug, 21:10

VERTICAL INFLUENCES

Assembly murrAyfield

8 – 25 Aug, 17:30, 18:30 & 20:15

New line-ups everyday

BEST OF THE FEST

DAYTIME

Assembly george squAre

3 – 26 Aug, 13:00

MICHAEL GRIFFITHS: SONGS BY KYLIE

Assembly george squAre

1 – 26 Aug, 17:20

BABY WANTS CANDY: THE COMPLETELY IMPROVISED FULL BAND MUSICAL

Assembly george squAre

1 - 26 Aug, 20:00

CHOIR OF MAN

Assembly rooms

2 – 26 Aug, 20:00

360 ALLSTARS

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2 – 27 Aug, 16:00

YANA

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2 – 26 Aug, 20:00

ALANA –BETWEEN THE CRACKS

The Skills to Pay the Bills

Think you’ve committed to the festival? Score yourself against these comics with serious skin in the game

For his 2018 show, the absurdly named Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk, Tom Walker learned how to code. On a computer. If past form is anything to go by, Walker is unlikely to be designing productivity apps any time soon. But you never know.

Ever met a practitioner of the Japanese paper folding art, origami? If not, Smith’s your man. Indeed, if you like literally an- ything, he’s your man – he’s listed under every genre of the Fringe programme. Underbelly, Bristo Square, 5:15pm –

, prices vary

‘Tapdancin’’ Elf Lyons

Think Roy Castle, but different sex and different in every other way. Elf Lyons is not only a Philippe Gaulier-trained clown, but now also a tap-dancing comedian.

Tom ‘The Coder’ Walker

Ian ‘Origami‘ Smith

Bet you’ve never built a lovebot. Do you even know what one is? In 2016, Bilal Zafar made cakes; in 2017, biscuits. This year Zafir has upped the stakes, and the tech, and the love.

A former member of sketch group Gein’s Family Giftshop, Meehan’s hair game has always been okay. Good enough to warrant him spending £3,000 to become a barber? Perhaps not, but hard to argue with when you consider that Meehan will be offering snips to comedians in August for £10 to raise money for male suicide prevention charity CALM.

The Bostonian’s 2014 show Millennial won the best newcomer award and made him famous – and a target for anti-semitic attacks online. Which makes his decision to go undercover and attend a meeting of antisemites in New York quite astonishing.

vary

How’s this for straight-up real-life skills: not content with playing a role in the Repeal the Eighth campaign for women’s reproductive rights in Ireland, the Irish comedian is on a mission for real change. Her new podcast, Changing Politics, kicked off by instigating grassroots action to reduce deaths in police custody. Props. Pleasance Dome, 6:50pm – 7:50pm, 1–27

Bilal ‘The Lovebot’ Zafar

Gráinne ‘IRL’ Maguire

James ‘The Usual‘ Meehan

‘Undercover’ Alex Edelman

Focus on: Suzi Ruffell

Becca Moody speaks to Suzi Ruffell about human rights, late-night anxieties and Fringe aspirations

It would be an understatement to say that Suzi Ruffell has had a busy time leading up to this year’s Fringe. “I toured my last show all throughout spring, then did two previews of the new show, then went to Australia for a month. While I was in Australia I wrote heaps and now previews start tomorrow.” It’s probably worth noting that she only flew back from Australia today.

But she’s enjoying being busy because it means her writing is more disciplined: “You have to become better at learning how to manage your time better so that you can write. I sit down and do two hours of working really hard rather than mulling over an idea for four hours.”

Ruffell is renowned for exploring class and status, but this year’s show is slightly different: “I’m not really talking about class this year. I’ve moved on to different subjects. I’m talking more about global human rights. I went on a trip to India this year, and being a queer person in a country where homosexuality is criminalised was something I wanted to talk about on stage.”

It’s clear that Suzi aspires for political depth—”I like to have a conversation piece in the show”—but she approaches such areas with caution: “I just don’t

want to say the wrong thing. How do you respect someone else’s culture whilst still protecting your own sense of dignity and the allowance to be who you are in the world?”

But Nocturnal is also an expression of more personal matters, particularly Suzi’s own experiences with anxiety. “I’m constantly awake at night worrying about a whole myriad of things. And they all seem to hold the same weight, but some of them are ridiculous and some of them are actually quite important. I don’t know whether that’s something everybody does or if it’s unique to me.”

And she’s also passionate about her LGBTQ+ audience: “I seem to have created a fanbase of young queer people and I love that. I love that they feel like I’m talking to them, or talking about them, or just including them. That’s really important to me because when I was growing up I didn’t feel like I was included in that sort of stuff.”

Despite her big subject matter, Ruffell’s aspirations for this year’s Fringe are more modest, and no doubt easily achievable for such a confident and vibrant performer: “I want busy rooms and lots of people laughing. I want people to get to know me a bit better and then I hope I’m still really excited to tour the show after doing it in Edinburgh for the month!” /

Becca Moody

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 9:45pm – 10:45pm, 1–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

“I just don’t want to say the wrong thing”

Barry Ferns: Sociable Climber?

A true Fringe stalwart, Barry Ferns now has his own comedy club down south. But as he tells Si Hawkins, he’s not done with Edinburgh just yet

If you ever wonder why certain acts seem to embark on weird and wonderful stunts at every Edinburgh Fringe, Barry Ferns may have the answer. Brain blinkers. “I have a complete inability to see the consequences of my actions,” he says. “So I land myself in situations.”

The fabulously-haired Ferns is a responsible venue owner down south these days, but his Fringe wheezes continue. His longest-running event is a show on Edinburgh’s own mountain, Arthur’s Seat; venue number 354. Ferns hosts one show atop it every August—this year on the 18th—but in 2012 and 2013 he did one every day.

“Those were extraordinary,” he says. “David Hasselhoff was in the audience one day. Another time it was rainy, misty, but I went up, set up the PA, and one guy showed up – a reviewer. Then these two Japanese tourists came out of the mist, like something from a horror film, and said, ‘Could you direct us to the Royal Mile?’ She was in a summer dress, he was in a zoot suit. We pointed them in the general direction.”

Sociable climbing, you might call that, and Ferns’ burgeoning ‘why not?’ approach was in evidence

on his very first Fringe visit. The comedy-obsessed teenager bumped into Bill Bailey, Jeff Green, Sean Lock and Frank Skinner, and invited himself along for dinner. “I could only afford the hummus starter,” he recalls. “When I went to the toilet they must have all said, ‘Who is that guy?’”

But he was soon gigging too, with the duo Doreen, whose 2001 show involved “standing in the Pleasance Courtyard every day with a sandwich board that said, ‘I am sorry’.” In 2004 he staged a sketch show starring OAPs, then the mountain gigs began in 2007, the year he legally changed his name to Lionel Richie (long story).

That dedication was rewarded in 2013, when Ferns won a Malcolm Hardee award for a now infamous stunt: printing 2,000 fake versions of festival freesheets, complete with rave reviews for his show.

“ Edinburgh, it does feel like running away to the circus”

Barry Ferns

Credit: Andy Hollingworth

Such happenings are more Fringe-spirited than reviews, he reckons. “Edinburgh, it does feel like running away to the circus.”

Indeed, he’s recreating that communal feel back home in London now: the aforementioned venue is a dedicated comedy hub, The Bill Murray. Ferns—a fine comic and MC himself—could be its sinister cult guru, with his messianic hair, and particularly given the title of his new hour: Barry Loves You. Actually the show “tries to get to the bottom of what love is”, he explains. “Part of me feels that love gets a bad press.”

That happens every night down in the Tron basement, which is rather different from his other Edinburgh venue. So what exactly is the capacity on Arthur’s Seat? “20 seated,” he says. “Or a million standing.”

SHOW: Barry Ferns: Barry Loves You

VENUE: Just the Tonic at The Tron

TIME: 9pm – 10pm, 3–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: £5

SHOW: A Comedy Show on Top of Arthur’s Seat

VENUE: On Top of Arthur’s Seat

TIME: 2pm – 2:50pm, 18 Aug

TICKETS: FREE

Ken | Pleasance Dome, 1–27 Aug, not 13, 20, 3:20pm

An original and mischevious experimentalist, Ken Campbell left many marks on British theatre. This show by Terry Johnson pays homage, and tries to revive some of the anarchic spirit of a theatrical great.

A Joke | Assembly Rooms, 2–26 Aug, not 8, 14, 21 , 4:25pm

On which note, one of Campbell’s most notorious vehicles was the oddball Ken Campbell Roadshow – part theatre, part circus, part freakshow. One of those freaks was Sylveste McCoy, now more familiar as Sylvester McCoy, the seventh Dr Who. He performs in A Joke

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical | Pleasance Courtyard, 1–26 Aug, not 14, times vary

If you see one improvised show this year, make it this long-running powerhouse. Started by two of Campbell’s co-conspirators, Adam Meggido and Dylan Emery, the show is a bona fide Fringe stalwart. The show is now in its 11th year, and the flame is kept burning brightly by the co-founders, as well as some of the best improvisers around – the wonderful Pippa Evans being one.

Spirit of the Fringe

Things I Learned from My First Fringe 10

Nominated for best newcomer in 2017 and back again this year with Peachy, Lauren Pattison shares her wisdom

1. You don’t have to get hammered every night

I can sense your shock. I KNOW. This was a complete revelation to me too. You don’t have to be a hermit but, honestly, you’re not missing out if you don’t go out and get shitfaced every single night. All you’re missing is people talking about ticket sales, let’s be honest.

2. You can read reviews without reading reviews

Everyone told me not to read reviews, but sometimes they are hard to avoid, so I devised a cunning plan. My boyfriend read each review and sent me his favourite quote. This worked twofold: I could share the review on social media with a lovely quote to help the shameless self-promotion that is much needed during the Fringe, but also I got a nice li’l confidence boost without having to read the whole thing and undoubtedly spot something that I’d turn into a nightmare in my own anxious tiny head. Solid technique, 10/10 recommend.

3. Live in the centre

Oh God, just pay the couple of hundred extra to live central. Don’t tire yourself out trekking to and from daily. Last year I was a five-minute walk from The Pleasance and it was HEAVENLY to spend the hour before my show just relaxing and snacking and watching dog videos.

4. Don’t just preview in London

I think the biggest thing I learned from my first Fringe was not to just preview in London. Previewing around the country made my show bulletproof and proved the material worked anywhere.

5. Don’t overload yourself with gigs

There’s this belief in Edinburgh that you have to do a million and seven gigs every day from the minute you wake up ‘til three minutes before you go to bed. Do the fun ones, do the ones that pay, do the ones that you think will be good for boosting ticket sales, but leave yourself plenty of time before and after your show to just bloody chill out mate.

6. Share the fuck out of praise and don’t let anyone make you feel bad for it

Share praise, share good reviews, own your show and be proud of what you’ve made. Undoubtedly other people will whinge and get snarky but it’s very easy to mute their tweets or drown them out with the barrage of compliments you’ve received.

7. Ignore the shade

Speaking of people getting snarky – everyone has an opinion on everything. There’ll always be people who have this one, pure idea of what comedy is, and if your work doesn’t match that perfectly, they’ll lambast it and take pot shots. But you know what, fuck ‘em.

8. Have someone outside the madness

I found it so useful to have someone not anything to do with comedy who I could ring and have a chat and talk to about anything other than Edinburgh bullshit. It keeps you grounded and reminds you that there’s normal life going on out there.

9. Don’t go it alone

It’s a long ole slog to Edinburgh, and sometimes it can feel a bit lonely. So I heartily recommend reaching out to others in the same boat, sharing previews, writing together, watching each other’s shows and giving each other some feedback.

10. Eat

You’re rushing from gig to gig, watching shows in between and, before you know it, it’s been a week and all you’ve eaten is chips and a Mars Bar. I’m not saying you have to Gordon Ramsey the shit out of your tiny cramped kitchen every day. But don’t forget to take care of yourself.

SHOW: Lauren Pattinson: Peachy

VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard

TIME: 7pm – 8pm, 1–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

Meet the one-liner storytellers

One-liner comics tend to be outsiders, a breed apart. Clinically sniping from the darkness like Jimmy Carr or Gary Delaney; detachedly hiding emotion behind Steven Wright’s monotone or Mitch Hedberg’s sunglasses. Or forging their own eccentric worlds like Milton Jones, Tim Vine and Emo Philips. Behind the deadpan delivery or Hawaiian shirts, they share little of themselves. Unless Jones genuinely does have countless grandfathers.

But some younger joke merchants are challenging this standoffishness. Admittedly, Adele Cliff is her high-achieving, scientifically academic family’s designated black sheep. And Glenn Moore tried fleeing to Mars when his relationship ended. But their social awkwardness only inhibits them so much, as they combine a rat-a-tat onslaught of gags with revealing, personal anecdotes, even sustaining a through line from joke to joke.

After trying sketch and being one half of double act Biscuit and Brawn with Kate Cherrell, Cliff actually first approached standup as a storyteller, before realising “that the best bits of my sets were the one-liners. I then tried doing a list of jokes in whatever order felt most logical.

“Yet I found that when I started to do jokes that linked together, telling people something about myself, it made the audiences I spoke to feel as if they got me a bit more. It seemed to get a slightly better reaction.”

Moreover, “there aren’t many female one-liner comics who are also vegan,” she observes. “So when I write a joke that addresses that, it feels more personal. Like you couldn’t tell it to your friend in the pub as well as I can on stage.”

For Sheep, her first full-length show, she’s reflecting on individualism, conformity and the difficulties

For some, there’s nothing more perfect than a one-liner; for others a torrent of disconnected gags is unbearable. But for Adele

Cliff and Glenn Moore, there’s no reason why one-liners can’t be part of something bigger

Credit: Rebecca Need-Menear

Adele Cliff

Glenn Moore

of fitting in. That’s something Moore explored in his initial Fringe offerings too, eliciting laughs from his lonely adolescence and romantic angst growing up in an isolated village in West Sussex.

