YOUR FREE GUIDE TO THE EDINBURGH FESTIVAL 2011 MORE AT WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK

ThreeWeeks IN EDINBURGH

Comedy legends of a different kind: Guest Editor Richard Herring talks to Barry Cryer and Jerry Sadowitz

PLUS Pink Noise with Fork

ALSO INSIDE THE THREEWEEKS 2011 WEEK ONE/TWO ISSUE: Luke Wright, Rosie Wilby, Anthony Rapp, Paul Nathan, Joe Simmons, Lorraine Kelly, Peters Productions, Theatre Ninjas plus lots of tips for avoiding Fringe Flu, ThreeWeeks Book Festival recommendations and comedy, cabaret, theatre, musical, music and physical reviews “ STARTPOINT

threeweeks presents the king’s speech

Welcome this week’s quoted as fact. So do your bit by are two of the comedians that I sense you’d have to be a moron only referring to me as the King admire most in the world, despite to be genuinely offended. Some CONTENTS ThreeWeeks Guest of Edinburgh from now on. As if their wildly contrasting styles and shock comics seem to be bullies Editor Richard Herring that’s what everyone does and outlooks. punching downwards (when a only an idiot wouldn’t know that. If millionaire comedian mocks an 04: Festival Hello, it’s me, the King nothing else it will piss off Prince Barry has worked with all the actual 8 year old disabled boy People of Edinburgh. This is an Phillip. comedy greats for over 50 years it surely becomes just cruelty unofficial title that I have decided and clearly still loves comedy and rather than humour), but Jerry 06: Comedy to bestow on myself, partly And maybe I almost deserve it. other comedians. Many others is so low status that whoever he because I know no one else ever After all, this is my 20th Edinburgh from his generation became attacks he is punching upwards 10: Cabaret “will, but mainly because I think if Fringe. I first came up here in bitter about the kind of comedy and his material is so artfully people begin to refer to me by that 1987 with a sketch group called that came after them, but Uncle constructed that he always ends 12: Theatre & moniker (even ironically) it won’t ‘The Seven Raymonds’ (there Baz has stayed engaged and up hitting himself in the face. He be long before the name sticks. were six of us and none of us were interested and happy to pass on is, I believe, the most underrated Musicals called Raymond - genius) and have his undoubted wisdom. I aspire to comedy genius that these islands “Have you seen the King of created or co-created 32 different still be working when I am his age, have ever produced. But perhaps 16: Dance &

Edinburgh?” shows since then. Some of you are and to still love the business of the success he deserves would

here to get discovered or get on making people laugh as much as destroy the whole conceit. Physical “Who is that?” TV – good luck with that (you fools) he does. 18: Music – but you soon sort the phonies By the way have you seen my “ “Don’t you know? It’s Richard from the slightly less phony by Jerry, on stage at least, is twisted ThreeWeeks quote? Apparently 19: Survey Herring.” looking at who keeps coming here with anger and bitterness and I am “the King of Edinburgh”. I’m once opportunity has knocked. seems to hate other comedians putting that on all my posters. 20: Events “Oh right. OK, if you say so.” almost as much as he hates This is the most humble day On the face of it the two himself. He turns profanity and of my life. 20: Photo Page I’m sure this tactic is the comedians I have chosen to offence into an art form. He will explanation for the success interview in this edition of leave you gasping for breath with Richard appears in ‘What Is Love Anyway’ 22: Kids’ Shows of some of our more notable ThreeWeeks could not be more laughter and then just gasping at at Udderbelly’s Pasture from 3 - 28 Aug at 8.50pm, fpp 140. comics. They started spreading different: the avuncular, loveable the awful things he has said. You He also records a daily Edinburgh Fringe 23: Meet Team fantastical statements about Barry Cryer and the vitriolic, will certainly be offended, unless Podcast at The Stand each day at themselves, which eventually got terrifying Jerry Sadowitz. But they you are a moron, and yet in a 2.20pm. ThreeWeeks

WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK | PAGE THREE “OnlyMORE a ONLINE: fool would Look expect out for to Addy come Van away De Bourgh’sfrom an August spent in Edinburgh withFringe a goldenWord Of tan, The but Day, some every years day in the the weather eDaily really does take the piss.” ZoeSubscribe Lyons on Edinburgh’s for free: wonderul www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk/subscribe weather, one of her bad bits - www.threeweeks.co.uk/zoelyons

FRINGE PEOPLE THE CARO HELLO Is it really only Week One of also got Q&As with people the free shows app is back: theatre ninjas the Edinburgh Festival? Yes, I from some of the shows that can confirm that it is, though attracted our attention during At last year’s Edinburgh frankly, it feels like it might be preview week – namely dance/ Festival those fashionable about Week Seven. I suspect physical theatre piece ‘A World apps were everywhere you that happens for anyone Without Words’ and a capella looked, as smartphone actually working at the Fringe, extravaganza ‘Pink Noise’ by ownership became the norm. in whatever capacity. The final Fork – as well as an article week or two before it kicks off from the director of ‘The Girl But the one that stood out are a tiring rush, and the first With The Iron Claws’ all about for us was the Theatre Ninjas week feels less like the start what real fairy tales are like, and free tickets service. In fact we and more like the culmination a piece by poet Luke Wright liked it so much we gave the of something: the huge push to on the best and worst of the team behind it a ThreeWeeks be ready to go on time. festival. Editors’ Award at the end of the festival month. The Anyway, here we are, with our This week we also put some Theatre Ninjas are back again Week One/Week Two issue, questions to Broadway star bigger and better for 2011, featuring the guest-editorial Anthony Rapp, talk to musician- so we interrogated team the performers and their venue is the work they have lovingly laboured stylings of newly crowned turned-comedian Rosie a larger audience, which will in turn over to be seen by as many people as comedy-King Richard Herring. Wilby, and discuss children members Rajiv Nathwani and generate publicity through word of possible. Feedback showed that the In addition to his interviews with and magic with Paul Nathan, Caitlin Albery Beavan to find out more. mouth. Lots of Fringe companies groups that used Theatre Ninjas to fill two legends of comedy, we’ve the man behind the ‘I Hate ‘paper’ their shows early on in the up early performances both enjoyed Children Children’s Show’. festival to build audience and word of good early date audiences, and also Elsewhere, Edinburgh veteran TW: For the uninitiated, what is the mouth, but that involves handing out found those free ticket holders spoke Joe Simmons talks to his 2011 Theatre Ninjas service? tickets randomly to people near your about their production helping to chat show co-host Lorraine RN: Theatre Ninjas provides free venue. With Theatre Ninjas you are cultivate future audiences. Chase, and our team of book tickets to shows that have not reaching people keen to see shows all correspondents offer you reached their maximum capacity. over Edinburgh. Plus shows also get TW: Why ninjas? their top tips for the upcoming It allows audience members on a exposure on our site and app. RN: There was beer involved. It Edinburgh International Book budget to see a greater variety of created an identity: you bag your free Festival. work and, most importantly, to take TW: Where did the idea come from? ticket with stealth. You have to keep a risk, and see a show they would CAB: The original idea was formulated the secret codeword close to your not have otherwise picked out of by a group of friends in a pub who chest, keep it discreet and not let All this, and lots of reviews too. the programme: because they have had just seen a theatre show for free on to others in the box office queue Enjoy. little knowledge of the company, via the Arts Council’s free tickets that you’re about to get a free ticket! Caro Moses, co-Editor, ThreeWeeks or lack awareness of the venue, or programme for young people, A That’s ninja-like, right? because it’s a genre that they haven’t Night Less Ordinary. We created previously explored. The benefit for a secret Facebook group to make TW: How was the service received each other aware of other free last year? tickets available via this programme, CAB: It was unbelievable. We hadn’t and to share them out between us. expected the amount of attention From that the idea took off, why not it would receive. During the festival create an app that offered a similar we had over 3,500 downloads, 240 service to everyone? We then noticed companies register with us, and that IdeasTap had relaunched their together they advertised 10,000 Innovators Fund, which could give us a tickets with box office reports little funding – so we decided to bring suggesting an 80% take up. We hope our idea to the largest arts festival in that this year we can boost these the world and see if the public liked it figures! as much as we did! TW: Ah yes, this year. You’re TW: Why would performers want to describing the 2011 app as being give away tickets? “new and improved” – what’s CAB: As Rajiv said, comps have different? always been circulated at the RN: There’s a better interface, a filter Edinburgh Fringe because it helps to to look at just comedy, music and raise awareness of your show and theatre shows, improved functionality bring in an audience. Theatre Ninjas and a clearer website designed is just an innovative way of ‘papering’, in HTML5 with better support for which can ultimately help bring in box Blackberry and Android users. The office sales. First, because once the new app and website have more free tickets have gone, more people personality, wit and charm and will might come having heard about (hopefully!) contribute a great deal your show on our app, and then buy to the excitement in the journey of tickets. And second because, if you’ve getting hold of a free ninja ticket. We got a good show, the people who saw wanted to keep it simple to ensure it for free will then spread the word to the app and website can be used paying ticket buyers. quickly and accurately by users on the move.

RN: Edinburgh was the perfect More information about the launch pad for this service. We had Theatre Ninjas service is online at all experienced the Fringe ourselves, www.theatreninjas.co.uk as performers or directors, and knew the heartbreak of creating READ MORE a great piece of work and to then ThreeWeeks.co.uk/ have the curtains open to six people. theatreninjas Ultimately, we want people to have

PAGE FOUR | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK

COMEDY

Q&A: WHEN RICHARD MET BARRY Does Barry Cryer need geniuses that they were? comedy. How do you keep it some reaction from other an introduction? He’s BC: They have one thing in fresh after all these years? comedians… they know who a familiar face from TV, common: They have nothing in BC: I have no knowledge of my they are and I know where they common. limitations. live. Nuff said. a familiar voice from the radio, and he’s written RH: You are possibly the only RH: You always come RH: According to Wikipedia comedy for most of the act on this year’s Fringe to across as a calm and polite you played the waiter serving big comedy names of have had a number one hit gentleman and no one bitches the wine in the original Four the last half century record in Finland. How did that about you behind your back Yorkshiremen sketch on ‘At come about? (which is unusual for a Last The 1948 Show’. Did you (and more) as far as we BC: Sheb Woolley, country comedian). But there must have a hand in the writing of can tell: Morecambe singer and actor – he was one be a dark side to you. Come this all-time classic sketch? and Wise, The Two of the baddies who was going to on, what’s the nastiest thing And if so can you remember Ronnies, Richard Pryor, kill Gary Cooper in ‘High Noon’ you’ve ever done? your contribution? Les Dawson and Tommy – had a big hit with the ‘Purple BC: I once trashed a hotel room BC: No, I had no hand in the Cooper, to name but a People Eater’ in 1958. For by throwing a crumpled tissue writing of the sketch, but I some reason, his version was on the floor. Please don’t open believe an older Oscar Wilde few. He’s a legend in the not released in Scandinavia, these old wounds. was involved. comedy business. It’s so they pushed out my English therefore no surprise cover version. I then got a RH: You’ve seemed to be RH: I am a few years younger that this week’s Guest phone call: “You’re number 1 in happy in your career working than you and yet still find Editor Richard Herring, Finland”. I stayed there for three behind the scenes as much as performing at the Fringe weeks – I believe they gave in front, writing gags for other enormously draining. Do you wanted to put a few away a car with each record. people did you ever envy them have any tips to surviving this questions to him. their fame and riches or is the stressful occasion for the less RH: One of the things I real trick of this job to be able youthful comedian? RH: Hello Baz, thanks for most admire about you (and to constantly work? BC: (1) Sleep. (2) Sleep. (3) Get agreeing to answer my there are many) is that you BC: There was no envy – if Up (4) Sleep questions. Over the last half still seem to love comedy you were writing for Eric a century you have worked after all these years, and Morecombe how on earth could Barry Cryer’s show is on at the with seemingly all the greats are interested in the new you do it better? Gilded Balloon Teviot from 5 - 18 of comedy from Stanley generation of comics rather Aug at 6.45pm (7.45pm), fpp43. Baxter to Richard Pryor – is than complaining that they’re RH: You were great mates there any one attribute that all rubbish these days. Many with Michael Mcintyre’s dad – READ MORE unites this disparate group comics get bitter about what do you make of Michael’s ThreeWeeks.co.uk/ of people? Can you home their lot and annoyed by the breathtaking rise to fame? barrycryer in on what makes them the formulas and mechanics of BC: He seems to have provoked