“Obviously,” he says of his latest hour, Glenn Glenn Glenn, How Do You Like It, How Do You Like It, “I deal with things in the way I normally deal with them on stage – in a really dumb, silly way.”

Nevertheless, his application to join the Mars One programme to colonise the red planet was real. “In the middle of a breakup,” he points out, “suggesting that on a subconscious level, I couldn’t bear to even share the same atmosphere as this person. The show looks at why I applied five years ago, and if I was chosen now, would I still go?”

an ex-wife, then a girlfriend they haven’t mentioned before. Their kid was seven, now they’re 15. Obviously all comics distort the truth. But I want a persona to be fully rounded.”

She continues: “Giving away a little is nice because when I talk about one of my sisters again in passing, it doesn’t feel like someone I’ve introduced for the joke’s convenience. Although I do love Milton having all those grandads...”

Hoping audiences “take away plenty of jokes but also an opinion of me as a person,” she appreciates that it’s hard for her to be as forthright as a tubthumping political act. She’s cut lines about the age of baby animals when they’re slaughtered. “I was basically calling the audience monsters,” she reflects. “I don’t try to push it too much. I just keep it as a point of reference so people know where I’m coming from.”

Like Cliff, he relishes the challenge of choosing a central narrative, then writing as many gags as possible to fit. “The thing I like most is looking at a joke I’ve written and thinking: ‘how can I top it? How can I combine it with another joke and turn it into a bigger thing?’” he says. “Combining two jokes on one topic allows it to veer off in a surreal direction, allowing me to be distinctive.

“I also like how jokes return. I love callbacks, especially increasingly obscure ones where they pop up in a situation that has nothing to do with the original context, uses none of the words in the original setup or punchline, but is clearly referencing what the audience heard earlier.”

Influenced by the cutaway and callback storylines of US comedies like 30 Rock and Review with Andy Daly, he’s “obsessed with structure”, recounting his prospective space mission from “a variety of different angles: what the application process was; why I had to go; what I’d miss.

“I love jokes more than anything else. But a story can be so rewarding. Even if the style isn’t for some people, or the jokes, it’s not disconnected. At least there’s coherent shape.”

With the best jokes tending to rely on novelty and surprise, coherence and consistency might seem anathema to the one-liner comic. Yet one of Cliff’s “pet peeves” is when the logic of a comedian’s set doesn’t hold together.

“At one point they’ve got a wife, then they’ve got

Similarly, as Moore has found, the tonal shift between a light-hearted quip and lamenting lost love can disorientate. And “a couple of my favourite jokes I’ve never performed because they’re too dark. Audiences think the tamest swearword from me doesn’t sit well with my polite persona,” he explains.

Indeed, Moore has only recently begun acknowledging his other job as a radio newsreader on stage – a sometimes strange combination, with the potential to perhaps present the News at Ten from the scene of a terrorist atrocity, before being seen cracking wise on Live at the Apollo straight after. As he puts it, he’s like “a significantly less successful Clark Kent”.

“What I’ve actively embraced this year is setting up the idea that most people don’t believe what I say anyway,” he admits of his comedy, if not his journalism. “There’s a lot of stuff in this show that’s completely true and a lot that completely bends reality. Almost as if it’s in a parallel universe.

“It toys with what the audience can possibly believe. The most unbelievable thing is that I applied to go to Mars. And yet that’s absolutely true.”

/ Jay Richardson

SHOW: Glenn Moore: Glenn Glenn Glenn, How Do You Like It, How Do You Like It

VENUE: Just the Tonic at The Tron

TIME: 6:20pm – 7:20pm, 2–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Adele Cliff: Sheep

VENUE: Just the Tonic at The Caves

TIME: 4:10pm – 5:10pm, 2–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: £5

“I love jokes more than anything else. But a story can be so rewarding”

- Glenn Moore

Keep it Classy

was certainly what highlighted the difficulties for Davies when she auditioned for a compilation show.

“They said, ‘You’ll do this audition, we’ll let you know next day if you’ve been successful and by the following week you’ll need to pay us £1,800’.” The money was to cover the costs of the showcase and could, at least in part, be earned back through ticket sales, but it still left Davies with the issue of finding £1,800 at short notice. Instead she “decided to apply for the Free Festival to take my own showcase just for working-class comedians. They’re not going to pay anything to be a part of it. I’ve put the money up to begin with then we’ve crowdfunded a lot of it.”

Though there is a liberal sprinkling of comedians with working-class backgrounds on the comedy circuit, there’s little doubt that those acts are in the minority when it comes to the Edinburgh Fringe.

But this year two acts have taken it upon themselves to try to redress the balance. Liverpool comedian Sian Davies is putting on a showcase of working-class comedians, Best in Class, while Lee Kyle, a standup from South Shields, is producing a supplementary Fringe brochure containing only working-class acts.

One of the most obvious reasons is the sheer amount of money it costs to put on a show here. It

Meanwhile Kyle’s project stemmed from a conversation he had last Edinburgh with fellow comedian Rob Mulholland, who flagged up this very issue in his 2017 show.

“I was talking to Rob about not being able to get Arts Council funding and a few of us were going, ‘Is there anything we can do?’ It’s not like it [his brochure] will make a lot of difference but it will add visibility and a feeling of support.”

There are other, subtler, reasons that working-class comedians tend not to do the Fringe. They often don’t have the social connections some middle-class comedians have. But I also wonder if, sometimes, there isn’t the same emphasis placed on spending time on your own projects and creative en-

A skim through the programme reveals remarkably few workingclass comics. Marissa Burgess talks to Sian Davies and Lee Kyle, who are trying to change all that

Sian Davies

deavours in working-class communities or families.

Kyle agrees: “Middle-class people are able to push themselves ahead and make contacts and it’s just natural. They don’t even consider it. Whereas anytime I have to send an email to anybody for anything I always think, ‘Oh god, they’ll think I’m a dick!’”

Davies makes a similar point. Working class kids in inner city comprehensives are often molded more for the workforce than for pursuing expensive creative endeavours:

Kyle notes: “That’s the tricky part. It’s self-selecting. If people say they are and I don’t know differently, I have to take it in good faith. I can’t do anything else. If a couple sneak through it reflects badly on them but it’s still a worthwhile endeavor.”

Davies agrees: “It is very difficult to put people in a box and decide, ‘He is, she isn’t’. I can’t do that. I’m not going to ask what did your mum do for a living, how many pairs of shoes have you got?”

Indeed, class is far from black and white. It’s not a homogenous experience. There is fluidity and diversity in people’s social standing, experiences and viewpoints. Even among her working-class-identifying acts Davies notes, “we’ve all got very different perspectives and outlooks.”

“I went to an all-girls comprehensive and we had the army come in and do recruitment days with us. It was great fun. A friend of mine, who’s quite middle-class, told me a few years later about how the army go into schools in deprived areas and they put on these fun events trying to recruit people because it’s ‘the only way they can get the people who they send to war’.”

It’s maybe easier for the army to identify targets. But a tricky question for both Davies and Kyle about their projects concerns how they ascertain someone’s class background. The answer for both had to be self-identification – literally a tick box for performers to identify themselves as working-class.

And you can still live in a council flat but have brought up a son with expensive coffee tastes. “My son was round at his girlfriend’s and came back saying, ‘Her mum asked me if I wanted a coffee but she put a spoon in a jar!’ What have I done?” says Kyle, roaring with laughter. That’s just before he confesses to grinding his own beans. / Marissa Burgess

SHOW: Best in Class / Free Festival

VENUE: Laughing Horse @ Harry’s Southside

TIME: 12pm – 1pm, 2–26 Aug

TICKETS: FREE

SHOW: Lee Kyle – Kicking Potatoes Into the Sea

VENUE: Laughing Horse @ City Cafe

TIME: 10:20am – 11:20am, 3–26 Aug, not 15, 19

TICKETS: FREE

“It is very difficult to put people in a box and decide ‘he is, she isn’t’.”

- Sian Davies

Lee Kyle

NOLONGERAPPEARING

Cora Bissett: Full Tilt

One of the lynchpins of Scottish theatre, Cora Bissett talks to David Pollock about growing up, and about looking back on works which are in her past, but very much present at this year’s festival

Widely—if unglamorously—known as the birthplace of the economist Adam Smith and the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Fife coastal town of Kirkcaldy had a brief but altogether more exciting claim to fame in the early 1990s. Then it was the town which gave birth to Darlingheart, a Scots indie group which signed with a major record label, toured with Blur, Radiohead and the Cranberries, and stood tantalizingly close to the edge of Britpop stardom.

Until, all of a sudden, it was over. “For two years, it was a total rollercoaster,” says Cora Bissett, Darlingheart’s sometime lead singer, who went to school in Kirkcaldy and grew up in nearby Glenrothes. Now she’s telling the story of her first brush with stardom in What Girls Are Made Of, the Traverse Theatre’s key homegrown production of the 2018 Fringe, under the direction of outgoing artistic director Orla O’Loughlin. “It’s kind of my life story,” she says with

What Girls Are Made Of

Credit: Mihaela Bodlovic

a laugh, “but I’m cautious about saying that, because it sounds horrifically self-important!”

If it’s fair to describe her as a failed rock star, it’s certainly fair to balance that by pointing out that Bissett is one of the most skilled and successful Scots theatremakers of her generation. Following her band’s split she attended what is now Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and in the last decade has made her mark as the director of acclaimed plays including the 2012 Olivier Award-winning sex-trafficking drama Roadkill, the 2013 UK Theatre Award-nominated musical Glasgow Girls, about schoolgirls who campaigned for asylum seekers, and the National Theatre of Scotland’s 2017 adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel Room

“My dad passed away a couple of years ago, and we were clearing out the house to sell it on,” says Bissett. “I came across my old diaries in the attic, and as I was reading them I could hear myself growing up between the pages, forming from a schoolgirl into a young woman. And he was the most unshowy man, but I also found a box of ‘Cora’s clippings’ which he’d kept from those days. That broke my heart a little bit.”

As Bissett was reintroduced to her teenage self, she also mulled over the fact it had been exactly 25 years since Darlingheart’s album was released, and that now she’s a mother of a young girl herself. “She’s growing at a rate of knots, and every day I have to

help and guide her journey through life. It made me reflect on my mum and dad and what they must have felt packing me off to a record deal at the age of 17, which was like a bomb going off in my life. And then I had to put myself back together again after it.”

Bissett’s track record tells us we should get excited about this show – a theatrical memoir which promises insight into family, fame, memory and motherhood. She will be performing it with a live band, in similar fashion to another of her past directorial hits which is back this year. Written by Peter Arnott and starring Angie Darcy in a bravura performance, Janis Joplin: Full Tilt is a revival of the 2013 Fringe hit, a gig theatre biography and tribute act in one.

“My God, I wouldn’t deign to compare myself to Janis in any way,” says Bissett with a laugh. “But I guess there are little parallels in our lives. I needed to fight to be recognised for what I knew myself to be as well, although I had to do it by getting out of a band. I had to learn a whole lot of other skills to tell the stories I wanted to, although music’s never left me. The first show I co-directed at the Arches 17 years ago was called Horses, Horses Coming in All Directions, which is a Patti Smith quote, and we called that gig theatre way back then.”

Although she has no involvement with it this year, Bissett’s also looking forward to Edinburgh International Festival’s revival of David Greig and songwriter Gordon McIntyre’s Edinburgh-set romantic comedy two-hander Midsummer this month, for which her co-starring role won a Stage Award in 2009. “Little bits of me live in that play,” she says, venturing down memory lane once more. “Parts are there to be shared, but that play was written by David over a few years in discussion with us (Bissett and actor Matthew Pidgeon), so it’s very personal. I’ll definitely be going to see it.”

SHOW: What Girls Are Made Of

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, 3–26 Aug, not 6, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Midsummer

VENUE: The Hub

TIME: times vary, 2–26 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

TICKETS: £32

SHOW: Janis Joplin Full Tilt

VENUE: Assembly Rooms

TIME: 7:45pm – 9pm, 2–26 Aug, not 6, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

Janis Joplin: Full Tilt

Credit: Tommaso Sturari

Happy Birthday NHS

the

its

There are few things that unite Brits like the National Health Service. Just think back to the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony and the huge, illuminated tribute to our NHS nurses and doctors. “We think it’s our National Health Service,” observes comedian and theatre-maker Mark Thomas. “We think we’ve paid for it, it belongs to us. We see it as part of our identity.”

But, as Thomas also points out, we currently have an NHS that is “on its knees”. After years of austerity, Theresa May recently announced a £20 billion funding injection for the NHS in England, but even this has been seen by many as too little, too late. Thomas’s new show, Check Up: Our NHS at 70, is one of a clutch of productions at this year’s Fringe contemplating the past, present and future of national healthcare.

Another of those theatre-makers is writer Michael Pinchbeck, who explains that his theatricalisation of A Fortunate Man is a “piece about how we care and about how caring might have changed in the NHS today”. It treats John Berger and Jean Mohr’s 1967 book, documenting the work of a country GP, as a “lens though which we can see how doctors today work”. His take on the book is that it’s an “exploration, not an adaptation”, beginning as a lecture before becoming increasingly theatrical.

Both Pinchbeck and Thomas have interviewed people working within the NHS today, looking at the organisation’s past through the prism of its present. What they quickly discovered was a culture of targets and overworking, compounded by the failures of social care.

Thomas’s show will use his trademark mix of storytelling and humour—“I’ll be telling stories and fucking about,” as he puts it—to make political points about austerity and creeping privatisation. He sees the NHS as part of a bigger picture: “If you

want the NHS to be saved—and it does need to be saved—then one of the things you need to do is treat health as an important factor in every single thing, from education to housing to the first eight years of a child’s life.”

Unlike Check Up, A Fortunate Man is “not a political piece with a capital P”, but for Pinchbeck there’s something implicitly political about showing the pressures that GPs find themselves under today and contrasting that with the more personal care that doctors could offer in the 1960s. “They have less time to attend to people, they have a higher workload, they have a longer working day,” says Pinchbeck. “We’ve interviewed doctors who tell us they don’t take lunch breaks, they’re working constantly.”

Thomas suggests that criticising these failings is a vital part of keeping the NHS for another 70 years. “Our love of the NHS might actually be doing it harm,” he says. “Because we need to be critical of it and we need to get out of this mindset that says if you attack the NHS then you’re the Daily Mail and you want to destroy it.” Thomas also believes that if we’re serious about saving the NHS, “we as a society have got to stop seeing old people as a problem”. He goes on: “If we can see old people as visions of our

As

NHS celebrates

70th birthday, several theatremakers are marking the institution’s history and looking nervously towards its future

“We need to get out of this mindset that says if you attack the NHS then you’re the Daily Mail and you want to destroy it”

– Mark Thomas

Credit: Steve Ullathorne 61 continues ›

After the Cuts

Have a Healthy Festival

Where It Hurts, Summerhall, 8:30pm – 10pm, 1–26 Aug, not 2, 6, 13, 20, prices vary

Jeremy Weller’s new show looks at the NHS from the perspectives of both patients and health professionals, drawing on the real experiences of a group of Edinburgh residents.

WEIRD, Pleasance Courtyard, 1:45pm – 2:45pm, 1–27 Aug, not 14, prices vary

This one-woman show from Some Riot Theatre uses personal experience to provide an insight into living with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Pricks, Pleasance Courtyard, 2:15pm – 3:15pm, 1–27 Aug, not 8, 15, 22, prices vary

Jade Byrne is busting myths about type 1 diabetes using a mixture of spoken word, poetry, projection and sound.

In Addition, Underbelly, Cowgate, 10:50am – 11:50am, 2–26 Aug, not 13, prices vary

Like After the Cuts, this new piece of physical theatre imagines a future without the NHS, exploring the impact of privatised healthcare on one young couple.

How to Keep Time: A Drum Solo for Dementia, Summerhall, 10:15am – 11:15am, 1–26 Aug, not 13, 20, prices vary

Antosh Wojcik uses poetry and drumbeats to look at the effects of Alzheimer’s on speech and memory.

future self, then we might begin to understand what care and what support they need.”

Gary McNair’s dark comedy After the Cuts imagines a future in which we’ve failed to develop that understanding and our NHS has fallen through the cracks. “Things are just gradually getting worse and I wanted to call that out,” explains McNair. “The play is inspired by ‘what if we don’t have this beloved thing?’” At the centre of the narrative is an ageing couple who are forced to take their lives quite literally in their own hands when one of them is diagnosed with cancer and finds themselves uninsurable.

According to McNair, After the Cuts is less a play about the NHS than it is a play about humanity. “Would you wait and watch your loved one die if the state dropped out and left you to your own devices? Do you try and do something? It is about those questions.” Though McNair feels strongly about the issue, he isn’t providing any answers. “I’m desperate for us to fix and save our NHS,” he says. “I don’t know how to do that, but I can certainly imagine a horrid future without it.”

As his play suggests, McNair is not optimistic about the future of the NHS. “You can see it starting to be sold to us that it’s a bad idea,” he says, lamenting that people are swallowing that line all too easily. “It bothers me that people might accept the end of our NHS.”

A Fortunate Man looks less to the future, though there’s implicit concern about the state of public healthcare in its look at the current strains on the NHS.

Thomas, meanwhile, has a little more faith in the power of collective action and sees Check Up—like all his theatre—as a central part of his work as an activist. “Public opinion is a great thing, it’s a great tool,” he says, observing how public pressure has forced the government to pledge more money to the NHS. “I see the show as a small contribution for a bigger debate than this to happen.” /

Catherine Love

SHOW: Mark Thomas – Check Up: Our NHS at 70

VENUE: Traverse Theatre

TIME: times vary, 4–26 Aug, not 6, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: After the Cuts

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 12pm – 1pm, 1–26 Aug, not 6, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: A Fortunate Man

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 4:30pm – 5:30pm, 1–26 Aug, not 2, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

Credit: Leslie Black

Hot Young Things

Joanna Trainor’s picked out some of the emerging companies that you need to check out this year

The Half Moon Shania

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is awash with famous names and faces, but let’s face it, the best bit of the festival is finding absolute gems from new companies in hidden-away venues. You don’t want to miss out on the next Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons. And let’s not forget that Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag started off as a one-woman show at the festival in 2013, and now we’re eagerly awaiting a second series of the TV show that won Waller-Bridge a BAFTA.

Can't Stop Can't Stop

by Burnt Lemon Theatre

“Ballsy theatre (without the balls)” is how female-led Burnt Lemon Theatre describe their work. Like Poltergeist Theatre (below), they are a New Diorama Graduate Emerging Company and this punk riot protest looks at the unwanted attention women get on a night out. In the midst of #MeToo, focusing on the everyday harassment that women are subjected to is very timely. And with Shania Twain’s feminist anthem, ‘Man!

I Feel Like a Woman’ used as inspiration for the show, you know you’re onto a winner.

Zoo Southside, 3–27 Aug, not 15 , 12:40pm

[insert slogan here]]

by Sam Does Theatre

Can’t Stop Can’t Stop is a challenging piece from Sam Does Theatre. Created and performed by Sheffield University student Sam Ross, it’s a frank exploration of what it is like to live with OCD. A world away from a person furiously washing their hands, Ross explains how he copes with his anxieties without the help of the NHS. The show can be distressing at times but it sheds a light on how desperately our mental health services need more funding. You’ll be talking about it all festival.

C venues – C royale, various dates between 1 Aug and 27 Aug, 4:35pm

Lights Over Tesco Car Park

by Poltergeist Theatre by YESYESNONO

YESYESNONO won the Total Theatre Award last year for their production of Five Encounters on a Site Called Craiglist. They’re back this August with [insert slogan here], a show that premiered at HOME in Manchester in January to rave reviews. Inspired by the ‘Human Made’ Volvo adverts, YESYESNONO have created their own adverts using music and video artistry. After the buzz around Five Encounters, [insert slogan here] is definitely one to put in your festival schedule.

ZOO Charteris, 3–19 Aug, 6:10pm

Poltergeist Theatre have only just finished university and already they’ve won the Samuel French Award for Best New Play and Outstanding Achievement in Devised and Ensemble Theatre at the National Student Drama Festival. Lights Over is a clever docu-comedy about a man named Robert who sees unexplained lights over a car park, and believes an alien is coming to stay in his spare room. Abduction stories, flying saucers and the best montage you’ll see at the Fringe – it’s an utter joy.

Pleasance Dome, 1–27 Aug, not 15, 22 , 10:50am

Credit: C. Holder

Credit: Michael Carlo

Credit: Samantha Guess

Focus on: Breach Theatre

True, It’s True marks a new phase for awardwinning company Breach Theatre

“We still don’t know who we are completely,” says Ellice Stevens, co-founder of political theatre company Breach. “We don’t want to be pigeonholed because we want to learn more.”

Billy Barrett, Stevens’ co-founder and the company’s primary director, suggests that the company “wanted a shorter process because it allows us to work instinctively”, in a manner different to the development of their previous shows.

It’s True, It’s True, It’s True marks Breach’s third Fringe. Their first show, The Beanfield, which explored the ethics of historical reenactment, won the Total Theatre Award for Best Emerging Company in 2015. Their second show, Tank, garnered further glowing reviews, and now they return to Edinburgh with a show which moves away from their recognisable aesthetic of, as Barrett puts it, a “very clinical stage world and very visceral film world”.

It’s True... is a verbatim courtroom drama from a 17th-century trial in which Artemisia Gentileschi, a hugely talented young woman who would go onto become the best known female painter of the Italian Baroque, accused her older male tutor of rape. “It’s also about her artistic response to the trauma, and how she used her art as a form of justice that was denied to her in the court,” says Barrett.

The show sees Breach pushing their practice in new directions. “This is the first show where we’re playing embodied characters and there’s not a film element,” says Barrett. “It’s important that it’s three women who are standing up and speaking and things aren’t distanced by being on a screen,” Stevens goes on.

It’s an intriguing step for a company known for their multimedia style, one hugely influenced by Breach’s third co-founder, film-maker Dorothy

Allen-Pickard. Allen-Pickard’s role on It’s True... is necessarily very different from on previous shows, explains Stevens. “Dorothy is dramaturg, so that when she comes into rehearsal she’s viewing it from quite an outsider perspective.”

Film may not be physically present, but it has a place in the show nonetheless, Stevens goes on. Gentileschi’s paintings offer a sort of “filmic inspiration”, she says. “That’s where the film is living.”

There are inevitable links between this sexual abuse trial and the current cultural climate. “As someone who knows what it’s like to be a woman in this world, that’s what I’m bringing to it. We really just want to tell her story, and as modern women wanting to tell that story now, you have to ask why.”

Barrett agrees: “All we can do is tell this one story, because as soon as you think of your show as more important than it is, then we’ve tried to say too much and said nothing at all.”

Stevens nods. “The show says a lot about what women are doing for each other at the minute. That’s the biggest link I’m seeing. It’s not revelling in a woman’s pain in the way that so many plays today still do. We didn’t think we’d laugh as much as we have but we also have done loads of screaming and crying – if you’re going to go that dark you have to find the light.”

/ Ava Davies

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 2:50pm – 3:50pm, 2–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

Though still firmly rooted in history, It’s True, It’s

“It’s about her artistic response to the trauma”

- Billy Barrett

and

The international fringe hit returns with new circus acts

The international fringe hit returns with new circus acts

‘Invigorating and totally mesmerising’

‘Invigorating and totally mesmerising’

Edinburgh Guide

‘Stupendously impressive’

‘Stupendously impressive’

The Stage

The Stage

created by created by ‘Acts that don’t seem humanly possible’

‘Acts that don’t seem humanly possible’

New York Times

New York Times

Edinburgh Guide 17:30

2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

HIS A MAZI N G MI D LIFE C RISIS

Assembly Festival presents Assembly Festival presents

Focus on: Vinay Patel

The Murdered by My Father writer tells Theo Bosanquet about Sticks and Stones , a new play for Paines

Plough that examines the power of language

Since first appearing at Summerhall in 2014, Paines Plough’s portable Roundabout venue has become a staple of the Fringe, boasting some of its best new writing. This year’s programme features three world premieres played in rep, one of them by in-demand writer Vinay Patel.

Those familiar with his work—or, indeed, his Twitter feed—will be unsurprised that Patel’s play Sticks and Stones is billed as a "razor-sharp satire". Introducing the play, he says it sprang from his many conversations with friends on the subject of

offensive language. He’s particularly interested in the schism between what the internet generation deem offensive language versus those who don’t spend a large amount of time scanning social media.

Patel’s credits include the BAFTA-winning Murdered by My Father for the BBC and he’s one of a raft of young playwrights who recently became fellows of the Royal Society of Literature. But he doesn’t want to come across as preaching from the London bubble. He is keen to keep reaching new audiences. Conscious that Roundabout tours to a

Credit: Rebecca Need-Menear

broad range of places and communities, with Sticks and Stones he set about creating characters and situations that would resonate widely.

slightly more straightforward considering her cast also have to perform two other plays (Island Town by Simon Longman and How to Spot an Alien by Georgia Christou). Cleverly, Patel has also kept the offensive words blank so the audience are forced to fill in the gaps. This contains intriguing potential for self-revelation and ensures the focus is on the “dynamics of language” rather than the language itself.

He describes Sticks and Stones as a “workplace comedy”. The drama springs from that most familiar of linguistic landmines, the poorly judged joke. But the sympathies are evenly proportioned – or, to use Patel’s words, “everyone’s a bit of a dick”. This is a deep dive into grey areas. “The thought I had when I started writing the play was, ‘What is it like to be a civilian in the culture war? How do you know what’s good or bad, right or wrong?'”

To further muddy the waters, he hasn’t assigned any racial, gender or class descriptions to the characters. As well as offering his director, Stef O’Driscoll, more scope for interpretation, this also makes things

Patel was raised in Bexley, a BNP heartland. He grew up without much exposure to theatre and always assumed he wanted to write for film until studying a masters at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and deciding to focus on plays. He makes a persuasive argument that theatre, especially when it makes an effort to reach out to audiences, is the perfect medium for our changing times. “The far right wants to tell people there are easy solutions to our problems. But what we want to do with art is make people comfortable with complexity.”

VENUE: Roundabout @ Summerhall

TIME: times vary, various dates between 1 Aug and 25 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

/ Theo Bosanquet

“What is it like to be a civilian in the culture war? How do you know what’s good or bad, right or wrong?”

Focus on: Century Song

This 100-year tour through Canadian history tells the story of generations of black women. Naomi Obeng speaks to a performer who finally feels like she isn’t play-acting

“There are so many things happening in the show,” laughs vocalist and performer Neema Bickersteth. “They all integrate so well together that it’s its own thing. But what is that? For me it feels, on the inside, like a classical recital but in the form of a pop concert.”

Developed by Canadian performance company Volcano, Century Song is a multidisciplinary solo

show rooted in classical singing. This collaboration between Bickersteth, choreographer Kate Alton and director Ross Manson offers a theatrical journey through wordless songs, movement and immersive onstage projections, telling stories of black women in Canada throughout the last 100 years.

Bickersteth was born and raised in Alberta, Canada after her parents moved from Sierra Leone.

Credit: John Lauener

Although she trained in and performed classical singing and opera, she became increasingly drawn to the openness and discussion happening in experimental theatre.

“I hadn’t actually realised this until I was in the process of Century Song – I realised that generally I had been putting a mask on in order to sing classical music.”

Roles in the standard repertoire, often royalty and peasantry, were all conceived for white people to play. She had been performing with the metaphorical mask of a white person, on top of playing the characters themselves.

Century Song is all about removing masks and constraints in order to portray authentic stories. As in a classical recital, she is herself as she sings: “I don’t feel like I’m a character from the early 1900s. I feel like I’m Neema, in those times.”

Unlike a recital, however, the piece has an innate theatricality. Elements of projection, fine art and costume were gradually added through the development process to an expressive vocabulary of movement and music to embody the realities of different eras.