COMEDY REVIEWS

Golden Showers Of Love be doing it from mutual pity rather than Nick Sun And Dick Moon Deep Star Space genuine amusement. They claim that it’s a Mining And Exploration Corps Ltd family friendly comedy show, yet even your Nick Sun’s show is failing miserably when children won’t laugh. Would I see ‘Huggers’ a miraculous party of Spanish school again? Frankly I’d rather jam a pool cue up children drag his stand up show from my urethra. dreadful to merely not very good. Sun’s City Cafe, 4 - 28 Aug, 1.45pm (2.45pm), free, prepared material is woefully unfunny; he fpp89. tw rating 1/5 [cd] frequently confuses swearing with humour, he gets lost regularly and his punchlines go John Scott: Totally Made Up – missing. Even when gags do turn up they Totally Free are only mildly amusing and his gimmick - a Lee Martin for Gag Reflex Management reverb pedal - should burn in a fire. Yet, when the Spanish kids arrive he goes off- Multi award-winning comedian John Scott piste, and we get a glimpse of a genuinely has a lot to be made up about: certainly funny man. Interacting with the audience, he knows how to extract laughs from a he displays a sharp wit and good timing. small crowd, conjuring up gags on the spot Sun shows potential, he just needs to ditch while admitting, “I dunno where that came all his jokes. And that damn pedal. from”. And it is refreshing to know that this genuinely gifted comic is performing The City Cafe, 4 - 28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 8.00pm (9.00pm), free. tw rating 2/5 [ab] for the love of doing it, as opposed to reward. From American tourist-spotting to Scottish Tourette’s, Scott’s well-polished Huggers – Free Festival Family and wide-ranging routine gets the audience Fun Nik Coppin and Mike Belgrave chuckling. That said, there is nothing especially unique about his material: the ‘Huggers’ perform free at the City Cafe on all-too-familiar topics of class-division and Blair Street, and in that sentence lies the social-stereotyping pop up again and again. only glimmer of a compliment I will give You are guaranteed a laugh if you go this show. Smacking of desperation and along, but do not expect anything ground- making themselves thoroughly unlikeable, breaking. the two emcees who stumble through the introduction and middle of each act Laughing Horse @ The Beehive Inn, 4 – 28 Aug are somehow even less funny than Ant (not 7, 15, 22), 17.00 (18.00), Free, fpp101. tw rating 3/5 [fm] & Dec. Spending more time indulging themselves than the audience, their style is heavy on patter but low on laughs. The Just Havin’ A Fiddle Shetland Fiddlers only real laughs at ‘Huggers’ are between Shetland Fiddlers are not from Shetland. the comedians themselves, who seem to Nor are they fiddlers. They are in fact a

PAGE SIX | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK Eat well. It’s too easy to forget, ignore or suppress with alcohol your hunger but the Fringe is an ultra-marathon of performance and you need to look after yourself” Fringe Society trustee Alister O’Loughlin offers tips for Fringe performers - www.threeweeks.co.uk/alisteroloughlin

rather poor sketch comedy troupe from the south of England. The performances INTERVIEW are energetic enough, but the writing is weak, particularly during the momentum sapping video clips, purportedly broadcast live from the dressing room between rosie wilby: the accidental comedian sketches. They would be wise to ditch these, not least because they allow bored audience members a convenient Rosie Wilby has become a might hope if she’s turning it into a window to sneak out. They have their bit of a ThreeWeeks favourite comedy show. For starters, her house occasional moments though, and do a burned down two days before her big good gag in groan-inducing puns, but it’s in recent years, charming album launch at Camden’s Monarch. no coincidence that their best received our reviewers with her sketch features a Mastermind contestant “The soot stained CD I rescued from whose specialist subject is bad taste shows ‘I Am Nesia’ and ‘The my semi melted player was the first jokes – none of which were written by the Science Of Sex’. Elbow album” she recalls, going on to Fiddlers themselves. note more logistical problems that

Laughing Horse @ The Three Sisters, 4 - 28 Aug What our writers may not have stemmed from the fire: “I took to (not 15, 16), 3.45pm (4.45pm), free, fpp103. tw known (although they probably did, the stage wearing an assortment of rating 2/5 [im] they all being very well informed and borrowed clothes from friends. One very good at research) is that Wilby friend donated her Brownie Uniform! Just The Tonic’s did not begin her career in comedy, Maybe because I’m small she thought Afternoon Delight but in music, starting out as a singer I could get away with wearing that”. Just The Tonic during those heady Britpop days of It’s certainly rich comic material, Down in the dark caves of Just The Tonic the 1990s. It was a period that saw but comedy itself seems so different waits ‘Afternoon Delight’, a showcase her playing at Glastonbury, and at to music unless your songs are of five acts from around the Fringe who the legendary Ronnie Scott’s venue comedic, which in this case they attempt to entertain and attract you to in London, appearing alongside the clearly weren’t. So how did Wilby end their full shows at the festival. ‘Afternoon likes of Jamie Cullum and Bob Geldof, up doing comedy instead of music? “It Delight’ is not a particularly bad example as well as writing about music on the really WAS an accident”, she explains. of the form – acts like ‘WitTank’ and ‘Piff side. “I unintentionally started telling funny The Magic Dragon’ stand out from the pack, one a threesome of sketchsters, It’s those experiences that form the stories and anecdotes between my the other a wonderfully grumpy magic basis of Rosie’s new Fringe show. “It’s songs once my band had all left me dragon. However, the show is let down the first time I’ve ever combined my and I’d gone solo. I felt that without by an indifferent and uncharismatic music and my comedy in one show”, the oomph of a band I needed to add compere who begins the show hungover she explains. “I’d always assumed something extra to my performance”. and muddling around on stage, leaving the that, as my songs were a bit serious And the links between the songs, it audience cold for the first act. Considering and wistful, they were a completely seems, started to take over. many shows that do this better are on at separate thing that should be put Rosie Wilby’s show Rosie’s Pop Diary is on the Free Fringe, the ticket price doesn’t to one side once my comedy took feel justified. at Just the Tonic at The Tron from 3 - 29 off. But then, last year I dug out an Aug (not 15, 16) at 6.20pm (7.20pm), Just the Tonic At The Caves, 4 - 28 Aug (not 17), old cuttings folder during a clearout fpp144. 13.00pm (2.15pm), £5.00, fpp103. tw rating 2/5 [jfb] and found copies of my ‘Rosie’s Pop Diary’ column, which ran from 1996 READ MORE Kerry Godliman – Wonder to 2000 in Making Music magazine ThreeWeeks.co.uk/rosiewilby Woman and detailed my experiences trying Bound And Gagged Comedy to make it in the music business. I realised that there was a funny and Modern women have to be superheroes charming story there that the songs with mile-a-minute minds and manic multi-tasking skills – or so runs the cliché. were a part of. And in context it Godliman plays on this, flying from the seems to work really well”. start with a routine which flings more As with many musicians, Wilby’s words and tangential sideswipes than journey through music began when the audience can safely handle. But she was very young. “I wrote songs she eventually exhausts even herself from age eleven on a tiny synthesiser”, and realises she shares little with her she recalls, “and did my first gig in hero in the blue hot pants. Lines like “I my parents’ Lancashire front garden wear so much make-up it’s like a burqa” with the kids from next door roped in cleverly begin to let the mask slip and, as as backing vocalists. One of my hits of she slides into confessional mode, she remains just as entertaining yet more the time was entitled ‘School Is Out’. humane, and easier to relate to. Kerry It sounded not dissimilar to the Tears surmises that she’s no superhero, but at For Fears track ‘Shout’. It was my least she’s happy and trying. It’s funny, not dream to get down to London and play hilarious, but a charming way to spend an music in a band”. hour. It was a dream that she ultimately Pleasance Courtyard, 3 - 28 August (not 17), realised. After finishing college, Rosie 6.00pm (7.00pm), £9.50 - £12.00, fpp104. tw headed for the capital to study film, rating 3/5 [jh] and began responding to ‘singer wanted’ ads in the fondly remembered but now long defunct music weekly that was Melody Maker. But it wasn’t TW RATINGS long before she was making her own music. “I finally mustered up the confidence to write my own songs 1/5 Bad and get my own band together”, she explains, “and we released an album 2/5 Mediocre and toured under the name Wilby. At the same time I blagged my way into 3/5 Good music journalism, firstly writing for local newspapers in North London, 4/5 Very Good and then Time Out, and then NME and others”. 5/5 Brilliant But not everything went swimmingly for Rosie’s music career, as you

WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK | PAGE SEVEN COMEDY n CAMPAIGN COMEDY REVIEWS Amnesty International earlier this Lewis Schaffer Is Free Until script. At this point he rebels, forcing Moz week announced its Edinburgh Famous In A Smaller Room At into a metaphysical conflict with his own Festival campaign for 2011, which An Earlier Time words. The exceptionally clever writing will focus on the fate of five men is counter-balanced by enjoyably puerile Lewis Schaffer in the United Arab Emirates – the humour, which consistently amuses UAE 5 – who have been jailed Clearly experienced and armed with a without quite hitting the heights of hilarity. over charges of “insulting officials” backlog of jokes, Schaffer instead opts Very enjoyable, and you have to admire the for off-colour conversation with the after they criticised the country’s amount of work which has clearly gone audience. Finding yourself in a one-on- government and called for into it. one conversation with the comedian at a democracy, mainly online. Laughing Horse @ Espionage, 4 - 20 Aug, 2.15pm standup gig is awkward; Schaffer knows (3.15pm), free, fpp151. tw rating 4/5 [im] this and capitalises on it. Climbing over Amnesty supporters are chairs in the small dark room at the top encouraging Fringe-goers to text of The Counting House to get closer to his SomeNews - The Free Topical the word FREEDOM and their victim, he locks you with an intense stare News Show name to the number 81222 to and dares you to break as he talks to you Steve N Allen add themselves to a petition for the next few minutes. While not laugh- that will be handed to the UAE out-loud funny, it is an entertaining 45 Nestled in the basement of a New Town pub is this little gem of a comedy news embassy in London ahead of the minutes that is over in a flash. That is not show hosted by the charmingly affable five men’s trial in September. to say it should be any longer. Steve N. Allen, who bounds on-stage, 5/5 SHOW: Margaret Cho – Cho Dependent Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 4 - 28 determined to make the best of a small, Aug, 4.45pm (5.45pm), free, fpp109. tw rating Announcing this year’s Fringe- Bound And Gagged Comedy slightly rain-sodden crowd. He opens with focused campaign, Amnesty 3/5 [jfb] Women talking crudely about sex. We are often threatened by it as some chat before launching into riffs and International Scotland Director rants on hot topic news stories, a couple John Watson told ThreeWeeks: entertainment. So, too often we get some pathetic ‘Sex And The City’ Shmozle of fun musical interludes and a handful of “The UAE 5 should be released Samantha-type saying something mildly surprising about a penis. Not Workshed Productions / Laughing Horse Free varying-in-quality impressions. His patter Fringe immediately and unconditionally. Margaret Cho. Her outrageous routine focuses mainly on her desire with individual audience members is witty Their case is typical of the How can you be a double act if you’re and well-honed, instantly allaying the small thousands of people in other to continue having sex into old age, if only so she can remove her false only one man? Simple. Create a partner audience syndrome. Allen hits the mark countries across the Middle East teeth to fit two cocks in her mouth. A statement that effectively induces by pre-recording your own voice and more often than not, with an effusive mix and North Africa – from Egypt to uproarious laughter from the audience, along with a hand-to-the-face perform sketches opposite yourself. of biting satire and gleeful mud-slinging That’s what Moz does in this highly original that recalls Russell Howard by way of Ian Syria, Libya to Bahrain – whose sharp-intake-of-breath: “Oh God, she actually just said that”. I laughed so right to freedom of expression has show. Unfortunately, things go awry Hislop. More than worth a look. hard a little bit of pee came out. Go see Margaret Cho, but do not, for been denied”. when Shmozle, his eponymous comedic Laughing Horse @ The Newsroom, 5 - 28 Aug, God’s sake, take your Granny. partner, suffers an existential crisis upon 5.15pm (6.15pm), free, fpp153. tw rating 4/5 [rss] realising he is in fact just a voiceover He continued: “In other countries Assembly George Square, 3 - 29 Aug (not 10, 17), 9.00pm (10.00pm), £13.00 - £16.00, fpp113. tw rating with his every word predetermined by a in the Middle East people have 5/5 [sm] been jailed and tortured just for speaking out; or beaten and shot at just for protesting peacefully in the streets. Here in Edinburgh we best bits, bad bits: LUKE WRIGHT can use our freedom of speech to help free the UAE 5. Just by sending a text, people can join Aisle16 co-founder and how we cull our stupider males. THE BAD BITS: challenge of making a piece our petition to demand their Poet In Residence on However, in Edinburgh, and of theatre work night after night certainly by Week Three, I get in a less than ideal space for release, which we’ll deliver to the Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Live’, The Weather: The stinking, UAE’s London embassy. We’re taxis everywhere. I’m chalking that piece of theatre. I love bastard weather. It never used hoping that thousands of people Luke Wright on the best, this up as a PRO point because, the excitement of being in a to rain this much, did it? Did it? will join us and speak up on their and worst, of his Edinburgh even though my reluctance new place, I love the sense of Really? Well, maybe I just notice behalf”. to walk even a few hundred adventure. But I’m married. I’m Fringe experiences. it more now I have to wear metres these days is probably a a dad to a very young boy who a suit to my gigs. One of my As well as taking to the streets sign of dark mental malaise, it’s misses me when I go to put the THE BEST BITS: strongest memories of Edinburgh of the Festival, Amnesty will rally a blessed relief in the miserable toast on. This Edinburgh is going is just feeling hot, cold and wet support for their campaign at the humid rain. And you can to be hard on us all. I hope this Arthur’s Seat: There’s a mountain all at the same time – and not annual Stand Up For Freedom pretend you’re a chauffeured will make me appreciate the in the middle of the city! I’m just while watching the Caesar gala show, which will take place star, even though Chortle said challenges and excitement of from Essex and you don’t get Twins. on 17 Aug at the EICC, featuring you were “over-rehearsed and doing the Fringe that little bit the likes of Mark Watson, Ed Byrne, that sort of thing around there. stifled”. more, but there will also be tears Russell Kane, David O’Doherty, Every year I make time to climb The Whole Review Thing: “It’s before bedtime. Holly Walsh and Roisin Conaty. Arthur’s Seat, the 251m hill in the middle of Holyrood Park. You Brooke’s Bar: I played The three stars, but it reads like a Luke’s show ‘Cynical Ballads’ is on at Under- four”. We all want reviews. We belly from 4-28 Aug (not 16) at 4.15pm. Tickets Confirming his support for the get amazing views of Edinburgh Pleasance every year from 2003 need them to sell tickets. We from edfringe.com. Amnesty project, Watson told and a real sense of escape from to 2007, then they stopped especially like it when they are Luke’s other show ThreeWeeks: “Poking fun at what can otherwise be a pretty calling. I don’t let this worry me. ‘Aisle16 R Kool’ is nice about us. Hey, we can officials and questioning the unrelenting festival. Once in a I’m not welcome at plenty of on at The Ban- authorities is a stock-in-trade for all while we go at night, usually more impressive theatres than even stomach the criticisms shee Labyrinth (Steve Bennett, you were right, from 5-27 Aug comedians. We’ve got to stand after a few rounds of Tennent’s, that. However, I do still make it (not 16) at up for people’s right to peacefully and one year we even took a my mission at the beginning of we were “over-rehearsed and 10.00pm. It’s a free show. express their opinions. I hope night time dip in Dunsapie Loch the Festival to blag a pass to stifled”). But when a year or two plenty of people send a text and on our way back down. Though their performer’s bar, Brooke’s. of your life has gone into making this campaign puts some pressure my companion, Paul Foot, did Upstairs in the Dome, Brooke’s something (not to mention on the UAE authorities to let these later find a small dead fish in his seems somewhere between the decades you’ve spent guys go”. underpants, that presumably student common room and getting good at what you do), swam in there while we bathed, nursing home. They always leave you can’t help but feel a little Tickets for Stand Up To Freedom so that bit is possibly not the lights on too bright and my helpless and sad when 2011 are available from recommended. ‘cooler’ friends always hated it it’s judged on a scale of 1-5 www.venue150.com there. But I love it, a place where by someone who can’t string Taxis: I’m not usually a taxi man. performers can get together a sentence together. In rural Suffolk, where I live now, and drink over-priced fizzy lager, they cost about £300, so no one bitch about our reviews and Loneliness: I love what I do bothers. Besides, everyone drinks audience numbers, and get and I want to take it to a and drives in the countryside, it’s hideously pissed. bigger audience. I also love the

PAGE EIGHT | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK “I’ve always found it hard to describe my own music, but others have called it ‘avante folk’. ” Fringe favourite Nick Pynn on his musical sound - www.threeweeks.co.uk/nickpynn

Q&A: WHEN RICHARD MET JERRY In the first year of thinks of me, it does not grant Manning and Alexei Sayle without ThreeWeeks, way back in Channel Four and the BBC the having to make judgements on their 1996, both Richard Herring right to allow my comedy to be politics. syphoned, tweaked or ‘refined’ and Jerry Sadowitz graced through others. Most comics are RH: At that gig I also felt that the our cover. Fifteen years on, HAPPY to compromise because extent with which you live your the former uses his stint as they have so little to begin with. For comedy and your determination to ThreeWeeks Guest Editor most of them, every day and every say whatever you like, regardless to ask the latter some offer is a bonus… but I’m certainly how unpalatable, sets you far not jealous of them or their ‘acts’. above almost any comedian I questions I am envious of their income and can think of. You made all other their regular workload. Work is comedians seem like phonies RH: In the 1980s you started especially important… sets you free, (and I include myself in that), I out doing magic in pubs. Were apparently. have never seen someone put so you always telling jokes as well, much on the line for their comedy. and was your style immediately RH: Many comedians have clearly When you have a supersoaker vitriolic and in your face, or was been influenced by you. Who were supposedly full of urine it is totally that something that you worked your comedic influences and are believable that that might actually towards gradually? there any comedians working now be the case. Is there anywhere you JS: Magic and comedy are very who you actually like? wouldn’t go for comedy – I don’t separate to me. I love close up JS: I rarely go to see comedians. mean subject matter, because magic, which I cannot do in the I’m embarrassed to associate clearly everything is fair game to show without a screen, projector, myself with an industry overrun you – but is there some part of etc. But I used to do busking for a with corporate whores, chancers you that you keep protected and bit of money and the comedy came and children. It’s crazy that most secret? out while I was performing. Then, comedy commissioning editors JS: It’s easy to do what I do when as now, it was very bitter, because now are FEMALE!! How are they you have nothing to lose. I fail to I didn’t like ‘prostituting’ the magic. ever going to know what’s funny?? understand how I’ve even got this People have a romantic notion that My influences were Python, Derek far and why. But I do believe in buskers love what they do. Maybe and Clive and Alexei Sayle, in that the art of comedy, and that there some do, but I didn’t... I needed the order. The first gave me a love of are no boundaries, and that it is money. comedy, the second showed me the sacrosanct. I’m a coward in real life. possibilities, and the third showed But when I was in Montreal about RH: You were one of the first me that it could be done in public. to walk on stage and the comedy stand up comedians I saw live, at muse said “Open with ‘good evening the Gilded Balloon in 1987 (on RH: I enjoy it when you slag off moose fuckers’…” I had to go with a mixed bill). Alternative comedy Stewart Lee – could you do some that even though I was conscious was all being about right on and of that now please? that it might ruin the gig before it saying the right thing back then SL: I hate it when you meet started. (Which it did). If I went back and yet you went your own way someone and they turn out to to Montreal in the future, I would and did the opposite. How did the be really nice. It just clouds your absolutely open with that same line other acts respond to you at the opinion of them artistically. Stewart and expand on it as a theme, the time – did they accept you or were is a lovely guy… the problem is me. cunts. you ostracised? I can’t imagine I have an intense dislike of the over that many of them approved. privileged ruling classes controlling RH: Your friend Ian is quoted as JS: No, they didn’t accept me at everything, especially in a domain saying of you: “He seems angry all. Throughout the eighties I think I which so obviously DOES NOT and aggressive, but underneath worked in only two comedy clubs… BELONG TO THEM. Chris Addison, there’s a layer of the vulnerable The Comedy Store and The Tunnel. David Mitchell, and all the rest. I just romantic. But he’s not going to With few exceptions, they were the can’t get past it. say that because that would really only two clubs that would book me. make him vulnerable”. I think RH: When I saw you in London that this is possibly the key to RH: Your raw personal pain runs earlier this year, I felt the show why your comedy works so well. through all your comedy, do you and the character you were The onstage character can be a think a comedian really needs portraying was like something monster, but ultimately we see to have suffered physically and from Shakespeare or Beckett. his humanity and his pain and we emotionally to be good at this job? I was appalled, amused and identify with it. For most of us JS: No I don’t, and I don’t offended in equal measure – but the voice you project on stage recommend pain to anybody. if you were a character in a play is something the rest of us are Eddie Izzard and Phil Kay are two then everyone would love that trying to repress. Isn’t the truth examples of great stand ups who I stuff. Why do you think people that in real life you are a shy and can’t imagine are very unhappy. are so dismissive of comedy polite gentleman? and get upset by things which JS: I’m a truly lousy, ungrateful, RH: You profess bitterness at they wouldn’t be upset about in mistrusting, supremely fearful, the success of other comedians, theatre? failed human being and I believe but do you really crave what they JS: Theatre and character comedy ultimately that the harsh judgement have? And if so is it the money, the are both safe… audiences know to placed upon me by God, mankind, fame or the recognition that you suspend their disbelief, and that it women, the comedy industry and covet? isn’t real. Stand up is both direct the magic fraternity is probably JS: I have long reached the stage AND ‘real’… so it could be said that deserved. So you’re all off the hook. where I am not going to experience audiences should suspend their happiness or success. What I want BELIEFS in order to extrapolate the is for other people to be brought comedy without getting bogged down to my level of unhappiness, Jerry’s show ‘Comedian, Magician, down by analysing the right from Psychopath’ is on at the Assembly Hall, which is something I still think is the wrong, the real from the irony. from 6 - 14 Aug at 9.00pm (10.00pm), achieveable. Whatever anyone That’s why I can enjoy Bernard fpp97

WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK | PAGE NINE CABARET

Q&A: JOE SIMMONS AND LORRAINE CHASE One of those shows that I tended to flip the interview day. Did you have any inkling out of a gondola, and I had curly could frankly appear on its head and becoming the that it would become so big? hair, so I’d travel out on the in any section of the interviewer. It’s a good survival LC: No, not at all, it was a plane in rollers. I didn’t have any instinct. commercial, and I’d done plenty idea! programme (it’s listed of commercials before that. under comedy, today JS: Do you think you’ll be a JS: What’s your biggest fear we’re saying cabaret, sensitive interviewer? JS: What was the public for our show? sometimes it can LC: I think I probably will be, response like? LC: I met you when you be quite theatrical), yes. Because in life, if you’ve LC: Overnight everybody knew interviewed me on last had great sadness or great joy you. I wasn’t overly beautiful, year’s show. You’re a lovely Edinburgh Tonight yourself, then you can see that or overly sexy, so women interviewer. Though when I returns to the Fringe in others… so I will observe, and would come up to me and say was asked by producer Terry this year, this time with look to see something, and if I’ve “Lorraine, you could be our to come on board with you, I a second host joining had the experience, then I’ll be daughter”, or “sign this, my ole was very nervous! But in the old Joe Simmons: a certain able to work with that. man thinks your lovely”. days, when I hadn’t been in this Lorraine Chase. To get business so long, when I wasn’t JS: Which interviewer have you JS: When you did the so tarnished, I feel I sparkled both in the mood for faced and most admired? Campari advert – did they ask more. I think the best way to their daily Fringe chat LC: I loved Parkinson. I was very specifically for the cockney restore that sparkle is to try show, we asked Joe to honoured to be interviewed accent? things that are really new, do interview Lorraine for by him twice. It’s the style. LC: They auditioned about 2000 things you’ve never done before. ThreeWeeks. Laidback. In fact, Parky said models, and we were told that I think doing this show will help to me after the interview that they wanted a regional accent me get back a little, I don’t he had three hours with a because Campari was seen know, a little joie de vivre. The JS: Have you ever interviewed researcher and never touched as a drink of toffs, and they Edinburgh Festival is a joyous other people? on any of it. He wanted you to wanted to put it on the optics in thing for all ages – across the LC: No, I haven’t really done shine, and if you were shining pubs with the gins and tonics, board – 15 or 90. I feel this is it before. Though I am always that was great for him. so that’s what their remit was. a great opportunity, and I know interested in meeting new Most people think the first one I’m in good hands.

people, and I suspect I slip into JS: People will have seen you was the ‘Luton Airport’ ad, but it Edinburgh Tonight is on at Space Cabaret a kind of interviewer mode most recently on ‘Emmerdale’, wasn’t. The first one was ‘Nice from 5-27 Aug (not 15, 22) at 4.50pm. whenever I do. I’ve been a though many will still ere, innit’ – which was set in Tickets from edfringe.com guest on many chat shows remember those Campari Venice on the Grand Canal – over the years, of course – ‘Luton Airport’ adverts that and the guy said to me “have READ MORE Des O’Connor, Terry Wogan, first brought you to our TV you ever read Pygmalion?” and ThreeWeeks.co.uk/ Michael Parkinson – and each screens many, many years ago. I’d say “Pig Who?” I wore a edinburghtonight time if I found a question difficult, It was kind of the ‘viral’ of its Zandra Rhodes dress coming

CABARET REVIEWS

The Bitch Doctors a rendition of ‘Five-Hundred Miles’. Make Bitch Doctors no mistake, this show isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but if you have a sneaky suspicion If you are suffering a sprained ankle, that it might be, you’re in for a night of broken heart, or even symptoms of Festival outrageous fun. fatigue, the Bitch Doctors are worth a visit. In an interactive show of this kind, a Meadows Theatre Big Top, 5 – 27 Aug (not 8, lively audience - as present in this case - 9), times vary, £15.00 - £20.00, fpp11. tw rating 4/5 [fm] proves a necessity, as they are required to share their ailments, and are rewarded by the doctor’s ‘bitchy’ advice in the form More Jewish Chronicles of banter and song. Despite the title, Daniel Cainer however, our hosts did not prove as ‘bitchy’ as expected: they were mostly laughing Those who are unfamiliar with Jewish with the audience rather than at them. ways of life will adore this moving portrayal Though the humour in the music routines offered by Daniel Cainer. More than just can be somewhat repetitive at times, the a history class, ‘More Jewish Chronicles’ hosts give a notable performance and is nothing short of artistic brilliance; the provide an overall entertaining way to effortless integration of song-writing with spend the hour. that of charming story-telling invites the audience to a night of light-hearted genius. The Voodoo Rooms, 3 – 28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), From the start, Cainer’s jovial persona 5.30pm (6.30pm), £10.00, fpp8. tw rating 3/5 [ma] welcomes you, his accompaniment providing rhythmic tones for comical tales The Lady Boys of Bangkok – Fur of Jewish culture. It’s fast-paced, incredibly Coats and French Knickers Tour amusing, and even a little bit naughty; Lady Boys of Bangkok you cannot fail to become immersed in every lyric. The sound of the audience’s Firmly established Festival favourites the disappointment at the signalling of the Lady Boys once again sashay sparkling closing song truly demonstrates its across the stage. From hypnotically nimble impact. This show oozes a feel-good factor, choreography to campness manifest in its and will leave you wanting more. most extreme form by ‘Tuck That’, prepare to be dazzled by the Bangkok beauties. C aquila, 4-29 Aug (not 8, 9), £7.50- £10.50, ffp12. tw rating 4/5. [mj] Although poor lip-syncing detracts from their mystique, all is forgiven when an ogre-like Marylin Monroe clambers from Get ThreeWeeks cabaret the curtains. However much you try and reviews in your inbox fight it, you simply won’t be able to resist jumping to your feet and clapping along to with the eDaily

PAGE TEN | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK

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Q&A: ANTHONY RAPP Anthony Rapp is your genuine hooked, and started doing community most famous live performance festival, ‘Broadway type’, having risen to theatre around my home town, outside but there is nothing at all as special as fame as the star of the original of Chicago, for a couple of years. At theatre to me. I love being an audience one point, a director recommended member of quality films and television run of ‘Rent’, and reprised the to my mom that I start auditioning for programmes, but even when filming is role in the 2005 film version professional work in Chicago, and my fun, it’s never as fulfilling as the best and a subsequent stage extremely supportive mother made theatre experiences are. The only con tour. His film credits include that possible, and I started getting I can think of regarding doing a run of ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and ‘Six work. I was extraordinarily fortunate a show on stage is that it can be a bit in so many ways that I appreciate now of a grind physically and emotionally, Degrees Of Separation’, he’s even more than I did as a kid. So many depending on the show. But I also been on ‘Law & Order: Special kids in showbiz are thrust into it kicking welcome that challenge, and love Victims Unit’, and played Charlie and screaming, or have controlling and the opportunity to tell the story from Brown in another Broadway obsessive parents who suck all of the joy start to finish, with heart and soul and production, the 1999 revival out of everything. My mom was nothing commitment, every performance. of ‘You’re A Good Man Charlie but supportive. TW: You have also written a book, a Brown’. What is this big name TW: Do you think you might have memoir. Was that an enjoyable thing doing in Edinburgh? Appearing chosen an alternate career, had you to do? in ‘3D Hamlet’ at theSpaces on not met with success at an early age? AR: I can’t say it was always enjoyable. the Mile, that’s what. AR: It’s beyond impossible for me to It was daunting, exhausting, emotionally think of that after the fact, because draining, and lonely. But I am very TW: You began your career when everything worked out the way that it did. proud of the end result, blown away by you were very young – how did it all But I suppose I probably always would the wonderful response the book has happen, and how did you end up on have been drawn to some sort of artistic received, and gratified that many people Broadway? pursuit. Or I would have been drawn to are finding comfort and resonance in its AR: I was the youngest of three kids, work with animals in some capacity. story. and my mom was a single mother nurse, who above all else was fiercely TW: You’ve appeared on stage, on film TW: What made you decide to do a committed that we all grow up as happy and on television during your career. show in Edinburgh? and active as possible. One summer Do you have a favourite, or do they all AR: I was invited to be a part of when I was six, she was a nurse at a have their pros and cons? If you really 3D Hamlet by Sam and Nicola, the summer camp, and we kids joined her. had to choose one element, which Fundamental Theatre Project’s artistic It was there that I auditioned for and would it be? team, and jumped at the chance. The was cast in my first show: I played the AR: I don’t say this only because I’m timing was perfect, and the opportunity Cowardly Lion in ‘The Wizard of Oz’. I was currently participating in the world’s to try my hand at one of the greatest

THEATRE REVIEWS

Lullabies of Broadmoor - such inner conflict. A fine and sarcastic play Wilderness full of thought-provoking contradiction, it is as soul-breakingly bitter as it is heart-breakingly Stepping Out Theatre and Chrysalis Theatre humorous. Part of a quartet of closely linked plays, ‘Wilderness’ tells the true story of Dr William C aquila, 4 - 29 Aug (not 15), 6.50pm (8.05pm), £7.50 - £10.50, fpp306. tw rating 4/5 [vk] Chester Minor, a brilliant but troubled man incarcerated in Broadmoor for murdering an innocent man during a paranoid Kaddish For Pinter delusion. Stepping Out Theatre produces Studio Earth, Scotland work exclusively dealing with mental health issues, and their experience shows, as Despite a strong cast and a script from Minor’s condition is authentically realised. It respected writer David Ian Neville, this flawed is examined through his relationships with tribute never comes together. Drawing heavily his guard and victim’s widow, both in reality on ‘One For The Road’, the play reveals how and within the confines of Minor’s mind. Also the captors are as much in the dark as the shown is his relationship with his victim’s captive. The three performers are assured ghost. It’s compelling stuff, performed by a and playful in their roles, determinedly drawing strong cast. Genuinely moving one moment out what emotion and humour they can, and darkly funny the next, this is a great way while brief interactions with the audience to round off your Festival day. add a sharp and appropriately isolating edge. However, it sets aside Pinter’s sparse style C, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 24, 26, 27 Aug, times in favour of dense language, hairpin power vary, £6.50 - £10.50, fpp278. tw rating 4/5 [im] shifts, and an uncompromising refusal to give anything away, leaving the audience with little The Trials Of Galileo to cling to. Ultimately bewildering, it leaves you wondering if it’s come to bury Pinter, not Hint Of Lime Productions praise him.