“It’s sort of like I’ve time travelled, and I go through the struggles that I feel in my DNA,” she says. One character, a woman in the 1970s, was inspired by her mother, who juggled working and raising children in a dynamic era of liberation.

The show premiered three years ago. Then, as now, Century Song’s unique form is open to being experienced on many levels. “For me it’s always a personal journey,” says Bickersteth, “but what resonates on the stage can definitely be political.” With sequences added and reworked since its original incarnation, she reflects that the show has, without being cerebral or didactic, developed a closer bond with the present than ever before.

“The piece has grown for sure. I don’t know if that’s because the world is different, but it definitely feels like I don’t doubt its relevance now.”

VENUE: Zoo Southside

TIME: 3pm – 3:55pm, 3–18 Aug, not 8, 15

TICKETS: prices vary

“It’s sort of like I’ve time travelled, and I go through the struggles that I feel in my DNA”

Focus on: Skin a Cat

Isley Lynn wrote her play Skin a Cat “because my sex life never looked like the sex life that I saw on TV or on stage”.

In a culture as saturated in sex as ours it’s still relatively difficult to admit that you aren’t having any, or that you aren’t enjoying the sex you’re having, or that you find it painful and distressing rather than pleasurable. It can be incredibly isolating.

Alana, the main character, has vaginismus, a psychosexual condition in which the muscles in the vagina contract involuntarily. This makes penetrative vaginal sex very painful, sometimes impossible. It’s part of a spectrum of conditions that tend to be lumped unhelpfully together as “female sexual dysfunction”.

While Lynn intentionally set out to write a play that addressed the lack of understanding about the condition, she also wanted to write a funny play. Alana’s attempts to lose her virginity see her enthusiastically exploring alternatives to vaginal intercourse.

Drawing on her own experiences, Lynn wrote the first scene years ago and then “didn’t do anything for a year because I was scared”. When she returned to the script, she wrote the rest relatively quickly. No one picked it up, so she ended up taking things into her own hands and putting it on herself. Before bringing it to the Fringe, it had a short, successful run at the Vault Festival in 2016 and was the inaugural production at London’s Bunker Theatre in 2017.

When she tells people what it’s about, many express their surprise that it isn’t a solo show, as if

a subject like this written by a woman could only be explored in a certain way. But Skin a Cat does, she admits, pose quite a challenge to a director: “It’s made up of a series of sex scenes. A lot of conversations happen during and around sexual activity.”

Some directors might have sought to change this, but Blythe Stewart—who Lynn describes as “fearless”—found ways of making these scenes work. She found an answer to the question: “When we let go of the necessity to represent sex accurately, how can we represent the other things that are happening in the scene: the connection, the motivation, the sensation, without locating that in the actors’ genitals?”

The result is more than a play about “dysfunction”, it’s a play about the richness and complexity of sexual identity and experience. Young women tend to come [to see the play] and then come back with partners or relatives in tow. “I’ve spoken to a lot of women with similar experiences,” Lynn says, but also “lots of older women who’ve realised they don’t have to have penetrative vaginal sex to have a satisfying sex life”.

Perhaps more surprisingly, audiences also include “lots of men who realise in hindsight that their ex-girlfriends must have had something similar. A lot of guys leave the play saying they need to go and text their ex-girlfriends.”

VENUE: Assembly Rooms

TIME: 4:10pm – 5:40pm, 2–25 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

A play about a psychosexual condition which makes sex painful for some women – it’s a hoot, as Natasha Tripney finds out

A Very Special Book Club

In the cloakroom of Fire Island on Princes Street, 1982, woozy clubbers were sold LGBT+ books. A novel held alongside a half-drunk bottle, or a memoir scrunched into the waistband of a pair of jeans. “It’s so unlikely,” notes James Ley, writer of Love Song to Lavender Menace, an homage to the bookshop. “That’s why the story grabbed me.”

The cloakroom venture was successful enough to grow into a bookshop in a basement flat. It was named Lavender Menace, after the New York lesbian radical feminist protestors of the 1970s, and from 1982 to 1987, the bookshop provided a space for the LGBT+ community in Edinburgh.

It is here, on the last night of the shop’s existence, that we drop in on booksellers Glen (Matthew McVarish) and Lewis (Pierce Reid), reflecting on the shop’s final chapter.

Only a few years after homosexuality had been decriminalised, many people were still shy in public. Where nightclubs may intimidate, bookshops welcome. “That’s the magic of them; they’re such humane spaces,” Ley says.

“You’re surrounded by ideas that are likely to back up every human experience. I think any gay person in any bookshop is going to feel a bit safer, a bit more accepted by literature, particularly in Lavender Menace being surrounded by books which endorse who you are.”

Even so, Ley came across stories of people “doing the recce”. They’d walk past the shop multiple times before going in, or shuffle away for fear of what people would think. “I remember doing it too,” Ley admits. Too young to have visited Lavender Menace, he would go to London and circle a shop, trying to “pluck up the courage” to walk in. “I remember those kind of cover ups you felt you had to do. How can I communicate that I didn’t know what the shop was, that I just stumbled in?”

Ros Philips’s direction nods to this. With Glen and Lewis chatting in the bookshop, another character repeatedly passes on his lunch break, trying to work up the confidence to walk inside.

Binding fact and fiction, much of the play is

Telling the story of Edinburgh’s pioneering LGBT bookshop, Love Song to Lavender Menace reminds us that humane spaces have to be created and nurtured

Credit: Aly Wight

Pierce Reid and Matthew McVarish

inspired by the first-hand stories Ley has been told. Today, his role as an observer has drawn his own character in the story. Through the chains of conversation, reunions have sprung up and Ley has been invited to become an honorary member.

for Mamoru Iriguchi’s set designs, though Ley’s team are determined “to keep the magic of it”. With wobbled outlines and lit-up book spines, Iriguchi’s design is suggestive both of bookcases and a cityscape at night. It is “a bit like a memory”, Ley says, a visualisation of the stories that make up the city.

As the personal and political intertwine, Love Song perches on the edge of loss of hope. The AIDS crisis was about to hit and Section 28, the controversial law banning the intentional promotion of homosexuality, was around the corner. Glen and Lewis’s relationship remains a question mark as they get ready to say goodbye to the shop, and perhaps to each other too.

“It’s really interesting to not just research into that world but become a part of it. You feel a bit of a weight of responsibility.” By writing the play, Ley has also been able to connect many booksellers and customers—including a number of couples still together—with the founders of the shop, Bob Orr and Sigrid Neilson.

Commissioned as part of LGBT History Month two years ago, playwright David Greig saw a reading and invited Love Song... to perform at the Lyceum. It sold out all subsequent runs and returns to the Fringe this year to a very different space at Summerhall. Transferring a large set to a space with a 15 minute get-in time means significant adaptation

The Brexit vote happened just before Ley started writing, and he was curious about the idea of throwing away something that other people had fought for. Despite these marks of despair, optimism lies at the play’s core, running through both the romantic comedy and the ambition of the bookshop. “The shop is small,” the playwright admits, “but the impact it had was huge.”

Hope feeds into the way Ley talks too, and when discussing the play, relationships, books and his city, his outlook is romantic. At the Fringe, he adds, “everyone has that little love affair with Edinburgh. Hopefully we can be a part of that.” /

Kate Wyver

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 12:55pm – 2:10pm, 1–26 Aug, not 6, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

“I think any gay person in any bookshop is going to feel a bit safer, a bit more accepted by literature” – James Ley

›

Credit: Aly Wight

Focus on: Katie & Pip

They say never work with children or animals in theatre, but Tin Can People’s Katie & Pip boldly flouts this rule. Katie is a 15-year-old with type 1 diabetes, Pip is her medical alert dog, and the pair are the stars of this show. Katie is the kid sister of Rob Gregson who, along with Charlotte Berry, make up Tin Can People. Though full of chaos and joy, there’s a lot more to this show than throwing around hundreds of tennis balls.

“It challenges the perception of type 1 diabetes and hopes to raise more awareness of this serious autoimmune condition, and invisible disability as a whole,” says Berry. “The media often insinuates that sugar is bad and all diabetes is caused by lifestyle choices. Type 2 diabetes is usually conflated with type 1 under generalised ‘diabetes’, so type 1 diabetics are stigmatised.”

Many people with disabilities, both visible and invisible, find themselves excluded from theatre. The industry has only recently woken up to its ableism and while change is happening, progress is slow. At the Fringe, this discrepancy is pronounced. Out of 3,548 shows, 49 offer BSL-interpreted performances, five offer audio description, 47 are captioned and 75 are relaxed. Wheelchair accessibility is much better, with 2,181 shows accessible to wheelchair users. There are 464 shows providing hearing loops.

Tin Can People believe that “work at the Fringe and art in general becomes much more interesting

when it is platformed to a diverse audience. Work should be diverse in how it’s made, as this helps give a unique voice to the overall experience.”

Katie’s story is certainly a unique one. The teenager trained Pip to the nationally recognised standard for service dogs, and Pip helps Katie stay alive. People with type 1 diabetes experience blood sugar highs and lows, so as well as the chaos that comes with working with a dog and a child, Berry says that “audiences can expect to be told a story about Katie’s diagnosis and condition, about family, about hurdles and the love of Scotland. Expect Kit Kat breaks, blood tests and insulin injections.”

The intelligent, energetic Pip also keeps the performers on their toes. “She needs to be occupied at all times. There are moments in the show where it’s important that the audience hear the performers. This can be really difficult when Pip is crying at the tennis balls or ragging her squeaky toy.”

Kids, animals, disability and illness – Katie & Pip is an unpredictable show, but it’s serious about increasing access and representation. Type 1 diabetes impacts about 400,000 people in the UK, and for Katie, this is her chance to share her story.

/ Laura Kressly

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 1:20pm – 2:20pm, 1–12 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

In the uphill struggle of promoting inclusion of invisible disabilities, one show seeks to do just that this Fringe – with a fluffy companion

Here’s One I Made Earlier

With Blue Peter turning 60 this year, Daniel Perks talks to the teams celebrating the television phenomenon. Not everyone was so keen to chat though...

We all remember Blue Peter from our childhoods – it’s the longest-running children’s TV programme in the world. Whether it’s the trademark hairstyles of John Leslie and Yvette Fielding in the 1980s, or millennials’ favourites Matt Baker and Konnie Huq, Blue Peter has cemented its legacy as a pivotal part of growing up in the UK. So, it comes as no surprise that to mark the 60th anniversary of the show, some of the programme’s past presenters are coming together for Once Seen on Blue Peter, an homage to the “careers that were made earlier”.

The show has been devised by former presenter Tim Vincent (1993-97) but he’s keeping tight-lipped about it, unwilling to talk to me for this story because I’m also covering the other BP show this Fringe. Very Blue Peter is an immersive, late-night nostalgia-fest that promises to treat the programme a tad less reverently than Vincent’s family-friendly show.

It’s not just me that Vincent’s avoiding. “He won’t reply to my Instagram messages or anything,” claims theatremaker Toby Boutall, part of the team behind Very Blue Peter. Perhaps that’s not surprising: “the audience of Very Blue Peter will think what’s going on is very random and they’ll be correct,” says

Boutall. “When we get them up on stage a bit pissed at half eleven, anything can happen.”

In an anniversary-filled festival, there are numerous productions based around children’s TV throwbacks. Lead Pencil, a sketch show inspired by children’s TV presenters, is coming back after a fouryear hiatus. “You’ve no idea how chuffed we were!” says performer Louise Beresford.

She’s delighted by the volume of work of this type up at the Fringe. “Our most popular characters are a combination of Art Attack, SMart and Blue Peter. We thought we’d do a reunion show, then suddenly what we’re doing a parody of is actually happening!”

Why does this type of show do so well at the Fringe, I ask Beresford. “Everyone loves nostalgia, looking back at a rose-tinted view of the past,” she suggests. “There’s a comedy in taking that and removing the shine, finding a way of exposing it for what it was. Because everyone knew the truth really.”

Consider the memorable Blue Peter moment that Boutall endearingly terms “elephant shitgate”, a sequence from the 1960s in which Lulu the baby elephant ran rampant across the set and defecated on camera.

Very Blue Peter

“That’s literally what you remember – their mad adventures and time capsules. There was one episode where they got four young lads from Liverpool and were having to interview them while they were playing badminton. It was so pointless but so brilliant.”

‘Pointless but brilliant’ is how Boutall hopes Very Blue Peter will be remembered too. “We want it to be utterly crazy, bizarre, random and stupid. I’d say there was some social commentary but we want to forget about pointing fingers and have the best possible night we can.”

Jason Donovan and His Amazing Midlife Crisis, Assembly George Square Gardens, 3pm – 4pm, 22-26 Aug, prices vary

He closed his eyes, drew back the curtains, and found himself on stage at Assembly George Square for a proper Fringe run of 18 nights. Enough time for good neighbours to become good...enough.

Esther Rantzen: That’s Life!, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1:30pm – 2:30pm, 10–12 Aug, £15

For three nights only, TV legend Esther Rantzen spills secrets from 50 years in broadcasting. Who better to quiz her on her career than her daughter, journalist Rebecca Wilcox?

Nina’s Got News by Frank Skinner, Pleasance Dome, 2:50pm – 3:50pm, 1–26 Aug, prices vary

The standup comic and broadcaster tries his hand as a playwright, penning a story about unbelievable news that Nina has to share, even if no one will believe her.

In many ways that was the best kind of children’s TV. Just think of all the inane things that we used to dream up in order to try and get one of those coveted Blue Peter badges, a piece of plastic with the signature blue ship stamped on the front.

“My brother got one – I was massively annoyed,” admits Boutall. “It was to celebrate stage schools that do musical theatre. We’ve still got it in my mum’s room.”

Perhaps like the badge, Blue Peter is one of those artefacts of a time long-since passed. It may be turning 60 this year but, given that it was dumped from BBC One and relegated to the CBBC channel in 2012, you have to wonder about the future of this sort of programme. Maybe, like the parody shows, we should look back on it with humorous nostalgia, then return it to the box of memories from whence it came.