“You could have heard a mouse fart”. Galileo Spotlites @ The Merchant’s Hall, 4 - 28 Aug (not 10, Galilei, wonderfully outlined by Tim Hardy in 22), 5.45 pm (6.45 pm), £10.00 - £12.00, fpp273. tw this one-man show, lets the audience look rating 2/5 [df] into his heart when he takes them on a most personal discourse of his famous trials. Deeply Catholic, Galileo has indubitable proof that the Sun is the central point of our universe; Catholic dogma, on the other hand, states Get lots of ThreeWeeks theatre that Earth is the centre of God’s creation. reviews direct to your inbox So how do you live with knowledge? Do you with the eDaily choose truth or life? With a delicious dollop of sarcasm and wit, Hardy attempts to describe

PAGE TWELVE | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK THEATRE

MUSICAL REVIEWS Q&A: ANTHONY RAPP The Improvised Musical show’s success is dubious, but his emotion nonsensical rhymes. The choreography is No Shoes Theatre and passion will certainly not be lost in disastrous – clumsy, poorly executed and translation. not befitting the small space or small- A pianist, a drummer, a lighting director most famous live performance festival, roles ever written looked like a once in a scale production. The performers do their and six actors – this is the perfect C Aquila, 4-29 Aug, 4.10pm (5.10pm), £7.50 - but there is nothing at all as special as lifetime occurrence. best with the piece and there is some equation for an on-the-spot, improvised £10.50, fpp234. tw rating 3/5 [ck] outstanding singing from the two male theatre to me. I love being an audience musical. Here, the viewers run the show, characters. Ultimately, however, to borrow member of quality films and television TW: Is it the first time you have been from the where, when and what; it’s a Shhh... a phrase from Lord Sugar – ‘Apply Within’, programmes, but even when filming is to the Edinburgh Fringe? What do concept which essentially puts human Right Here Productions “You’re fired!” fun, it’s never as fulfilling as the best expect from it? ingenuity and wit to the test, and it turns theatre experiences are. The only con AR: I came to the Fringe a few years out to be a natural crowd-pleaser with The debut rom-com musical from Alison Pleasance Courtyard, 6 - 28 Aug, 1.30pm I can think of regarding doing a run of ago when my brother, Adam, directed excellent rapport between the cast and Telfer and Dan Greavey is an entertaining (2.30pm), £7.50 - £9.50, fpp224. tw rating 2/5 [am] a show on stage is that it can be a bit his play ‘Finer Noble Gases’ here. They audience. For those who cannot tolerate venture into the lives of ordinary people, of a grind physically and emotionally, were extremely well received, and I had a musical without a solid storyline – avoid. complete with laughter, tears and a little Spring Awakening something in between. With a tasteful depending on the show. But I also a blast for the few days I was in town. I For all others looking for a bit of fun, you Gordonstoun School score orchestrated by Sam Shearer, can go for it again and again and not be Be reminded that talent has no age welcome that challenge, and love thought the city was gloriously beautiful, showcasing a variety of numbers from bored, simply because it will be radically limit, as this cast of 18 teenagers come the opportunity to tell the story from I loved the energy everywhere, and I left the soulful to the uplifting, this is a no different every single time. As last minute together to perform in this musical start to finish, with heart and soul and terrifically inspired. I’m hoping that this frills musical that can be enjoyed by all. as this musical may get, do not wait till the rendering of controversial play, ‘Spring commitment, every performance. year’s experiences will top all of that. With strong performances from the last minute to book your tickets. Awakening’. Set in the context of 19th cast - most notably Joe Whiteman as the C, 3 - 29 Aug (not 16), 6pm (7pm), £5.50 - £11.50, century German society, it revolves around quintessential gay best friend and Lisa TW: You have also written a book, a TW: Tell us something about the show, fpp226. tw rating 4/5 [cm] the all too familiar woes of growing up – Leonard as the young love interest - this memoir. Was that an enjoyable thing and the character you play. from questioning morality and approaching is an impressive first production from the to do? AR: It’s a muscular, passionate, resonant sexuality to challenging conformity. With an young company. Its only let down is the sub- AR: I can’t say it was always enjoyable. 65-minute adaptation of one of the most incredible blend of rock music and singing, Toulouse-Lautrec: The Musical plot involving an abusive step-father which It was daunting, exhausting, emotionally famous plays ever written - Hamlet - that this show is every bit as electrifying as it Sawaki Productions (Japan) is not explored in enough detail to make it draining, and lonely. But I am very demonstrates its enduring power and claims to be. Despite a few slow moments Flamboyant and turbulent, the life of a worthwhile addition to the show. proud of the end result, blown away by relevance all these hundreds of years towards the end of the production, the artist Toulouse-Lautrec is anything but TheSpace @ Venue45, 5 - 13 Aug (not 7), 20.10 cast successfully make a swift comeback the wonderful response the book has after it was written. I have the great boring. Brought to the Fringe this year (21.25), £6.00- £7.00, fpp233. tw rating 3/5 [aq] received, and gratified that many people good fortune of being given the chance with a climactic finale. Above all, this is a with enthusiasm and gusto, this one-man truly enjoyable performance by a group are finding comfort and resonance in its to do my best to bring to life the Dane musical by Japanese company Sawaki Apply Within of promising young adults, who genuinely story. himself, which is an actor’s dream. Every Productions seems an unusual medium enjoy performing. time I get to live inside of Shakespeare’s to portray the life of this French artist. Yet Modus Operandi Theatre Jun Sawaki’s charisma and personality In this period of economic discontent, you’d C, 5 - 13 Aug, 1.30pm (2.50pm), £5.50 - £10.50, TW: What made you decide to do a language I discover new colours, depths, fpp234. tw rating 4/5 [cm] show in Edinburgh? and ideas, and I only hope my version transcend the language barrier, and his think a topical musical dealing with the AR: I was invited to be a part of does at least a little justice to the Bard’s animated acting creates a convincing road to employment would be a winner. Get ThreeWeeks Sadly, you’d be wrong. This musical has the 3D Hamlet by Sam and Nicola, the intentions. performance. However, this piece of musical theatre often feels more like a potential for witty social commentary, but musical reviews Fundamental Theatre Project’s artistic disjointed recital than a musical in itself songs about CVs and the nervous habits team, and jumped at the chance. The Anthony is appearing in ‘3D Hamlet: A Lost in your inbox Generation’ at theSpaces on the Mile from and lacks some of the body one can usually that can develop in an interview waiting- timing was perfect, and the opportunity 5 – 27 Aug (not 14, 28) at 8.40pm (10.00pm), expect from a musical. Without Sawaki’s room lyrically leave much to be desired, with the eDaily to try my hand at one of the greatest fpp303. competent performance and voice, this and are at times overly simple or rely on

THEATRE REVIEWS

5/5 SHOW: The Adventures Of Alvin Sputnik Underbelly Productions Tim Watts certainly lives up to expectations of presenting the highlight of the Fringe Festival this year – the Adventures of Alvin Sputnik. There is not a dull moment in this exceedingly enjoyable one-man show. The heart- broken lover, passionate environmentalist and unconventional hero – he is all of these in one. In Alvin’s quest to discover the way to the core of the earth, Watts tells the tale through an eclectic mix of puppetry, animation and mime. Not forgetting the sporadic humour and soothing tunes on a ukulele, he showcases creativity which brings theatrics to greater heights. It is simple but not uninspiring, playful but not childish. This production will be sure to delight the youngest to the oldest – highly recommended.

Underbelly, Cowgate, 4 - 28 Aug (not 16), 6pm (7pm), £9.00 - £12.50, fpp236. tw rating 5/5 [cm]

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n EIF TICKET OFFERS THEATRE REVIEWS and, erm, there are eight notes on a diatonic musical scale, and there’s message. Not for the faint-hearted but accounts from the protagonist, which leave music in the festival. certainly a rewarding experience. the audience being told how to feel instead of experiencing it. Enjoyable, nonetheless, If this new found obsession at EIF Venue 13, 5 - 27 Aug (not 15), times vary, £5.00 - largely due to the talented group of young about the number eight sounds like £8.00, fpp 263. tw rating 4/5 [am] performers. some sort of publicity ploy to promote Zoo Roxy, Aug 5 – 20, 12:45pm (1:30pm), £5.00 - The Edinburgh International Festival an eight pound ticket promotion, then Black Slap you’d be right. The Festival announced £7.00, fpp249. tw rating 3/5 [ae] reckons that the number eight is its Nisus Plays In Association With Fringe Manage- lucky number this year. this morning that a number of tickets ment And The Landor Theatre The theme running throughout the for various shows in this year’s It’s 1964 and Harold Wilson has just Constantinople EIF, this year, of course, is the cultural programme will be available for just £8 won the election, ushering in an age of Theatre Beating for festival-goers under the age of 26. interchange between Asia and the West modernisation on a mildly enthusiastic Charming semi-historical absurdity from Shows included in the promotion will be and, they note, 8 is a lucky number in public. The old times are over. So what will two New Zealanders in togas. They mime, Chinese culture and was a holy number announced each day at www.eif.co.uk/8. 5/5 SHOW: Daughter Of A happen to this black and white minstrel pun and fantasise their way between The 2011 Edinburgh International in ancient Japan. Plus, they add, the Cuban Revolutionary show? At first, like all non-racists, I of pairs of characters - Constantine and his festival takes place in the eight month Festival kicks off on Saturday. course did not care. But it’s a testament to DJ slave, or an insecure horse and his CalArts Festival Theatre the Alan Bennett-esque script that I slowly masseur. Their timing is impressive, and Being the ‘Daughter Of A Cuban invested in the characters. The show’s the show spectacularly ends with They n CAN YOU SPOT THE FAKE BLURB? Revolutionary’ comes, as you might evident demise is set against plenty of Might Be Giants’ ‘Istanbul’, sharing its expect, with some emotional baggage. Not timely social themes: a black stage-hand gleeful anachronism. The non sequitur Fakefringe creator James Baster only was Marissa Chibas’ father, Raul, a helps the boys black up, an argument structure is mostly brilliant – the narrator told ThreeWeeks: “Fakefringe was major figure in the Cuban revolution, but breaks out about the merits of The Beatles is marked out from other characters only her uncle, Eduardo, was also a popular sparked by a memory I had of an against music hall traditionalism, and by his wearing a tie, made of newspaper, politician who shot himself on air as a there is prejudice against Australian and improv group I saw at the Fringe a a sign, an asp, or a sheet). The Conversion protest against government corruption. gay minstrels in the troupe. A pleasant, few years back. They picked show of Constantine (in the world’s first disco, I arrived expecting something plaintive if occasionally dragging way to spend an ‘Studio LIV’) is overlong, and Barnie titles out of a hat, all suggested by the and earnest, but instead was instantly afternoon. Duncan’s Mediterranean accent is With Festivals Edinburgh offering audience, and made up a show based won over by Chibas’ wry wit and energy. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 3 - 28 Aug (not 15), 1.00pm sometimes dodgy, but on the whole, this easy open access to show listings on the fake title”. In this fascinating multimedia-laced piece (2.45pm), £8.00 - £11.00, fpp244. tw rating 3/5 [jh] is wonderful, unpretentious postmodern data for Edinburgh’s various “The website is a playful project, of theatre, Chibas traces her compelling slapstick. summer festivals this year, one web though we will collect some useful family history and slips on different characters so convincingly that you almost Electric Circus, 5 - 29 Aug, times vary, free, developer has created a fun game data about what show blurbs work fpp251. tw rating 4/5 [gl] forget there’s only one woman standing on for Fringe-goers to play – Fakefringe. and what doesn’t, which we will share the stage. With a winning combination of with performers”. The new website shows you listings stirring subject matter and an entertaining 5/5 SHOW: Silken Veils for four Fringe shows. Three are real, You can test your own fake blurb presentation style, this show is an Ines Wurth Presents / Cal Arts one is fake. Your challenge, to spot the spotting skills by playing Fakefringe at enthralling experience. A story of war, childhood, laughter, loss made up show. fakefringe.com Venue 13, 5 - 20 Aug (not 8, 15, 16), 4.00pm – and, ultimately, love. This multi-layered (5.00pm), £5.00 - £8.00, fpp254 tw rating 5/5 [km] production explores the Iranian Revolution, powerfully relayed through a deeply personal journey of self-discovery for Elegy central character Darya. Torn between the MORE THREEWEEKS Transport / A Summerday haunting ghosts of her past and present- This play stretches out and attempts to day life, her story is told through a beautiful Look out for our Weekly Editions packed with news, tackle some fairly harrowing and poignant 5/5 SHOW: On The Bench interplay of sound, visuals, puppetry and reviews, interviews and guest columns every Tuesday issues, as performer Jamie Bradley uses Class Stage Productions live performance. Despite touching on of the festival, pick up your free copy at venues, cafes storytelling and movement to tell us of This wryly entertaining satire on the some harrowing subjects, the mood is and bars all across Edinburgh. the murder of a gay Iraqi refugee exiled lifestyles of over-paid, over-sexed and cleverly lifted at crucial points throughout, in Syria. The message, however, is lost over-exposed footballers entirely exceeds providing the audience with respite when in stylised dialogue and monotonous expectations. Inventive and thought- the material becomes dark. The lecture The Daily Edition come outs daily, so that’s seven days elucidation. As Bradley travels through provoking, the all-female casting is far from theatre venue is suitably appropriate as a week, from Friday 5 Aug, available to pick up each the story, he’s aided by occasional gimmicky, and each skilled and versatile the cast impart insight into Iranian culture evening from ten central Edinburgh locations with all echoing sound effects from lone trucks to performer is as adept at capturing the and literature, including eloquent poetry the very latest ThreeWeeks reviews. screeching alarms. Whilst being a noble mannerisms of swaggering sportsmen as recitals from Rumi. ‘Silken Veils’ captures attempt to escape from the predictable the bored prostitutes who service them in the true essence of the Fringe at its very war-time narratives which dominate so the backs of limousines. The punch-lines best. The eDaily will land into inboxes every day from Friday much international theatre about the come thick and fast throughout Kirsty 5 Aug, with news, interviews and all the latest reviews. Middle East and Africa, the show’s over- Eyre’s well-crafted and witty script, and a Join 25,000 other festival fans and sign up to the eDaily production and pretentious composition bittersweet ending plays on the audience’s for free a www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk/eDaily eclipse its intriguing investigation. investment in the characters. Ultimately, And ultimately, I couldn’t help but feel it is a comment on the self-destruction of A new edition of the iDaily podcast will go live every disappointed that it was merely a story and love-rat multi-millionaires who court the week day of the festival from Monday 8 Aug. Each thirty not a truer examination. paparazzi whilst expecting their smuttiest secrets to be wiped with a man-sized minute show will have the latest news, gossip and chat. Whitespace, 4 - 28 Aug (not 9, 16, 23), 8:30pm super-injunction. This show deserves big Stream or subscribe at www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk/iDaily (9:40pm), £7.00 - £10.00, fpp259. tw rating 2/5 [ajl] audiences, of football fans and feminists alike.