SHOW: Very Blue Peter

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 11:15pm – 12:15am, 1–27 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Lead Pencil

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 7:40pm – 8:40pm, 2–26 Aug, not 14

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Once Seen on Blue Peter

VENUE: Assembly Rooms

TIME: 2:50pm – 3:50pm, 4–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

Lead Pencil

Dance Electric

Donald Hutera investigates a pair of movement-based productions utilising technology to enhance the experience

“Those who don’t know how to choreograph put a lot of film and video in their work.”

Why? “To cover up their artistic limitations.” Damning words, these, from the mouth of a leading British dance presenter when asked some years ago to cite current trends in contemporary dance.

Now, as technology continues to make ever deeper inroads into our lives, it might be worth considering how much circumstances have changed, if at all, in the arts. Is dance in particular—or, maybe better to say, movement-based work—increasingly dependent on the artificial manipulations and potential enhancements that technology offers? And could the effect be liberating, even profound?

Two shows heading to Edinburgh provide clues. Toujours et Près de Moi (translation: ‘Always and Close to Me’), by the London-based company Erratica, plays all month on the Fringe at Assembly Roxy. Cold Blood, meanwhile, is a Belgian production presented for a few days at the International Festival. Both come garlanded with praise and/or promise. And each, in its imaginative and rigorous way, puts paid to the notion of technology as a cold, clinical envelope in which emotions and meaning are lazily sealed.

Founded a decade or so ago by the Canadian director Patrick Eakin Young, Erratica makes work that’s hard to categorise. Think of it as interdisciplinary music-theatre or, to quote from the company website, “performances and installations, centred on the human voice”. The company’s original name was, in fact, Opera Erratica – at least until that first word

became too confining. Tellingly, Toujours has been registered under Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus, rather than Music or Musicals and Opera.

Although Young makes no claims as a choreographer, he concedes that Toujours is intricately choreographed. “It’s all music and movement,” he says.

The wordless performance is underscored by recordings of five unaccompanied classical singers performing Renaissance madrigals as well as contemporary work. What’s special about the show’s movement is that it’s supplied by humans and holograms. Of the show’s four performers, only two are flesh and blood. The other pair—usually miniaturised, but occasionally reduced to body parts (a head, a limb)—is projected onto, or sometimes into, prop boxes moved about by the live actors upon the tabletop set. The effect is odd and beguiling, a treat of visual trickery basically accomplished with mirrors thanks to a Victorian music-hall illusion called ‘Pepper’s ghost’.

For Young, however, Toujours is much more than playing with cool—and admittedly vintage—toys. Here technology is at the service of storytelling. The tale that unfolds focuses on a man and woman—the live actors—whose interactions with their younger selves—the holograms—underline how haunted they are by some unidentified, unresolved past trauma. As Young sees it, the characters “dance, cavort, love, bleed, hug, fight”. That is to say, they exhibit all the signs of being in a relationship charged with feelings.

Something to keep in mind: the original title was Ghost Piece. No wonder Young deems his show a

Credit: Hugo Glendinning

Toujours et Près de Moi

And what of the chillingly (but deceptively) titled Cold Blood? It’s a sort of sequel to Kiss & Cry, a surreal, sensitive and altogether absorbing 90-minute spectacle that since its 2012 premiere has racked up something like 300 performances worldwide. Both of these ingenious, multi-layered and collectively devised productions were co-directed by Jaco Van Dormael, a film-maker whose credits include Toto the Hero (1991) and The Brand New Testament (2015), and the choreographer Michèle Anne De Mey – also a long-time couple offstage.

Like its predecessor, Cold Blood is a piece of “live cinema” with a marvellously photogenic catch: the human hand is the star (or, as De Mey puts it, “the main character”) of the show. It’s the hand or, more accurately, several hands that, in tandem with the camera, also do most of the communicating, supplemented by poetic spoken text, in English. The familiar five-fingered appendage is used as a functional tool and, more significantly, a hugely

expressive instrument.

It’s our privilege and pleasure to witness these hands travelling through a series of beautifully and cleverly constructed small-scale settings and situations that play literally and figuratively with size, and emotionally with time. Set to a soundtrack embracing Gorecki, Ravel and Schubert alongside David Bowie, Janis Joplin and Nine Simone, and loosely pinned to themes of life, death and memory, the result is a gorgeous essay in imagery and motion – or an act of collective dreaming into which the audience is cordially invited.

“Everybody onstage is playing with cinema,” adds De Mey. “The fabrication of the movie is what the audience sees.” She thinks for a beat, then corrects herself: “Everything is there for you to see!” Her fellow choreographer and performer Gregory Grosjean sums it up neatly when he says, “We create a whole world with little things, and put big meaning into little things.” Luckily for us, knowing how these talented theatrical magicians achieve their tricks in no way diminishes the magic. /

SHOW: Cold Blood

VENUE: King’s Theatre

TIME: times vary, 4–6 Aug

TICKETS: £14

SHOW: Toujours et Près de Moi

VENUE: Assembly Roxy

TIME: 3pm – 3:50pm, 2–27 Aug, not 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

“precise, poignant and fun” intimation of “the things that refuse to leave us”.

Donald Hutera

“We create a whole world with little things, and put big meaning into little things”

– Gregory Grosjean

Credit: Julien Lambert

Cold Blood

Focus on: Tabarnak

Rooted in Québécois culture, Cirque Alfonse return to the Fringe with a show that is both profound and, for people back home, profane

For French-Canadian readers, this feature is peppered with the equivalent of f-words. Rest assured though, Tabarnak—*puts a penny in the swear jar*—is a family-friendly show. Filled with all the acrobatic prowess and warmth we’ve come to expect from Québécois mavericks Cirque Alfonse, Tabarnak—*clink*—is a celebration of tradition, heritage and congregation that flits between the pious and the profane.

Finding circus inside a church is increasingly common. Training centres and circus schools often repopulate disused churches with aerial acrobatics and physical feats, repurposing the vast, high spaces for communities whose rituals come in physical form. Cirque Alfonse, however, are tipping this convention on its head. They’re bringing the church building inside the circus tent.

“In Québec, the church has been central to our culture,” explains company co-founder Antoine Carabinier Lépine. “We started from this point of view. Not on the religion part, but on the place. The space. The building is a centre, the heart and soul of a village. Like in the UK, churches have been recycled a lot in Québec. Their role has changed, but they are still places to bring communities together.”

Lépine, who also performs in the show, explains its creation was inspired by contemporary use of local churches for bazaars, bingo and wrestling matches, alongside their more traditional uses. “We are six acrobats and three live musicians, and we’re all on stage the whole time, interchanging roles. There are no solo acts, everything is performed as a

group to honour this idea of a meeting point, both before and now.”

Despite including exotic routines such as Russian swing and Chinese meteors, Cirque Alfonse have rooted all their shows deeply in Québécois heritage, even naming themselves for their home village. Their electro-cabaret, nightclub-vibed Barbu, which appeared on the Meadows in 2015, was based on regional fairground traditions, while their smash hit debut Timber was a glorification of all things lumberjack. Tabarnak—*there goes my last 10p*—is a return to the image-based theatricality of their first show.

The title translates simultaneously as the holy tabernacle, and the worst swear word you can use in Francophone Canada. Lépine admits that he wouldn’t say it in front of his mum and that venues back home have refused to book the production because of its name. Not so in Europe or Australia though.

Underbelly’s head of programming, Marina Dixon, knew she had to book the show when she saw a performance at the Adelaide Fringe: “It’s hugely original, innovative and unique in the subject matter it tackles. You can’t help but love the cast, and the joy they project when performing together is infectious.”

For Cirque Alfonse, enjoyment of life is sacred. Now we’re all invited to worship at their shameless altar of togetherness. /

Katharine Kavanagh

VENUE: Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows

TIME: 7pm – 8:10pm, 4–25 Aug, not 8, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

Credit: Guillaume Morin

Wilkommen in Weimar

It’s 100 years since the end of the First World War and the start of the Weimar Republic, the unofficial name for interbellum Germany. Famous for nightclubs where talent, alcohol and drugs found a happy home. But they were also safe places where punters and artists were free to be themselves; where society and those in power could be criticised and satirised. As Germany plunged deeper and deeper into a recession, and lurched towards fascism, the cabaret artists of the Weimar Republic formed a last bastion of freedom where they warned of the impending doom. Until they were also forcefully shut down by the Brownshirts. “They lived like every day could be their last and partied like crazy,” says singer Melinda Hughes, creator of Margo: Half Woman, Half Beast, a show about cabaret star Margo Lion, the bisexual lover of Marlene Dietrich.

“She was gripped by the decadence of Weimar Berlin. Her marriage was fuelled by alcohol, cocaine and jealousy. That makes for an incredibly complex character.” Hughes sings a mix of new work and songs from the Weimar era in her show. “The lyrics from that time are so poignant, so political. And they’re still relevant today.”

“The Weimar cabaret clubs were made for outsiders, for those who were different,” says cabaret artist Bernie Dieter. “No matter what your gender, sexual preference or background was, you could go there and be one big family for the night.” In Little Death

Club, Dieter creates a modern punk version of the cabaret halls that made Berlin famous in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s.

“We’ve taken the Weimar essence of cuttingedge, satirical social commentary as well as the sex and debauchery, and dragged it into the 21st century,” Dieter continues. In between songs about dick pics and oral pleasures, and acts from ladies that sport beards in intimate places, there is a clear message that is as important now as it was in the 1930s: “At the time there was a strict and authoritarian movement that was pushing differences as something to be feared. And that is happening again.

“In the US, in Australia, in Europe and the UK: political parties are trying to divide people. So I’m trying to encourage the audience to put their hand on their neighbour’s thigh. It’s important that we connect and form friendships. Don’t fear the other because it’s different from what you know,” she says.

The fear of the other is one of the main themes of Frau Welt, a cabaret-play about a Weimar-era drag queen who looks back at her life. “We examine what happens when you try to fit in, but never find your place,” explains Oliver Dawe, co-writer and director of the show. “Frau Welt is conservative, narrow-minded, rich, selfish, self absorbed, self obsessed, individualistic – everything that’s bad for society, now and in the Weimar era. The hypocrisy

The centenary of the end of World War One and the rise of both hedonistic liberalism and crushing authoritarianism in Weimar Germany sets the scene for a number of cabaret artists

Credit: Ayesha Hussian

Bernie Dieter (Little Death Club)

is rife here: she is a gay man who loathes herself. She starts ostracising others to feel better about herself. Looking at someone like Trump, maybe that’s behind his actions too.”

Weimar was an incredibly progressive time, says Le Gateau Chocolat, who this spring performed in Effigies of Wickedness (Songs Banned by the Nazis), a co-production of London’s Gate Theatre and English National Opera. His new show, Icons, is indebted to Berlin’s Weimar cabaret in terms of its performance style. “They celebrated difference and gender neutrality, but at the same time a vacuum was created for conservatism to super-charge itself and create the rise of the far right. You’d hope that time would be linear and progressive, but things we said we’d never do again are occurring before our eyes.”

What occurred in Germany in the ‘30s was that Hitler and his henchmen gradually gained control over all forms of expression. It started with newspapers, cinema and theatre. Cabaret was, for some time, the only art form they couldn’t get a strong grip on. “The Brownshirts threw stink bombs into the venues to disrupt performances,” explains David Dunn, writer and director of That Bastard Brecht. It’s a show from the perspective of Elizabeth Hauptmann, a collaborator of Brecht’s who is reputed to have written at least 80 per cent of The Threepenny Opera, but was denied credit during her lifetime.

“Artists and audiences were beaten up, especially

if they made jokes about Hitler,” says Hughes. When Germany became a dictatorship in 1933, most artists fled. She goes on: “Plenty couldn’t or wouldn’t flee –they couldn’t foresee how horrible it would get. Many of the Stolpersteine [brass cobblestones that commemorate the victims of the Nazi regime] in Berlin bear the name of a Weimar cabaret performer.”

The influence of Weimar cabaret on theatre lives on, however. “German expressionism used big images, big shapes – they were playing around with form. That is what many drag artists still do,” says Dawe.

For Hughes many comedians are indebted to Weimar: “Instead of telling people what’s wrong with politics or society, we can make them think by magnifying the absurdities and confronting audiences with it through satire. Weimar cabaret could do that because they broke through the forth wall.”

“They completely demolished it”, agrees Dieter. “What people thought of as theatre back then was really only for the elite who could afford expensive productions. Cabaret halls were for everyone: from working class to nobility. They didn’t sit and listen to other people’s stories, forbidden to interact. There was a real conversation between the audience and the performer.”

Le Gateau Chocolat concurs: “That is what I borrow from Weimar: I’m speaking directly to you. And I’m addressing political issues. What caused the US to swing from Obama to Trump? What’s the role xenophobia played in the Brexit vote and how did that cause a rise in hate crimes against people who look different? The themes that occupied writers a hundred years ago, are heartachingly relevant today.”

/ Arnoud Breithbart

SHOW: Le Gateau Chocolat: Icons

VENUE: Assembly George Square Gardens

TIME: 7:30pm – 8:40pm, 2–26 Aug, not 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Margo: Half Woman, Half Beast

VENUE: Assembly Rooms

TIME: 5:55pm – 6:55pm, 2–18 Aug, not 6, 13

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Frau Welt

VENUE: Assembly Rooms

TIME: 8:35pm – 9:35pm, 2–25 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Little Death Club

VENUE: Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows

TIME: 8pm – 9pm, 3–25 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

Le Gateau Chocolat

Credit: Lee Faircloth

Anya Anastasia and Laurie Black: Queens of Cabaret

There was a time when the cabaret section of the Fringe programme was full of women in lovely frocks, draped erotically over pianos. Not so in 2018 where cabaret and burlesque have largely shaken off their musty, gentleman’s club reputation in favour of something more subversive, feminist, intersectional and above all, exciting.

This year, two queens of the circuit bring their shows to Edinburgh – Anya Anastasia: The Executioners, and Laurie Black: Bad Luck. The pair, who performed together in 2017’s hit Rogue Romantic, come fresh from piling up awards at the Adelaide Fringe with their unique showcases of song, comedy and fierce politics.

Anastasia is performing her call-to-arms work with collaborator Gareth Chin at the Gilded Balloon. The Executioners is personal, born out of her frustration at the powerlessness of the individual in the face of global injustice, and an infuriation with ineffective, online “slacktivism”.

Anastasia brings her weapons—“my newly lowered IQ, my fury, my addictions, my deadly yoga moves, my activated almonds and my full tank of moral outrage”—to the fight against against fake news and consumerism.

“I was sick of screaming into the void on my Facebook page,” she says, “so I’ve set out to find some people who might not agree with me, and change their minds.”

“Wearing your politics on your sleeve is scarier than taking your clothes off in front of people, and it’s more controversial”

- Anya Anastasia

Two powerhouses of the cabaret circuit are back, and this time they’ve brought the politics

Laurie Black (Bad Luck)

Credit: Thierry Franco

The especial intimacy of cabaret has an ability to be anarchic without sacrificing the glitter. It’s a balance that Laurie Black knows just how to strike in Bad Luck, which she performs in and hosts. Black describes this “edgier”, “weirdo” cabaret as a “showcase of interesting humans”, somewhere you can come to find that bit of “Fringe grittiness... amongst the sparkles”. The classically trained pianist reckons the show is just like her: “a little rock ’n’ roll weirdo.” It’s a return to roots, this time at Underbelly, an unusually mainstream venue for Black who “lives and breathes” Edinburgh Fringe.

Both shows look set to be intensely political: “You get away with a lot more where you invite people to laugh at an exaggerated version of yourself,” says Anastasia. “Wearing your politics on your sleeve is scarier than taking your clothes off in front of people, and it’s more controversial.”

Sure, Black and Anastasia are extreme characters, but that’s not to say they’re not relatable. The

rule of these two full-on powerful Queens of festival cabaret seems to be ‘tough, but fair’. Both have traitors in mind for the chop, so if you’re a dodgy politician, or don’t recycle, you might want to take extra care. “We’re coming for you,” warns Anastasia, with “our broad swords and our sharp wits.” They’re here to challenge the status quo (Anastasia) and “smash some goals, hopes and dreams” (Black). Bow down, their majesties have arrived.

/ Francesca Peschier

SHOW: Anya Anastasia: The Executioners

VENUE: Gilded Balloon Teviot

TIME: 8pm – 9pm, 1–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Bad Luck

VENUE: Underbelly, Cowgate

TIME: 8:50pm – 9:50pm, 20–26 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

Anya Anastasia (Executioners)

Focus on: Drive-By Shooting

From an overheard conversation in a Dublin Bar to a “street opera”, Irish company Dumbworld are out to show that there’s no rules to making operatic works

“This opera is based on a conversation I overheard in a bar in Dublin,” says director and filmmaker John McIlduff of the Irish multidisciplinary production company Dumbworld, which he leads with composer Brian Irvine. “It was a pair of old women, and one of them was joking about her husband sleeping around and how she’d have him done in – the kind of conversation you hear in Dublin!” Drive-By Shooting, then, takes these two imagined old ladies as its central characters, and follows their quest to—as McIlduff has it—“shoot the fecker in the pecker”.

chorus on the subject of migration, Let Me Count the Ways. “We’re very keen on recontextualising opera, because mainstream opera is very difficult for people to see ordinarily,” says McIlduff. “At the Dublin Theatre Festival the cheapest tickets were €35, which a lot of people just can’t afford. So we thought, let’s put Drive-By Shooting out on the street and let people experience it for themselves.”

Originally seen as a 10-minute performance in Dublin’s GPO building, with live opera singers and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra performing, the success of the piece led to Dumbworld being offered funding by Dublin City Council to make a film of the show. “We weren’t sure, though, because we know opera films don’t have a very big audience,” says McIlduff. “So we discussed it and decided that perhaps a piece of street art might be more appropriate.”

Dumbworld’s history suggests they’re well-placed for this kind of reimagining, with a lengthy and productive track record which includes the 2014 series of “street operas” Things We Throw Away (the original home of Drive-By Shooting), and last year’s 100-strong crowdsourced musical theatre

The piece—a film of the Drive-By Shooting performance—appears on the wall “like a Banksy”, he says, and then begins to move. The soundtrack is broadcast through headphones, although with dynamic titling it can be read and experienced close-up or a couple of streets away from the work. “It’s absolutely an opera for people who don’t like opera,” laughs McIlduff. “Wherever we’ve shown it before, it’s been in a big public space where everyone can have a chance to experience and enjoy it.

“Our viewpoint is that it doesn’t matter what the art is,” he continues. “There can be a lot of barriers which keep people from enjoying it, from going into opera houses, but there can be an inroad for everybody. This is a funny, short, interesting piece with a social commentary going on—because these women are looking to go to jail so they can get free healthcare while they’re in there—and it’s open to a far wider audience than might normally experience opera.” /

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: times vary, 1–26 Aug, not 2

TICKETS: £3

David Pollock

“ It’s absolutely an opera for people who don’t like opera” - John McIlduff

Credit: Dumbworld

Focus on: My Left/ Right Foot –The Musical

Should disabled characters be played exclusively by disabled actors? Scotland’s only disabilityled theatre company Birds of Paradise has some fun with this question at the Fringe

When Daniel Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for his performance in Jim Sheridan’s 1989 heartstring-tugger My Left Foot, it cemented the British-Irish thespian as a method actor par excellence. Based on the true-life story of Christy Brown, a man born with cerebral palsy so severe it limited his movement to the titular appendage, the film offered Day-Lewis a steep challenge: to convincingly portray a disabled man.

The New York Times called his performance “exemplary”. The casting choice went unchallenged; Day-Lewis, a pro, nailed the role. But flash forward to James Marsh’s 2014 Steven Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything, and the conversation’s changed. Eddie Redmayne may have won the same award as Day-Lewis for his depiction of the physicist’s battle with ALS, but there have been big questions around able-bodied actors depicting disabilities.

Robert Softley Gayle, artistic director of esteemed Scottish theatre-makers Birds of Paradise, seeks to wryly explore this issue in My Left/Right Foot. A co-production with the National Theatre of Scotland, this new musical imagines the minefield of inclusion through the lens of an amateur dramatics company staging My Left Foot, and trying to score points for diversity “to win the local play festival”.

The irreverence is palpable: a disability-led company famed for taboo-breaking, overtly accessible work will be intimately familiar with the pitfalls of diversity quotas and the ingrained prejudices around disability.

But that’s the point. Sometimes it takes someone like Softley Gayle to bring that conversation to the fore and defuse the inevitable tensions that surround it. And in the show, “they get it all wrong,” he says. It’s not preachy – it’s comedy.

2018 also marks the 25th anniversary of Birds of Paradise. 25 years ago—not long after My Left Foot’s Oscar buzz—the terrain was very different. This production simply “wouldn’t have worked,” he

“There are some excellent disabled artists in the UK who are making work that tries to ask questions about what we’re doing”

- Robert Softley Gayle

imagines, “because people’s attitudes are not where they are now.”

We’ve certainly made progress since. “The fact that I am where I am, I’m making a coproduction with the National Theatre, I’m artistic director of a company; it’s a step forward,” he agrees.

But there’s still a long way to go. “It’s fine for me to direct with a company that talks about disability –that’s what I’m ‘allowed’ to do,” Softley Gayle posits. “At some point I’ll want to make work that might not be about disability. Are we ready for that yet?”

Attitudes won’t change overnight. “I’m not the expert here,” he stresses. “I don’t know how to fix all of this. But if we can have more conversations, if we can talk about why it might be offensive and what that’s about, then we can look at a way forward.”

It will take the combined efforts of many people and organisations. He cites artists like Jess Thom from Touretteshero, Nicola Miles-Wildin and Claire Cunningham: “There are some excellent disabled

artists in the UK who are making work that tries to ask questions about what we’re doing.”

And it’s less of a black-and-white issue than some defenders of accessibility might think. “At first glance it’s quite simple, that we say Daniel Day-Lewis was wrong to do the part. It should’ve been a disabled actor. But actually it’s more complex than that.

“At some point even I think, ‘He was a great actor, so maybe he was the right person for that part!’ I mean, I don’t believe that really, but there’s a conversation to be had: what is acting about? What is it to have disabled people in our culture?”

And that conversation, though complex, doesn’t need to be a dull one. “This is a musical comedy, so why don’t we have fun while we’re asking a lot of quite important questions?” /

George Sully

VENUE: Assembly Roxy

TIME: 6:10pm – 7:40pm, 1–27 Aug, not 8, 14, 21

TICKETS: prices vary

Performing for Adults? That’s Child’s Play

From a drag retelling of The Ugly Duckling to Kafka for kids, Tim Bano talks to Fringe stalwarts who are taking children’s work to Edinburgh for the first time

Two seconds into a performance of Duckie, cabaret superstar Le Gateau Chocolat’s drag twist on The Ugly Duckling and his first show for younger audiences, a child said loudly, “Mum, why is it so bad?”

“I hadn’t even done anything!” Gateau laughs. “I thought ‘Oh my God, this is only the start of the show’. But the great thing about performing for kids is that they remind you about the art of truthful storytelling. If you bullshit them they let you know.”

Gateau is one of several Fringe regulars taking children’s work to the Fringe for the first time, and his feeling is echoed by others. World renowned Australian circus company Circa have been fixtures of the Fringe for several years, but never with a family show.

This year they’re performing Wolfgang, a comedy circus piece in which Mozart gets spat out of a record player and stages a chaotic concert. Like

Gateau, artistic director Yaron Lifschitz has learned that kids need to be captivated from the get-go.

“If we were sitting at Bayreuth watching Wagner, we would feel some cultural duty to at least pretend we were enjoying ourselves. And then we’d get to a point where the natural quality of the work would begin to speak to us, and by the end we’d be incredibly moved and transformed.”

But young audiences don’t begin with that cultural expectation, Lifschitz says. “They’re thinking ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here, it’s not important to me, I just want to go and kick a football around’. We have to hold them authentically with what we’re doing. If it captures their imagination, they will have an extraordinary time. If we start to think ‘this is Mozart, this is very important, they’ll sit through it’... well, they won’t.”

Tom Parry has built a reputation as one of sketch

Circa

Credit: Damien Bredberg

trio Pappy’s but a stage play for children is a new experience. And it’s a strange proposition: Kafka for Kids. Although Parry can’t rely on the Pappy’s brand to attract younger audiences, he isn’t worried. “Edinburgh is the perfect place. You’ve got a lot of open-minded adults, everyone who goes there wants to experience new things.”

Lifschitz is less sure. “I hope they’re there. There must be children. And I hope that some of them have parents that will bring them to the theatre. The children aren’t going to be the decision makers. So our conversation is both with parents and children.”

was drawn to the Ugly Duckling story because he found it difficult. “Just because you’ve been through some level of hardship doesn’t mean you magically become a swan. That transformation has got to be a metaphorical one. You make it happen by putting in a lot of work. If you’re born ugly or you’re born different, that is fine too. Being a duck is enough.”

Al-Kadhi agrees, which is why Denim engage with what it means to be queer and non-binary. “We want to show how fun it can be to be queer and different, how celebrated we are, to show people who are completely in charge of their flaws. Because actually kids are very open-minded.”

For Amrou Al-Kadhi, their show came about when children turned up unexpectedly. They are one of the members of Denim, a “deluded drag pop girl band convinced they’re globally famous”. A breakout success of last year’s Fringe, this year they’re taking Denim Juniors, a storytelling show for kids with plenty of singalong pop songs.

“We did a show a few years ago where we were billed much earlier than we thought,” Al-Kadhi explains, “and there were 150 toddlers in the audience. Obviously we were nervous, and we had to cut out the profanities, but they really responded to it. They didn’t think about what was transgressive, they just loved the characters.”

The origins of Le Gateau Chocolat’s show are similar: a performance where he came out on stage to rows of children. He adapted his show on the hoof, adding in lots of songs that they could sing along to.

When he started writing Duckie he thought it might go down a similar route, but that changed when he spoke to his niece. He and his sister grew up in Nigeria, and she moved back recently with her daughter who had a hard time settling into school. “It’s just the curiosity of kids. It wasn’t bullying, it was more like, ‘why is your hair different, why is your nose different?’. So I wanted my nieces to see themselves represented on stage, to turn entertainment into possibility for them, and then they can turn that possibility into ambition.”

For Gateau, the idea of engaging with darker, more difficult aspects of growing up is not just a choice. It’s a responsibility. So the show deals with bullying, homophobia, body positivity. He

But they’ve realised that making children’s work needs a lot more time than they’re used to. Wolfgang had three months of rehearsal, “an outrageous amount of time for a show with only three people”, Lifschitz says. “Normally we do one preview. This one we’ve had to invite a bunch of children in three or four times.” And Al-Kadhi is inviting all their friends with kids to get feedback before heading to Edinburgh.

“Children consume a lot,” Gateau says. “Duckie is only a 40-minute show but by the end I’m completely drenched in sweat. And emotionally I’m drained because the kids just eat it up.”

But the effort has been worth it. For Lifschitz, “my favourite experience is looking down a line of young faces and they’re beaming at the skill, the imagination, and seeing their own experiences reflected in the world.”

“We know what we want them to feel when they come out,” Gateau adds, “which is uplifted. Less anxious about their differences. Hopeful.”

SHOW: Beetlemania: Kafka for Kids!