www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk is one of the most read C, 4 – 29 Aug (not 16), 8.30pm (9.20pm), £6.50 - Edinburgh Festival websites in the world, and will be Fragments Of Ash £9.50, fpp286. tw rating 5/5 [tfw] Notional Theatre Assembly George Square, 4-28 Aug (not 8, 16), overflowing with content throughout August. Follow us 3:40pm (4:40pm), £8.00 - £10.00, fpp297. on Twitter or Facebook for regular updates. Spine-tingling and intense, this striking tw rating 5/5 [efs] piece of new writing and moving production Chips On Shoulders will have audiences gripping their seats Penguin Pie Productions And talking of Twitter, don’t forget the ThreeWeeks from the first second. It focuses on This heartfelt and humorous production TW RATINGS Twittique service, mini-critiques of four and five star the parallel stories of two mothers’ leaves you feeling thankful to be out of high reviews at twitter.com/twittique. This is the very first experiences of war. Clêr Stephens gives a school. An overweight teenager decides place you’ll get to hear about the shows we love. stunning performance as Eleanor, whose he has had enough ridicule and takes 1/5 Bad narrative is cleverly interwoven with measures to turn his life around, despite scenes from her past. The corresponding And finally, do not forget that all ThreeWeeks previews his obese mother, who wants only to 2/5 Mediocre story of Rashida is portrayed through and reviews also appear in iFringe, the very best feed him chips. Talent oozes from these physical theatre. The dramatic staging can smartphone app at the festival. Check your app store young performers, though many of their be unsettling and the use of both live and characters are slightly too predictable. 3/5 Good of choice or go to www.ifringe.co.uk pre-recorded music is hugely effective in ‘Chips On Shoulders’ delivers more in heightening the tension at the climax of the way of physical theatre than it does 4/5 Very Good biggest festival, biggest reviewer the play. Emotionally charged throughout, dramatically, making creative use of it deals with issues such as terrorism, the most basic props. The play is overly 5/5 Brilliant war and grief, giving it a distinctly ethical narrated: it includes several third person

PAGE FOURTEEN | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK Want the very latest ThreeWeeks reviews on your smartphone? Well, you can have them, with iFringe Don’t forget all ThreeWeeks reviews appear in iFringe, the free Edinburgh Festival app – info at www.iFringe.co.uk

THEATRE REVIEWS

After The End nevertheless be applauded for confronting Dundee Rep Theatre Company both the darkness and light of childhood. How much do you owe somebody when St George’s West, 5 - 29 Aug (not 15), times vary, they save your life? Your gratitude? Your £5.00, fpp237. tw rating 3/5 [dp] love? Your life? Popular Louise is ‘saved’ by paranoid obsessive Mark. Years of Darkness unrequited love hatch into a well thought Lakeside Theatre / University of Essex / Escalator out plan, involving a conveniently stocked East To Edinburgh shelter that makes for a harrowing 75 minute power struggle. The atmosphere This intricate, fast-paced piece explores is suffocating; whilst Helen Darbyshire the nature of sacrifice and the boundary (Louise) is starved, chained up and between faith and madness, ultimately eventually raped by her kidnapper, it leaving the audience with a set becomes clear that this is sadism. unanswered questions. Tensions simmer However, Darbyshire as Louise refuses as a family gathers to celebrate Ascension to lose her integrity and remains the Day on a remote hillside, their motivations and relationships are at times ambiguous 5/5 SHOW: Pip Utton Is The stronger actor and character throughout. Hunchback Of Notre Dame This performance by ‘Dundee Rep’ does and contradictory, as exasperation fuels Dennis Kelly’s thrilling script proud, sexual desire and violence is justified as Pip Utton spiritual guidance. Potential weapons and resulting in a performance that will haunt “When you peel the skin off Paris’s back, cringingly provocative comments stack up you after you leave. ugliness is brought to the surface.” I with improbable speed. Whilst this stoking paraphrase, since I was too busy drying Pleasance Courtyard, 9, 11, 15, 18 Aug, 1.50pm of suspense feels unsubtle at times, it is (3.05pm), £5.00, fpp236. tw rating 4/5 [dg] my eyes to remember the precise words. certainly effective, and the characters’ Pip Utton’s one-man performance is myriad complexities and alienating a rare and beautiful confessional in unpredictability make any outcome seem Alma Mater which, after 200 years of oppression, possible. As a result, the dénouement Fish And Game Quasimodo is given a voice more powerful leaves a deep sense of unease, more than the bells of Notre-Dame. Esmeralda Provided with iPad and headphones, you troubling, thought provoking and lingering lies upstage, a noose curled around step into a white room and close the door than any desired catharsis. behind you. Alone, you watch a beautifully her neck, as the character viewed as composed, evocatively scored, wordless Zoo Roxy, 5 – 29 (not 15, 22), 3.30pm (4.55pm), half-human, half-beast tells us of his £8.00 - £10.00, fpp253. tw rating 4/5 [tfw] short film shot mostly in the room in which suffering at the hands of a seemingly you stand. As you see the empty room perfect people. Utton’s delivery is painfully fill with two charismatic, spritely children authentic, drawing attention away from who look directly through the camera his deformities and onto our own moral darker and wilder – into your eyes, a strange kind of intimacy imperfections. Under Quasimodo’s arises – you are acknowledged by the Get ThreeWeeks hump is a universal outcast begging fairy tales as they should be silent characters and drawn into their for acceptance; under Utton’s costume dream-like experiences. ‘Alma Mater’ is theatre reviews in stands a national treasure. a carefully crafted, imaginative show and The Wrong Crowd are performing ‘The Girl With your inbox New Town Theatre, 4 - 28 Aug (not 16), 6.00pm a refreshingly unsentimental depiction (7.00pm), £7.00 - £10.00, fpp288. tw rating 5/5 The Iron Claws’ at Underbelly this year, and it’s of a child’s view of the world. At times its with the eDaily [pc] already drawn significant praise from our reviewer emotional impact wavers, but it should for its eerieness and the strong performances of its cast. Director Hannah Mulder explains what inspired the show, and why fairy tales are still relevant in the 21st century.

I first heard the story that I believe that the stories a culture inspired ‘The Girl with the tells itself profoundly shape that Iron Claws’ in a yurt on Dartmoor, culture and its people. Because in midwinter. Twenty of us many of these stories were huddled around a wood-burner, written down by the Victorians, to hear it told, in an oral tradition they have become frozen in that “that surely stretches back as period. far as human beings have had language. Of course, we’re very grateful that they were recorded, otherwise we Stories, myths, folk tales and might have lost them altogether. “fairy tales”, as they are so But it’s time to reclaim their often dubbed, were designed fluid, shape-shifting roots and as tools for living. It was only unearth some of the darker, less in the Victorian era that they saccharine versions and retell were relegated to the pages of them for our age. children’s books, de-sexed and sanitised. Of course children love fairy

stories – they’re fantastic pieces The Victorian version of our story of craft and mystery, honed over

involves the heroine winning her millennia to speak directly to man by washing his shirt cleaner something deep inside us.But than any of the other women who shouldn’t we all reclaim these “ might be his bride. stories, young and old and use them in the way they were Whereas in our earlier, wilder supposed to be used – as a route version she has a pair of Iron map for a more dignified Claws made for her so that she and soulful life? might climb a glass mountain, in

order to rescue her beloved – The Girl With The Iron Claws is on at surely an image of feminine power the Underbelly from 4 - 28 Aug at if ever there was one. 1.35pm (2.35pm), fpp266.

WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK | PAGE FIFTEEN PHYSICAL

DANCE & PHYSICAL THEATRE REVIEWS

Flame’n’co attempts a portrayal of insanity. A peculiar set provides the basis for a perplexing Dondeduendes series of stories, whilst the soloist’s effort This intimate flamenco show attempts to transform his audience into aeroplanes reinvention of the genre, but ultimately is met with dismay; the only saving grace attempts too much and loses its cohesion. is the jolly soundtrack which mercifully In sublime moments, music and movement accompanies the show. The fact that the fuse, anchored by the percussionist and an performer felt the need to prompt his enthusiastically clapping audience. Danielo applause through miming gesture says it Olivera’s expressive, evocative vocals all, when really not even words could save convey the narrative of passion hanging in this show from its crash-landing. the air as Mayte Beltran’s liquid arms twist above an athletic core. His balance lost for C aquila, 4-29 Aug, 1.25pm, £4.50- £9.50, fpp175. tw rating 1/5 [mj] just one second, it nevertheless results in a skilful performance. Jazz infusion brings a swing to the beat and a smiling 5/5 SHOW: Agnes And Walter Q&A: PETERS PRODUCTIONS looseness to the previously intense and (A Little Love Story) rhythmically stern dancer. However, this Smith Dance Theatre / Escalator East To Following successful runs at JG & FT: The whole piece is told choices and design to working with experimentation needs honing: synthesised Edinburgh the Durham Drama Festival, through dance, and we have a the cast as actors, has been a sound effects – including didgeridoo – and Loosely based on ‘The Secret Life Of and at the Old Red Lion stunning soundtrack to accompany result of successful collaboration. riffs on cartoon themes feel gimmicky and Walter Mitty’, this delightful piece shows the entire show. But we have also undeveloped, and sadly cripple the show’s how an everyday couple stay in love Theatre in London, ‘A World kept an emphasis on ‘theatre’ TW: Is it collaborative? Have integrity. throughout their married lives. Portrayed Without Words’ has arrived and ‘drama’ throughout. We have the performers been involved in theSpaces, 5 – 27 Aug, 20.10pm (20.55pm), £9.00 by both young and elderly (68 and 78) for a run in Edinburgh. With avoided adding fantastical or creating the piece? - £10.00, fpp170. tw rating 3/5 [tfw] dancers, we see how Agnes and Walter grow old together, but remain as deeply abstract elements to the story, and JG & FT: The piece is not a devised a very impressed reviewer in love as ever. Aided by some inspired the ‘dance for dance’s sake’ that work, and was not created through raving about the show, Migrations Cirque choices of music and occasional interludes this would create. Instead, the story a workshop process. In most we decided to put some Poi*Kimchi*Vodka from the fifth cast member, a female remains real and human, with every instances, they have had little vocalist, the young and old couples, who questions to the two brains “Unusual in a way that is unsettling or step furthering the emotional or involvement in creating the story or hard to understand” is the dictionary each have tremendous chemistry together, behind it – choreographer dramatic path of the piece. So while choreography but in many cases, definition of ‘strange’. It also sums up present the story through a combination of Frances Teehan and director we have never thought of it as a the steps were shaped to their Poi*Kimchi*Vodka’s ‘Migrations Cirque’. modern dance and physical theatre. It is at Jonathan Grande. piece of physical theatre, we have strengths and they have brought The show is a series of often acrobatic times funny, at other times heartbreaking, never thought of it as purely a dance everything beyond the choreography performances linked by a theme of and by the end a number of audience members were reduced to tears. It is what TW: Starting with the basics, show either. to life. migration, but these scenes fail to connect, with one unnecessary blackout lasting an modern dance should be: beautiful. what’s ‘A World Without Words’ eternity. Even discounting this, the piece about? TW: How did the show come TW: You’ve performed it at the together? How does your Durham Drama Festival and just doesn’t hang together the because JG & FT: ‘A World Without Words’ quality varies enormously; One scene partnership work? London’s Old Red Lion theatre. recounts the story of a relationship entitled ‘My Trained Monkey’ manages to between two ordinary people. Telling JG & FT: It was originally put What made you bring it to the be tremendously funny and well-executed, their story from painfully awkward together for the International Edinburgh Festival Fringe? but for the most part, unitards, panpipes, first meeting through to a heart- Durham Drama Festival to give JG & FT: The Fringe is renowned for and voices off-stage saying “migration” breakingly tearful conclusion, we dancers in Durham the opportunity accepting and embracing original in various languages, make the show explore themes of desire, passion, to be involved in a piece where there pieces and we felt that the audience feel like a throwback to terrible 1980s and betrayal, but all without a single is more to engage with than just was there for its reception. Given performance art. Evidently, sometimes striving to be unusual leads to unsettling piece of dialogue. Telling the whole the choreography. It took off from the unique nature of the piece, we mediocrity. story through contemporary dance there and the piece was extended wanted to perform it to as large and movement, the piece highlights and re-rehearsed in order to be and wide-ranging an audience as Gryphon Venues at the Point Hotel, 5 - 6 Aug, performed in London and Edinburgh. possible, and felt that the Fringe was 6.50pm (7.50pm), £6.00 - £7.00, fpp173. tw rating Zoo Southside, 5 - 13 Aug (not 10), 2.00pm the beauty and power of the physical 2/5 [ls] We have never come across a the perfect place for this. (3.15pm), £8.00 - £10.00, fpp168. tw rating 5/5 language of relationships, and [im] shows how often actions can speak choreographer and director working together on a fully-choreographed Frances and Jonathan’s show ‘A World Sans Mots not only louder than, but on behalf Without Words’ is on at C from 3 – 20 of, words. like this before. So it was very much Aug at 2.15pm (3.05pm), fpp179 Matteo Cionini a case of working it out as we went Without words – and that isn’t all that’s TW: It’s listed in the dance and along! But it seems to be going well READ MORE missing. The mime is lifeless, story-lines Get ThreeWeeks physical theatre section of the so far. Frances choreographed the wildly perplexing and interaction with the ThreeWeeks.co.uk/ audience is terribly awkward: an irritating programme – would you call it entire piece, but all other aspects dance reviews in your of the show, from the story, song petersproductions narration leaves spectators bewildered dance, or physical theatre? throughout as the sole performer inbox with the eDaily

PAGE SIXTEEN | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK

MUSIC

Q&A: PINK NOISE BY FORK started off as a joke, just a way to you think you’ll come back here? have fun and do music together. We JR: The money, the fame, the glory all worked at our original professions and the single malt whisky. I’m not for a couple of years and had Fork sure we’ll ever leave. as a side project until 2004, when we thought we’d try being full time TW: Are you planning to take the musicians for a while. And we haven’t show elsewhere in the world? steered off that road yet. JR: The world is not enough. Our goal is to conquer it. TW: What kind of songs do you perform in your act? How do you TW: We really like the costumes choose each song? How long does you are wearing in your publicity it take to get each song ready for shot. Do you wear them in the performing? show? Who makes them? JR: We mostly do covers. Anything JR: We do actually. And some other from Led Zeppelin to Rihanna. cool stuff too. We work with the Pop and rock music. The songs famous Finnish stylist Minttu Vesala are chosen through democratic who designs all our clothes. elections. And that’s the hard part. If someone vetoes we forget it. Since TW: Are you seeing other shows we use A LOT of technical equipment whilst you are in Edinburgh? to achieve our sound, it takes quite JR: Of course. So far we’ve been a while to get a song ready for the too exhausted after each show that public. From a few days up to a week. we really haven’t had energy to go Fork are an a acapella ensemble from Finland that look set TW: How and when did your group Sometimes we work on a song for a and see anything. But we will. Some dance performances, stand-up and to take Edinburgh (and the world...?) by storm. We tipped come together? What performance week only to find out that it doesn’t work. And we never use sheet music, other a cappella acts are on our wish them in our preview edition, you may recall. A ThreeWeeks background do you all come from? JR: Fork was originally formed in which makes the process even list. reviewer subsequently checked out their show ‘Pink Noise’ 1996 when three of us were in slower, but all the better. and called it “hilarious and breathtaking”, while praising acting school, the Theatre Academy of Helsinki. The fourth one was Pink Noise by Fork, Assembly George Square, their flawless vocals. So we decided to throw some TW: What made you decide to 9 – 28 Aug, 6.05pm (7.15pm), £11.00 - £15.00, questions in their direction. Jonte Ramsten answered. studying at the police academy. It come to the Edinburgh Festival? Do fpp216.

MUSIC REVIEWS

5/5 SHOW: The Magnets relationship with the audience is hindered the frosty atmosphere. From a barstool, The Magnets and Assembly by the physical barrier of a music stand. she croons about lost love; her voice But overall, this is an exquisitely and sometimes flakes but always holds itself This live sensation brings you what beautifully varied lunchtime treat. strong. Her duet partner of just one day, must surely be of the most electrifying Malcolm MacFarlane, is a technically performances of the Festival: you cannot C too, 4 – 29 Aug, 1.30pm (2.20pm), £4.50 – £9.50, gifted guitarist, yet his staccato playing is help but become mesmerised by the fpp201. tw rating 4/5 [ck] emotionally defunct. Not once in their Sting stunning depth of talent this six-piece cover did I feel the guitar weep. In time, I ‘jukebox’ has to offer. Flawless a cappella Malones Live Music am sure this show will reach great heights, arrangements revise both timeless Live Music Seven Nights A Week but for now, the performance is too blue classics and modern-day chart hits in order Last week I was in a pub having a quiet and weary for this to pass the acid test. to produce a sound like no other. Stadium drink when a band suddenly announced anthems play to a cabaret venue, striking The Jazz Bar, 5 – 14 Aug (not 8, 9, 10), times vary, itself and started blaring out what I would £5.00 - £7.00, fpp219. tw rating 2/5 [pc] a note of exquisite intimacy. Contemporary describe as ‘Dad-Rock’. Said quiet pint was meets old school as beat-boxing perfection ruined and most of the customers left. fuses with harmonious voices, whilst So, despite my reservations about bands Cathedral Lunchtime Concerts smooth moves and comic interaction really playing in pubs, I found myself in Malones St Mary’s Cathedral defines this show as the perfect package. A this week, and was pleasantly surprised. truly unmissable act; you cannot take your On this particular night, live music was One of the great things about the Festival is eyes off these gifted maestros. delivered by Scottish fiddle band Muckle that anything can change at any moment. You never really know what to expect. Assembly George Square, 5-29 Aug, 6.10pm Fugga, who played a two-hour set of (7.10pm), £10.00- £15.00, ffp211. tw rating 5/5 [mj] traditional Celtic music and created a jovial Filling in last minute after two previously atmosphere of toe-tapping fun. Rather than scheduled performers were forced to Classical Guitar – Jonathan Prag being the main event, the bands seem to pull out, an organist and pianist of Christ provide background music to the busy pub. and Holy Trinity Church in Connecticut The Edinburgh Festival attracts a diverse treats the audience to a selection of host of cultures to perform in the city, and If you are looking for a drink and a wee jig, this is your place. classical pieces from Rachmaninoff to in under an hour, Jonathan Prag guides Bach. Religious or not, no one can deny his audience on an equally diverse musical Malones Irish Bar, 5 – 29 Aug, times vary, free, the power and majesty of a church organ, fpp211. tw rating 3/5 [mp] journey. The sonorous emotions of his especially when hearing ‘Toccata And music linger in the clear acoustics of St. Fugue In G Major’ echoing through the Columba’s by the Castle. The polyphony of Shades of Blue pews of a colossal cathedral. With only the movements performed from a Handel Kerry Hodgkin and Ladyblue Music a few hours to prepare, the performers keyboard suite is handled (no pun intended) Fingers tap in rhythm, not to music but to played with more concentration than with sensitivity and gentleness, creating a ticking watches. Booze-filled glasses are passion but fortunately this didn’t negatively strong contrast with the zealous passion downed and refilled as Kerry Hodgkin’s affect their otherwise pitch-perfect recitals. of the Spanish flamenco and Armenian soul-seeking voice puffs around the dances. Although appearing softly spoken, St Mary’s Cathedral, 1-31 Aug (not 7, 14, 17, 21, room. In spite of her rosy personality, 28), 1.10pm (1.55pm), free, fpp199. tw rating 4/5 a little of Prag’s developing her performance takes time to diffuse [ng]

PAGE EIGHTEEN | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK SURVEY fringe flu is incoming, how to survive