VENUE: Pleasance Dome

TIME: 1:15pm – 2:15pm, 1–26 Aug, not 14

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Denim: The Denim Juniors

VENUE: Assembly George Square Gardens

TIME: 4:35pm – 5:25pm, 3–19 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Duckie

VENUE: Summerhall

TIME: 2pm – 2:40pm, 1–12 Aug, not 2

TICKETS: £12

SHOW: Circa: Wolfgang

VENUE: Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows

TIME: 2pm – 3pm, 4–25 Aug, not 8, 13, 20

TICKETS: prices vary

“If you’re born ugly or you’re born different, that is fine too. Being a duck is enough” – Le Gateau Chocolat

GRAND TALES

ENTHRALLING ART

SIZZLING CABARET

CAPTIVATING DANCE

POWERFUL THEATRE

DARING PERFORMANCES

RAUCOUS COMEDY

TOP FESTIVALS

EPIC STORIES

FIERCE MUSIC

THUMPING BEATS

BIG DRAMA

INSPIRING FILMS

THRILLING CIRCUS

MADEINADELAIDE.NET

CRISTINA LARK:

Concerts for Kids

Can classical music be both entertaining and educational for younger audiences?

If, when you think of classical music, it’s of something steeped intimidatingly in tradition, in a cavernous venue, with an austere atmosphere and a predominantly grey-haired audience, two child-friendly shows at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe want to challenge your preconceptions.

In Paddington Bear’s First Concert, at Underbelly, Michael Bond’s eponymous, marmalade-loving creation finds himself at the Royal Albert Hall for his first concert. Meanwhile, Misha’s Gang’s Strings for Kids will pull back the curtain on instruments and orchestras at The Space’s Surgeon’s Hall venue. These shows share an impulse: to show kids that classical music is as much for them as anyone.

Paddington is a passion project for its producer, Jimmy Jewell, who was a chorister in St Paul’s Cathedral Choir and worked as a musical director and composer after graduating from London’s Royal Academy of Music.

As a chorister, Jewell recorded the soundtrack for Spielberg-produced animated film The Land Before Time, at Abbey Road Studios. He recalls being “absolutely transfixed by hearing sounds from TV and film and working out, for example, that a particular sound was a trumpet and a glockenspiel together.”

Pulling back the curtain, making classical music “relatable and accessible”, in Jewell’s words, was behind the success of last year’s The Tales of Peter

Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck, which he also produced. And just as that show introduced children to the orchestra’s instruments—including playing the Harry Potter theme—so too will Paddington

Engagement is also key to conductor Misha Rachlevsky’s Strings for Kids orchestra of 14 Moscow Conservatory-trained musicians, the majority of whom are under 30-years-old. Rachlevsky is challenging “our society’s perception of classical music as something dated and for old farts,” he says with a laugh.

The Strings for Kids musicians will explain their instruments, right down to how they’re made, and how different notes create different moods – “which is something you cannot do in a concert hall for 500 or 1,000 people,” says Rachlevsky. Kids will invent stories to accompany excerpts played by the orchestra.

“Some will want to touch the instruments,” says Rachlevsky. “And we invite them to.” He sees “absolutely no harm” in giving a child a violin bow, “guiding it with your hand and letting them make a sound. That way, they become the orchestra.”

Rachlevsky believes Strings for Kids is “making a dent in perceptions of classical music as something that is totally different to other forms of entertainment.” It’s not about chaining a child to a chair and ordering them to listen, he says. “It’s about playing a little piece of music—enough to convey an emotion—and then continues

asking: ‘Okay, guys, was that happy or sad?’”

What is key, says Jewell, is to “make something engaging and accessible without being condescending. Children are clever, which people often forget.”

Paddington won’t be dumbed down. This production, reveals Jewell, is a reworking of an existing show. With a story by Michael Bond himself and a score by Herbert Chappell—responsible for the iconic theme of the 1970s animated TV show—it toured in concert format.

ucational, you need to engage children on their level – and understand that they’re like sponges. They just absorb information. It’s about tapping into that.”

Both Paddington and Strings for Kids are about demystifying classical music – making it tangible, approachable and embedding it in kids’ everyday lives. This is particularly important, says Jewell, as government cuts to the funding of music and drama in UK schools are “only getting worse.”

For Rachlevsky, Strings for Kids is about giving children entertainment that doesn’t drily educate, but pivots on “paying attention and enjoying it”. Depending on the age of the audience, he adds, “what’s fun for us is that it’s always improvisation, to some degree. It has to be adapted to the crowd”.

With Paddington, Jewell is also acutely conscious of the crowd watching the show. “For every child ticket you sell, there’s going to be at least one adult accompanying them. You want to make it accessible to an entire family,” he says. “We can’t assume that parents aren’t going to learn something new either.”

This new version of Paddington is re-orchestrated for multi-instrumentalists. It’s also, says Jewell, longer and more challenging, in a fun way. “We’re engaging children to be part of the performance,” he says. “There are moments of interaction that wouldn’t necessarily happen in its conventional format.”

Jewell’s aim with Paddington is to avoid anything too pantomimic. “It’s a fantastic art form,” he says, “and I respect it hugely. But if you’re trying to provide something that’s both entertaining and ed-

SHOW: Paddington Bear’s First Concert

VENUE: Underbelly, Bristo Square

TIME: 11:20am – 12:20pm, 1–26 Aug, not 13

TICKETS: prices vary

SHOW: Strings for Kids: Misha’s Gang Presents

VENUE: theSpace @ Surgeons Hall

TIME: 10:10am – 11:10am, 3–14 Aug

TICKETS: prices vary

/︎ Tom Wicker

“If you’re trying to provide something that’s both entertaining and educational, you need to engage children on their level” – Jimmy Jewell

Paddington Bear’s First Concert

What to do – What to see

At the festivals with kids in tow? Fortunately, there’s experts about. Artists have kids, too – and they know how to keep them entertained

Andrew Maxwell, comedian Assembly George Square Theatre, 9pm – 10pm, 1–26 Aug, not 13, prices vary

Ben Pettitt-Wade, director of The Flop Summerhall, 4:55pm – 5:55pm, 3–26 Aug, not 13, 20, prices vary

What to do: I love taking the family up to Arthur’s Seat and playing hide and seek with the dog in tow! That’s a family tradition – we do it every year. And hanging out in the sun on George Square!

What to see: Baby Loves Disco (ages 0-6, The Jam House, times and dates vary) with the Mrs and the baby is a must. The one I’m looking forward to taking the kids to see is Dick and Dom: Dick v Dom (ages 5+, Underbelly Bristo Square, 1pm) as I have a 14 and 16-year old! They will love it!

Laurence Clark, comedian Assembly George Square Theatre, 5:40pm – 6:40pm, 2–26 Aug, not 14, prices vary

What to do: Last time I was there we climbed Arthur’s Seat with Betsy (four) and Charlie (one). Betsy loved it, climbed all the way on her own and was buzzing with the view from the top. Charlie slept.

What to see: I’m looking forward to Duckie by Le Gateau Chocolate at Summerhall (ages 3+, Summerhall, 2pm). Looks like it might be an interesting take on the classic Ugly Duckling tale.

Ben Hanlin, magician Pleasance Dome, 7pm – 8pm, 1–27 Aug, not 13, prices vary

What to do: Despite all the kids’ shows and other cultural activities, my kids’ favourite thing by miles is the free ping-pong table in the BBC area!

What to see: My younger son can’t wait to see Dick v Dom (ages 5+, Underbelly Bristo Square, 1pm) because he loves them in the Horrid Henry movie and is naturally uber-competitive!

What to do: I love walking to Stockbridge in the mornings. It’s a quiet little part of the city and at the weekend there is a farmers’ market with loads of great food to taste. There are also some great cafes to sit in and get a solid brekkie to start the day!

What to see: I’m definitely going to see Card Ninja (ages 8+, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1:30pm)!

I didn’t see it last time I was at the Fringe. It’s a show where you see crazy card stunts, and playing cards are turned into weapons!

Credit: Steve Ullathorne

Abigail Burgess, actor in Kin

Underbelly, Cowgate, 4pm – 5pm, 2–26 Aug, not 13, prices vary

What to do: Ride the terrifying Ferris wheel on Princes Street. Or, if your kids are less daredevil, go up and down the escalators at Jenners.

What to see: The Showstoppers’ Kids Show (ages 3-10, Pleasance Courtyard, 11am) is actually fun for adults too, to get a glimpse into your kids’ amazing little brains.

William Andrews, comedian

Pleasance Courtyard, 4:45pm – 5:45pm, 1–26 Aug, not 14, prices vary

What to do: You know kids – nothing they like more than CIVIL ENGINEERING PROJECTS. I’m talking Forth bridges, dads (actually there are three). Bus to South Queensferry, ice cream and a wander. You can thank me later.

What to see: Get on board with Fun Kids Radio’s Epic Roadshow Adventure (ages 3-14, Underbelly Bristo Square, 1:15pm). Utterly brilliant. Warning: YOU WILL BE INTERACTED WITH, but if you didn’t want to be slightly embarrassed in public, maybe you shouldn’t have had kids?

Credit: Kevin Murphy

Guy Masterson, The Marilyn Conspiracy

Assembly George Square Studios, 2-27 Aug, not 13, 1:45pm

My recommendation is Gusto on George Street. I dine here at least twice a week during the Fringe. The service is always top notch; polite and efficient. More importantly it offers a varied menu, excellently prepared. In short, a top-notch dining experience at mid-scale prices. I took 50 people there for my 50th in 2011. Memorable dining.

Artisan Roast

57 Broughton St, 138 Bruntsfield Pl | @artisanroast

Artisan Roast are very serious about their coffee, but for that you will be very grateful as you sip one of the best flat whites the whole of the UK has to offer. If you’re not serious about your coffee, AR will convert you to the winning team.

The Auld Hoose

23-25 St Leonard’s St | @TheAuldHoose

A cross-breed of ‘old man pub’ and ‘rock bar’, this Newington pub two minutes from the Pleasance Courtyard covers both bases in style. Slick decor, a ‘90s metal soundtrack, a good drinks selection and ridiculous bowls of nachos await.

BABA

130 George St @babaedinburgh

Middle Eastern mezze are the order of the day at BABA, parked at the Book Festival end of George Street. A highly shareable menu packed with tasty Levantine dishes make this an ideal post-show pitstop.

Baba Budan

1 Cranston St @bababudancoffee

Right across from Waverley station, Baba Budan is perfect for a straight-off-the-train sugar boost. Doughnuts are the main draw, coming in a host of exciting flavours and combinations. Grab one with a coffee to fuel up for a day of show-hopping.

Bannermans

202 Cowgate | @BannermansBar

The back room of Bannermans is one the favourite haunts of the city’s rockers, but the main bar is a much more laid-back environment. It’s cheap, there’s plenty of space and it’s right in the centre of town.

Bar 50

50 Blackfriars St | @smartcityhostel

Connected to the Smart City Hostel at the east end of the Cowgate, Bar 50’s ever-changing clientele makes for an interesting evening, and the decent drinks prices and reliable food menu keep everyone getting along like old friends.

Blue Blazer

2 Spittal St | @blueblazeredin

The Blue Blazer is a ‘proper’ Edinburgh pub, in the best possible sense. Boasting one of the finest selections of real ales, whiskies and rums in the capital, the Blue Blazer’s walls have seen it all.

Bodega

36 Leven St @bodegatollx

Fantastic tacos in super-chilled and extremely friendly surroundings, Bodega brings flavours from around the world together in wonderful corn tortillas. Oh, and their margaritas are immense.

Bramble

16a Queen St @BrambleBar

Arguably the city’s finest cocktail bar, and certainly one of the venues that elevated Auld Reekie into the global cocktail conversation, Bramble is a delightful drinking den. It’s dark, the hip-hop bumps loud from the speakers and the drinks are beautiful.

Brass Monkey

14 Drummond St | @brassmonkeybar

Tucked in between the Pleasance and the Bridges, Brass Monkey matches a great location with a relaxed atmosphere. Much of that comes from the mini-cinema in the back room, packed with squishy mattresses and enormous cushions.

Bread Meats Bread

92 Lothian Rd @BreadMeats_EDI

Incredible burgers, outrageous sides—try the poutine—and a great location. Bread Meats Bread offers ideal Fringe fuel and their vegan menu has come on leaps and bounds in recent times so now everyone can enjoy it.

Brew Lab

6-8 South College St | @BrewLabCoffee

Great coffee, superb sandwiches and soups, and cakes and teas from some of Edinburgh’s best producers all find a home at Brew Lab, with a strong wine and beer game thrown in as well.

BrewDog

143 Cowgate | @BrewDogEdin

The Ellon brewery dominates the taps alongside an ever-changing cast of guest beers, a great food menu and, as the name suggests, they are dog-friendly.

Bryant & Mack Private Detectives

87 Rose St North Ln @BryantAndMack

A top-notch one-room bar, Bryant & Mack is all dark colours, mood lighting, comfy seats and delicious drinks. The speakeasy vibe is complimented by the space itself – everyone gets their own little conspiratorial corner in which to plot away.

Cameo Cinema

38 Home St | @cameocinema

Famed for its atmosphere and charm, the Cameo shows everything from mainstream hits to arthouse fare to retro cult classics, and the cosy bar and homely foyer give the place a glow of old-school movie magic.

Checkpoint

3 Bristo Pl @checkpointedi

Brilliant brunch until the early evening? A great drinks selection for the late-night? A shipping container, inside the bar? Checkpoint has it all – plus it’s a venue for Assembly, and it’s within spitting distance of the Gilded Balloon and the Pleasance Dome.

Chop House

East Market St @chophousesteak

If the Fringe is getting you down, may we recommend the Chop House’s frankly outlandish breakfasts or one of their incredible dryaged steaks? Either way, luxuriate in their enormous orange chairs and take an extremely tasty break from it all.

City Art Centre

2 Market St @EdinCulture

Set in the former Edinburgh fruit market, the City Art Centre holds over 4,500 Scottish works from across the artistic spectrum, while the shop and cafe are great options if the art all gets a little bit overwhelming.

The City Cafe

19 Blair St @thecitycafe

If you’ve ever dreamt of going to an American diner in the 1950s, well... you can’t. Sorry. Luckily, The City Cafe is a pretty good alternative, with its chessboard-style floor and leather and chrome booths.