It’s coming and dance-slash-workout video) After a six that if you do not believe in something option is mostly fictional. Far better Tom Deacon hour workout we defy anyone to still it cannot harm you. Oh and never to remember that alcohol has and is “The best way to you know it. First be affected by a stupid flu...! Feel the go to sleep - that’s another thing we still often used as a disinfectant and keep the Fringe performers and ticket- rhythm! Feel the beat!! learned. So if you don’t want fringe flu by drowning your body in the thing you Flu at bay is to eat The Suitcase Royale in Zombatland, then don’t go to sleep. We may have should clear the system of all ills”. healthy and not buyers bring with Pleasance Courtyard, fpp156 talked ourselves into a corner here”. Tiernan Douieb vs The World, Assembly have fun. But if you Peacock and Gamble Emergency Hall, fpp158 can’t manage that them to Edinburgh Jessica Fostekew Broadcast, Pleasance Dome, fpp132 then have a pint of the dark stuff and a viruses from all over You know when Kerry Godliman plate of Oysters. Settles your stomach you’re on your Danny Pensive “Prevention and nerves, plus there’s loads of the world. Then no way home, after “Fizzy vitamin is better than minerals in the Oysters. Sure you’ll get one sleeps or eats all your gigs, and C tablets can cure: Avoid over odd looks but it’ll be worth it!” your friend says stop you getting exposure to Tom Deacon: Can I Be Honest?, properly for ten days, “shall we just pop it, but if it is too jugglers, Lady Boys Pleasance Dome, fpp160 in Brooks for one?” Say “No.” late, go straight from Bangkok and and the Edinburgh Jessica Fostekew: Luxury Tramp, Gilded home after your bitter comedians. If it does strike, James Acaster climate soaks them Balloon Teviot, fpp97 show and wrap yourself in as many stay indoors watching the most “The best way blankets as you can find and force vapid daytime TV you can find. You’ll to overcome to their skin three David Reed yourself to sleep until the next day like slowly regain your appetite for live fringe flu is to eat times daily. Add the Any doctor worth a hibernating hedgehog or tortoise. ‘performance art’ and trench foot”. properly, sleep his or her weight Do this twice”. Kerry Godliman - Wonder Woman, properly and excessive alcohol will tell you that Danny Pensive’s Map Of Britain, Just The Pleasance Courtyard, fpp104 exercise but if the solution to this Tonic at The Caves, fpp63 you’re doing all of those things then consumption and annual problem Emily Watson you’re probably not at the Fringe”. too much time spent is speed. Not Tiernan Douieb Howes James Acaster: Amonst Other Things, the drug. That only cures being too “I have two cures “Prevention is Pleasance Courtyard, fpp94 in dark rooms, and interesting. But speed of activity for fringe flu, better than cure Fringe Flu hits, taking throughout Edinburgh. Your body is depending on what - hole yourself up entirely capable of keeping you alive as sort of person like a hermit and down with it anyone long as you NEVER... SLOW... you are. Firstly, do for the love of God DOWN. Travel around at break neck your show then go don’t kiss anyone. fully immersed in all speed, seeing shows, chatting and to bed, drink berroca until every drop Even your spouse. Especially your Good luck avoiding the things Fringe. But how drinking until you pass out around of your perspiration is fluorescent spouse”. lurgy, and look out for 4am. Repeat daily until September. orange and glows, chow down on all Seminar, Pleasance Courtyard, fpp148 to avoid the lurgy? David Reed: Shamblehouse, Pleasance the fruit you can find, ignoring the The Baby Diary, Assembly George Square, another ThreeWeeks Fringe performers Courtyard, fpp65 pleas of your bowels and rest up a fpp42 survey next week. tad till it disperses. Of course, this offer tips. Asher Treleaven The best cure for Fringe Flu is a traditional Scottish breakfast Gateau Chocolat known as I’m taking Porrocca, which everything that’s is a combination of rolled oats and going. Echinacea, Berroca. The porridge provides a long manuka honey, lasting slow release energy and the multi vitamins, Berocca provides valuable B and C vegetables, lemon vitamins to help deal with hang overs and ginger, steaming; everything to and colds/flus. keep healthy and ensure you preserve the quality and integrity of your show Ingredients for Porroca so as to present your work in the 150gm Rolled Oats best light possible. Its hard slog doing 2 Berocca, preferably the orange a full Edinburgh season but its the ones. underlying discipline required for this career. Directons. Le Gateau Chocolat, Assembly George Prepare in small sauce pan with I Square, fpp12 cup of water or milk add Berroca and when fluid starts to simmer introduce The Suitcase the oats. Royale Stir till thickened then eat rapidly from The Suitcase saucepan while running to midday gig Royale have a at some place in a cave. strict regime Asher Treleaven: Matador, Pleasance of whiskey and Courtyard, fpp40 Ace Ventura movies while on tour and very Peacock and rarely are struck by the fringe flu. Gamble Being from Australia, we are used The best advice to much harsher conditions such we can give about as wrestling crocodiles, punching not getting fringe sharks and avoiding hostile gangs of flu is to simply koalas. When struck down, however, not acknowledge we have an emergency VHS copy its existence. If we have learned one of ZUMBA (the South American thing from Nightmare on Elm St it is

WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK | PAGE NINTEEEN EVENTS

QUICK BOOK FESTIVAL TIPS 1

The Edinburgh International Book CAMILLE BURNS recommends Festival kicks off in Charlotte Different Worlds With Patrick Square Gardens this weekend. Ness & Moira Young, Sunday 21 With that in mind, we asked our Aug at 3.30pm 2011 book correspondents to tip Despite the title, the similarities a must-see event. between their worlds make this a top event. Written without shying ELEANOR PENDER recommends away from ‘adult’ subjects, themes Audrey Niffenegger, Monday 15 of injustice, loss, love and loyalty, Aug at 8.00pm are skillfully manipulated in ‘Chaos I am most definitely looking Walking’ and ‘Blood Red Road’ until forward to hearing from Audrey the line between good and evil is Niffenegger. This event offers the blurry at best. This event will be rare opportunity to see into the a fascinating discussion with two fantastical mind of the acclaimed authors whose novels would affect author of ‘The Time Traveller’s even the most disdainful adult. Wife’. Her novels combine the real, the strange and the magical in SAMUEL JOHNSTON such a grounded way. Beautifully recommends Candia McWilliam written, her characters embody a on Thursday 18 Aug at 8.30pm plot that would be lost in anyone One of England’s most gifted else’s hands. novelists, a Guardian award winner and Man Booker judge, Candia TRACEY S ROSENBERG McWilliam has now published a recommends AS Byatt, Sunday 28 memoir detailing her recovery from Aug at 3.00pm blindness. Having covered the topic AS Byatt, the Booker-winning with a sensitivity and optimism that grande dame of interpreting is a refreshing change from the the Victorians and Edwardians, now ubiquitous misery memoir, this takes an unexpected and event is certain to be both delicately autobiographical turn with her poignant and eye opening. forthcoming work: a retelling of the Norse tale of Ragnarok, part of the Not enough for you? Well, acclaimed Canongate Myths series. we have one more book Byatt will be in conversation with correspondent, Ellie Blow. Go to literary editor Stuart Kelly about the www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk/books to ways in which gods and mythology find out her recommendation, and shaped her wartime childhood. to read out books team reviews.

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PAGE TWENTY | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK MORE ONLINE: Look out for Addy Van De Bourgh’s Fringe Word Of The Day, every day in the eDaily THESubscribe PHOTO for free: www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk/subscribe PAGE

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1. Bob Downe at Gilded Balloon Teviot [Richard Dyson]

2. ‘Alma Mater’ at St George’s West [Anna Hafsteinsson]

3. The Improverts at the Bedlam Theatre [Kat Gollock]

4. ‘Debbie Does My Dad’ at the Bedlam Theatre [Kat Gollock]

5. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ at theSpaces@ Surgeons Hall [Mark Conway]

6. ‘Babbling Comedy 2 ‘at C [Richard Dyson]

7. ‘Orlando’ at St George’s West [Vanessa Wilson]

8. ‘Around The World On 80 Quid’ at Pleasance Courtyard [Richard Dyson]

9. ‘The Games’ at Zoo Roxy [Mark Conway]

This week’s cover shot by Mark Conway

Guest Editor photographed by Paul Collins

WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK | PAGE TWENTY-ONE CHILDREN’S SHOWS Q&A: PAUL NATHAN

moms and encourage parents the key to a great children’s show delightful, charming, and playful to drink. ‘Devil In The Deck’ is is the same as the key to any as well as smart. Plus there are a collection of the best card other show. Great writing and more yummy mummies here than tricks in the world wrapped in an editing for a story that moves anywhere else. I brought John last elegant and romantic story. In with purpose, elegance, and style. year. He is in love with this place the children’s show everything Great presentation skills that and this festival. This year John is spontaneous and chaotic. In engage the audience and keep brought his 12 year old daughter. ‘Devil In The Deck’, every aspect of them present. Great jokes, great This city is magic. the show is elegant and finished. skills, great acting, great directing, The music is great, the story great music, and great production. TW: What shows will you be fantastic, and the magic is... well... These are the ingredients for seeing this year? magical. We are proud to be the any great show. Anyone who Paul is excited to see ‘Doris Day only children’s show which invites thinks that they can get away Can Fuck Off’. Terrible title but parents to sneak in booze and with anything less than that just it’s supposed to be a great show. drink in the dark. For ‘Devil In The because the audience is young Also, ‘Muscle’ is supposed to be Deck’, everyone is invited to bring does a great disservice to the fantastic and no one knows about a deck of cards and may challenge audience, themselves, and society it yet. Also Paul Daniels, Barry and me at any time to use their deck. as a whole and they should burn Stuart, and Amanda Palmer. John If I can’t do any trick in the show for eternity in kiddy show hell. is seeing ‘Perfection’, ‘Ophelia’, and Last year, our reviewer few cords and bought him a book with their deck then I’ll give them a loitering around other children’s was totally impressed of guitar lessons. Then he gave thousand dollars. TW: Why did you decide to come shows, where he sleeps off the by ‘The I Hate Children him some candy and tried to lure to Edinburgh, and how long have effects of his nightly debauch and Children’s Show’, and one him into a van. That was John’s TW: Which is better, an adult you been coming? Will you keep late night jams at the Royal Oaks. first music tour. audience, or a child audience? coming back, and why? of ThreeWeeks’ editors PN: A family audience is the best. PN: I’ve been coming to Edinburgh The I Hate Children Children’s Show, Zoo was a bit gutted not to be TW: What made you decide to do Even though I am best known for about five years. I keep Southside, 6 – 29 Aug, 12.30 (1.15pm), £7.50, fpp22 able to see it. Magician Paul a children’s show? as an adult entertainer (in the coming back because it is the Nathan stars in it, alongside PN: Last year I lost a bet, and the most adult sense of the word) I most beautiful city in the UK and Devil in the Deck, Zoo Roxy, 5 – 29 Aug, 9.05pm (10.15pm), £10.00, fpp255 guitarist John Anaya, and pay off was to do a children’s show love seeing families laughing and the people here are the most the pair also perform a for the run of the Fringe. It turns having fun together as I did with grown-up show, ‘Devil in the out that the show was a hit, and my parents. I love shows where the parents sit with children in Deck’, every night. We put surprisingly, you can actually make money harassing children here in their laps and everyone is laughing some questions to Paul, and Edinburgh. This year I conned John and sharing together. Parents hope to see at least one of into playing music for the show teaching their children how to his shows ere long. with a promise that he could ride enjoy a show, how to laugh, how that kiddy cash cow all the way to to have fun. Adult crowds are TW: How did you get into doing the bank with me. Merchandise wonderful but there is something magic? sales alone are covering almost all special about families sharing the PN: Both John and I learned our of John’s copious beer budget so experience together. That is real craft form books starting around far this year. magic. age six. I learned magic, John learned guitar. My mother was a TW: How does your theatre show TW: What do you think is the librarian, she brought home an for adults differ from your show secret to a really good children’s armload of books on magic and for children? show? I was hooked. John grew up in PN: The children’s show is PN: A bit of whiskey in the punch Hawaii and a friend of the family irreverent and fun. It’s John makes every party better; don’t gave him a guitar, taught him a playing guitar as I flirt with hot you think? Long answer - I think

The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone A new play by Chris Sullivan

At the Royal College of Surgeons Nicolson Street, Edinburgh EH8 9DW

“a gripping All Seats look at the both the humour £5 and pain of the tragic comic... Box Office Chris Sullivan’s 0845 508 8515 performance is his most memorable to date.”

PAGE TWENTY-TWO | WWW.THREEWEEKS.CO.UK “And the ten most brilliant things at this year’s Edinburgh Festival were…” TW ThreeWeeks Editors’ Awards will be presented on Sunday 28 Aug - www.threeweeks.co.uk/awards

MEET THE THREEWEEKS TEAM

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