Civerinos

5 Hunter Sq, 49 Forrest Rd @civerinos_slice

Their locations are great; just off the Royal Mile, and on the edge of the Meadows. The vibe is great; all fly-postered walls and marble statues. Above all else, the pizza at Civerinos is great: sourdough bases, brilliant toppings, and big enough to fuel even the most ill-advised of schedules.

Hot Gay Time Machine (Zak & Toby)

Underbelly, Cowgate, 2-26 Aug, not 13, 10pm

The Hot Gays can’t live without brunch, and Cult Espresso did not disappoint these two very hungry and very gay men. The coffee is divine, the cakes are fabulous and the ambiance is super gay (in the old sense of the word). Vegan friendly, gluten unfriendly and the perfect gay brunch spot.

Tips from the tops

Jacoba Williams from Nouveau Riche’s Queens of Sheba

Underbelly, Cowgate, 2-26 Aug, not 13, 6:50pm

David Bann does the most exciting vegetarian food. Often you can be left with a boring mushroom variation, but these guys celebrate veggie cuisine. I went in the day time, when I was last at Fringe dressed head to toe in a Victorian costume. It had such a warm vibe I didn’t feel unwelcome in my top hat. The first time I had polenta chips too. Top notch!

Cloisters

26 Brougham St @Cloisters_Bar

On the corner of the Meadows and Tollcross and set into the side of a church, this pub is packed with period features. A huge selection of beers and ales and always lively atmosphere make Cloisters a great spot for a pre- or post-show pint.

Cult Espresso

104 Buccleuch St @cultcoffeeedin

A welcome sanctuary from the Fringe, this split-level coffee shop just down from Summerhall pairs a stripped-back aesthetic with expertly-crafted coffees and a small but perfectly-formed food menu.

Dishoom

3a St Andrew Sq @Dishoom

The best of a new crop to pop up around St Andrew Square recently, Dishoom’s take on the Irani cafes of Bombay offers delicious, casual dining in the heart of the Fringe action. Get the black daal; you will not be disappointed.

Dough

172 Rose St, 47 South Clerk St @Dough_pizzeria1

You’re on the way from one show to another, you’re a bit hungover and you haven’t eaten in a day and a half. What you need is a slice of pizza – Dough have an extensive array of by-the-slice pies, all delicious sea water crusts and fresh ingredients. Go to them; they’ll see you right.

El Cartel Mexicana

64 Thistle St @elcartelmexican

The best Mexican food in Edinburgh can be found in the cosy confines of El Cartel. That’s cosy as in small. Be prepared for Kitson-level queuing to get yourself a spot but be assured that the tacos are more than worth the effort.

Eteaket

41 Frederick St @eteaket

If you like tea, then prepare to spend a lot of time in Eteaket. The Frederick Street cafe is all about tea and cakes, with dozens of loose leaf blends on offer, all blended specifically for Eteaket and packed with all sorts of mad and exotic ingredients.

Filament Coffee

38 Clerk St @filamentcoffee

Filament’s a brilliant modern coffee bar pretty much halfway between Summerhall and the Pleasance Courtyard. We know the Fringe gets tough; a flat white from these guys will help make it all better.

Fireside

East Market St @firesidearches

A one-time pop-up that’s stayed popped-up, Fireside has turned the units at the end of the Waverley Arches into an outdoor courtyard and indoor bar and performance space that’s full of charm. It’s also host to a range of Fringe shows, and it’s the venue for this year’s Fest launch party. Woo-hoo!

Filmhouse

88 Lothian Rd @Filmhouse

From challenging European cinema to Woody Allen retrospectives to the best of modern Hollywood, the Filmhouse truly shows it all, and their cafe-bar is pretty good for a Fringe pitstop too.

Fruitmarket Gallery

45 Market St @fruitmarket

The Fruitmarket Gallery is hard to miss, as you tend not to see too many huge pink signs in the Old Town. It’s just as well, as missing out on the great art, compact but wellstocked shop and brilliant downstairs cafe just wouldn’t be right.

Tips from the tops

Forest Cafe

141 Lauriston Pl @foresttweets

Having been booted from their former home on Forest Road a few years back, the Forest’s crew of volunteers have taken up residence in Tollcross and turned this former corner shop into a vibrant arts space. Expect art, music, poetry and anything else that comes to mind—plus vegetarian food—in the freest venue in the city.

Fortitude Coffee

3c York Pl @FortitudeCoffee

In Fringe terms, Fortitude is a perfect fit – brilliant coffee, delicious sandwiches and excellent cakes from local heroes Lovecrumbs, all on the literal doorstep of The Stand Comedy Club. Seriously, it’s right next door.

Gilded Balloon

Teviot Pl @Gildedballoon

This Hogwart’s-style building is actually the oldest purpose-built students’ union in the world. Bought and paid for by the students in 1889—clearly they had a bit more cash back then—it’s a warren of big and small performance spaces, bars and cafes.

The Hanging Bat

133 Lothian Rd @TheHangingBat

A huge and ever-changing range of some of the best beers from all over the world, a mini-brewery at the back and super knowledgeable bar staff make this the place to get your ‘serious beer’ on during the Fringe.

The Hive

3 Niddry St @clubhive

This wild and cavernous Cowgate venue is a notorious student haunt for good reason. If you only know The Hive for its Fringe programming, you haven’t lived; head down for a late-night drink and you’ll find an all-action party spot that’s not for the faint-hearted.

The Holyrood 9A

9a Holyrood Rd @holyrood9a

Gourmet burgers and good beer are the order of the day at the 9a, just down from the Pleasance. Given that their burgers are delicious and they’re right next to one of the Fringe’s biggest venues, they can get busy – just know that the wait is worth it.

Hula

103-105 West Bow @hulajuicebar

Bright and breezy, Hula does a great line in fresh fruit juices with exotic and outrageous blends that you never would have considered, as well as great coffee and healthy food.

Joseph Pearce’s

23 Elm Row @JosephPearces

A bohemian bar with a cool crowd powered by aquavit-based cocktails and Swedish cider. Entertainment comes from the regular art exhibitions, live music, DJ sets and a weekly jogging club. Healthy.

Lovecrumbs

155 West Port @hellolovecrumbs

An inventive sweet and savoury menu, tables made from old pianos, and a literal window seat give Lovecrumbs an anarchic air that turns the act of going for coffee into an adventure.

Lowdown Coffee

40 George St @coffeelowdown

A small but perfectly-formed Scandi-style basement beneath George Street, Lowdown is a calming environment from which to escape the madness of the street above.

Machina Espresso

2 Brougham Pl, 80 Nicholson St

@MachinaEspresso

One of a batch of Edinburgh coffee shops roasting their own beans, Machina’s own blend is a smooth, fruity espresso. Grab it in a flat white, pair it with a pastry or enormous sandwich and consider yourself ready for a day of shows.

Joana Nastari, F**k You Pay Me

Assembly Rooms, 2-26 Aug, not 14, 21, 3:25pm

My favourite place to eat is Caffe Romano, the Italian restaurant at strip club Fantasy Palace, Shandwick Place. There’s nothing like a spaghetti marinara, a lap dance and a shandy to put that special pep in your step for an afternoon on the mile. Just remember – no touching, and ALWAYS tip the girls.

Credit: Holly Lucas

Tips from the tops

13 W Richmond St

A lovingly decorated and charming hole in the wall off Nicholson St, the menu is, as suggested, half sushi and half noodle. Expect quality in presentation, ingredients and execution. Try the Master Chef Soyu burnt garlic ramen – you will not be disappointed.

Mary’s Milk Bar

18 Grassmarket @MarysMilkBar

A cute little gelateria inspired by the milk bars of the 1960s but with the flavours brought right up-todate, Mary’s has quickly become an Edinburgh institution. If the sun is out (it will be at least once, promise), get yourself down here for a hit of delicious, creamy gelato. You’ve earned it.

The Mosque Kitchen

31 Nicolson Sq

A Fringe institution and all-round winner, the Mosque Kitchen serves up delicious curry all day long with huge plates of spicy goodness starting at just a few quid. If you haven’t been yet, go now.

Mother India’s Cafe

3-5 Infirmary St @Official_MIndia

At Mother India, the tapas-style menu means that the breadth and variety of your dinner is limited only by your ability to share with friends. And they’re your friends, so if you ‘accidentally’ elbow them out of the way for the prawns they’ll understand.

National Museum of Scotland

Chambers St @NtlMuseumsScot

One of the UK’s top museums, the NMS has a plethora of fascinating galleries holding items from across the ages, and is also home to the first cloned mammal: a stuffed Dolly the Sheep. Entry is free. For lovers of nice views (and delicious food at the acclaimed Tower restaurant), head to the seventh floor roof terrace for a look across the city. The food isn’t free.

National Portrait Gallery

Queen St @NatGalleriesSco

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery (also free entry) aims to provide “a unique visual history of Scotland, told through the portraits of those who shaped it”. Two floors of exhibition space, a gift shop and cafe await inside.

The Nile Valley Cafe

6 Chapel St

The falafel; oh man, the falafel. This unpretentious Sudanese cafe would be our number one choice for an ad-hoc Fringe lunch. Pick up their Africa wrap (falafel, feta cheese, broad beans, hummus and spicy peanut sauce) and all your comedy hang-ups will disappear in a cloud of chickpea-based positivity.

Panda and Sons

79 Queen St @pandaandsons

Just down the street from the Book Festival at Charlotte Square you’ll find a barber shop purportedly run by a large bear. Spoiler alert: this is a front for one of the city’s most interesting cocktail bars. If you need somewhere to hide out mid-Fringe, this is a good place to start.

Paradise Palms

41 Lothian St @edinburghpalms

A genuine lynchpin for Edinburgh’s creative community, Palms has a bit of everything. It’s a performance space, a record shop (and record label), a veggie diner and a hugely fun dive bar. Go at least once this Fringe, you won’t regret it.

The Pleasance Dome

1 Bristo Square @ThePleasance

Year round, this is one of Edinburgh University Student Union’s venues. Come August time it’s not only a major festival venue, but also the site of some serious hanging out, coffee drinking, snack munching, morning, midday and evening boozing and star-spotting.

Ahir Shah, Duffer

Laughing Horse @ Cabaret Voltaire, 2-26 Aug, 2:15pm

A bowl of udon noodle soup at Red Box on West Nicholson Street is consistently delicious, speedy, wonderfully (if initially unbearably) hot, and makes everything feel a bit better. I cannot recommend them highly enough, but because I’m under the word count I’ll try: it’s real tasty you guys.

Tips from the tops

Natasha Hodgson, Kill the Beast

Pleasance Courtyard, 21-27 Aug, 6:30pm

We go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to eat chicken at Wings. We also go to perform our shows, but honestly, the chicken is better. They blast out the hits (by which we mean exclusively ‘Jessie’s Girl’ by Rick Springfield) and there are so many amazing sauces that you’ll be overwhelmed to the point of furious.

Salt Horse

57-61 Blackfriars Street @salthorsebar

Salt Horse features what may be one of the most comprehensive beer selections in the capital. A brilliantly eclectic and impressively dense range that will literally take you the whole month to work through. They also have one of the city’s most charming beer gardens, but we’ll leave it at that, as it’s the kind of thing you want to keep to yourself.

Sneaky Pete’s

73 Cowgate @sneakypetesclub

It’ll make your Fringe flat seem like a palace, but what Sneaky’s lacks in area it makes up for with energy. A huge range of weekly and monthly club nights, a beautifully clear sound system, and an ever-present crowd of the city’s most discerning and nicest clubbers make Sneaky’s a great shout every night of the week.

Summerhall

1 Summerhall @summerhallery

A venue the size of a former Veterinary school takes a lot to fill it. Thankfully Summerhall has the right idea, packing the place with lots of little goings-on. In addition to a vast Fringe programme of theatre, comedy and live music, there are exhibition spaces, two cafes, an onsite micro-brewery AND gin distillery, and they even have room for the Fest offices. Hiya!

Ting Thai Caravan

8 Teviot Pl

Totally affordable, incredibly tasty and more than a little exciting, Ting Thai Caravan is in many ways the perfect lunch spot. Get down early for a seat at the canteen-style benches and pore over a Thai menu with more variety and quality than you can shake a chopstick at.

Ting Thai Saboteur

19 Teviot Pl

South Asian street food with a great range of veggie options, Saboteur is right round the corner from its illustrious sibling, but doesn’t yet suffer from the mammoth queues of  Ting Thai Caravan. We say get in while you have the chance.

Traverse

10 Cambridge St @TraverseTheatre

Widely considered to be the top theatre in the UK for new writing, ‘The Trav’ is the place to go for exciting new productions by the country’s best theatrical talent. That applies equally in August. Just as importantly, it’s got a cafe and bar downstairs with absolutely no phone signal but plenty of delicious light bites and meals.

Under the Stairs

3A Merchant St @UTSedinburgh

Hidden away in the heart of town, Under the Stairs is exactly that – a comfy little bar/cafe tucked under the stairs on Merchant Street. It’s the perfect blend of shabby hipster chic and homely cosiness.

Ventoux

2 Brougham St

Inspired by the Tour de France’s favourite mountain of the same name, this Tollcross bar is a lovely local hangout that’s filled with fish tanks on the shelves, bikes hanging from the ceiling and an impressive host of German beers behind the bar.

Vittoria

113 Brunswick St, 19 George IV Bridge @VittoriaEd

One of few Edinburgh landmarks without its own postcard, Vittoria is a genuine institution. Great Italian food, decent prices and waiters who can liven up even the most stilted of evenings.

Wee Red Bar

74 Lauriston Pl

The Wee Red Bar may be located on ECA territory, but this isn’t your average student disco. A near-constant stream of grassroots gigs take up the evenings and the wide range of club nights keep things interesting until the early hours.

Whistlebinkies

4-6 South Bridge @thebinkies

If you like music with your drinks then Whistlebinkies in the centre of town is a good choice.There’s always something going on and its open until 5am, if you don’t want to head home but also don’t fancy the clubs.

Tips from the tops