Fest 2023 Issue 2 by The Skinny

Edinburgh Festival Guide

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Inside: Jodie Mitchell Stuntman Gemma Soldati Mark Thomas Bill O'Neill Nabil Abdulrashid Mary O'Connell Common Dissonance MC Hammersmith

FINGERPRINTS Lula Mebrahtu makes her mark

Reviews

Features

Listings

16 - 22 Aug

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

Fest 2023 Issue 2

5 Contents

8 Cool Hand Lula Introducing Lulu Mebrahtu: One of many, many of One

12 We Three Kings A drag exploration of masculinity

16 Action Men The tender duet behind Stuntman

Comedy 28 Bill O’Neill Unzip a banana

Theatre 40 England & Son Mark Thomas dazzles in searing one-hander

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus 53 IMA (Pray) Recirquel soar at Murrayfield Ice Rink

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Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): Dann Jose; Corrine Cumming; Brian Hartley; Van Corona; Tony Pletts; Bálint Hirling; Lesley Martin

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Benjamin Alborough's Perfect Day

How to spend your time wisely in Edinburgh – Monopoly style!

he Edinburgh Fringe is a bit like a game of Monopoly; the only goal is to crush your enemies. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or bad at Monopoly. Monopoly is a boring game; it takes far too long and ends in tears. In my show Benjamin Alborough: Absolute Monopoly we try to fix the problems of Monopoly by leaning into them even harder; the goal is to argue, the fun is in the disagreement, anything goes so long as the collective audience response is one of unrestrained glee. My perfect day at the Fringe would reflect these qualities wholesale.

9am: I wake up – my first victory of the day. As the inventor of the grindset mentality I know that I must spend all my spare time working. But as the originator of the self-care movement I understand the importance of getting a good night’s sleep. These two balance out extremely normally and I sleep for eight hours.

disagreeing with people. Later I will challenge an audience member to beat me in an argument for £100. 11am: Breakfast: mayonnaise, white rice and beans. It helps with my memory.

1pm: I leave my flat. I take a deep breath and hold it. I make a mental note to let go 10am: I advance to the kitchen. once I’ve achieved someBreakfast: mayonnaise, white thing new. Two minutes later rice and beans. I call this “the I achieve a blackout. I dream Alborough method” and it pre- that I win second prize in a vents me from having intrusive beauty contest – it’s OK for thoughts. With fewer things some parts of life not to be to distract me, I can work on like Monopoly.

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Perfect Day

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You’re ca ught che Your pun ating. ishment is you do finish th n’t get to e game earlier.

CHANCE fight with You get into a t Free Parking ou ab r be a family mem ritance. he in and lose your Benjamin Alborough

1.05pm: I pass GO. I almost get run over by a car. I briefly worry that Edinburgh isn’t exactly like Monopoly but these intrusive thoughts are immediately crushed thanks to “the Alborough method”. 1.30pm: I land on Edinburgh Waverley Station. This was a mistake, having fallen off North Bridge. 2pm: I rolled the dice on marketing this year; I recruited my flyering team through YouTube Shorts. They’re nice but obsessed with Bitcoin. I’m learning a lot about the blockchain and very little about my ticket sales.

3pm: By chance, I bump into my actual landlord. She reminds me that I’m behind on the rent. I tell her that this is an amazing coincidence as my show is about Monopoly. She reminds me that I’m behind on the rent, but louder.

7pm: I’m in good company, some might say electric company. It’s my many fans, who flocked to my show in what I can legally describe as “numbers”. Due to “the Alborough method” I can’t quite remember how the show went (or experience emotional highs) 3.30pm: I take my landlord to and I don’t think I managed to see a show to teach her about crush any enemies today, but kindness, the value of forI’ll try to get some on the way giveness and that money isn’t home if my legs hold out. everything. She CANNOT learn about Absolute Monopoly. 5.50pm: I advance to Benjamin Alborough: Absolute Monopoly. Collect £200 - from someone else, an employer maybe, then buy 15 tickets for my show.

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Benjamin Alborough: Absolute Monopoly Assembly George Square 5:50pm – 6:50pm, 2–28 Aug, not 15

7 Perfect Day

Photo: Matt Stronge

CHANCE

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Cool Hand Lula In OommoO, Lula Mebrahtu delves into her Habesha heritage and British identity through an Afro-futuristic lens. She tells Katie Hawthorne how the show interweaves language, music and storytelling, as well as wearable tech MiMu gloves

ith just a flick of her wrist Lula Mebrahtu can conjure a drum kit out of thin air. A twist of a finger and her voice loops into lush, multi-layered harmonies. An early adopter of MiMu gloves, cutting-edge digital musical instruments which respond to even the smallest of movements, Mebrahtu holds a world of sound in the palms of her hands. Yet her solo Fringe debut is far more than a technological showcase: OommoO turns the story of her family’s immigration to the UK into multi-sensory Afro-futurist theatre, drawing on movement, sound, song, and freshly brewed coffee. “It’s a 4D experience,” Mebrahtu grins, stretching her arms out wide. The play’s palindromic title – standing for “one of many, many of one” – is a foundational mantra. Although OommoO is partially autobiographical, it takes Mebrahtu’s story as a catalyst for complex conversations about citizenship, displacement, and memory loss. The Lula in the play is sometimes her, sometimes not: “I’ve given myself license to say and

Cover Feature

do things that I wouldn’t in real life, so that I can tell a much bigger story.” First and foremost, Mebrahtu set out to write a play about Habesha immigrants in the UK. “It was done by us, for us, because of us,” she smiles. Yet she’s found OommoO’s dissection of memory loss to be strikingly universal: almost everyone can understand how it feels to see family secrets and stories become lost to the passing of time. “Our parents are time-capsules for our heritage, our culture, our ancestors, right?” She pauses in thought. “When they start to pass, you want to try and save those stories. You’re losing memories while your parent is losing theirs.” “Of course, this is exaggerated by displacement,” she says. But in speaking about her own experiences, she’s found a common language: “When you’re specific about what you want to tell, you can reach the whole world.” OommoO has been seven years in the making, and Mebrahtu has waited patiently to find the perfect way to perform it. She

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Photo: Celine Celeesi

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“I’ve given myself license to say and do things that I wouldn’t in real life, so that I can tell a much bigger story” Photo: Shazad Khalid

describes those magical MiMu gloves as like a “bridge”, one that connected the timelessness of OommoO’s story to a brand-new theatrical form. “They’ve turned me into the queen of improvisation!” she enthuses, explaining how the technology allows her to play with music and movement in real time, along with all the mistakes and happy accidents that live performance can bring. When we speak, some weeks ahead of the Fringe, she’s busy refining a choreography that infuses dance traditions like waacking, finger tutting and eskista into the play’s sound-world. “For instance, immigrants get called illegal aliens when they come to the UK, so I took that as a stimulus. Like, what does an alien look like?” She lifts her palms in front of her face and flexes each finger robotically. “I have a whole song I can play just like this!” To make OommoO even more of a sensory experience, Mebrahtu will hold interactive ‘coffee ceremonies’ throughout August. “Have you ever had Ethiopian, Eritrean coffee before?” she asks, lighting up at the thought. “It’s like hanging out at a coffee shop, but every Habesha household does it. My mum will roast the beans in the living room, the snack of choice is popcorn, and everyone sits around communing and conversing.” The ceremonies combine the ritual of coffee with a scene from the play about how Lula got her name and, after a trial run at Soho Theatre, Mebrahtu is convinced of their power to unlock distant memories and new conversations. “We’re all more similar than we realise,” she grins. “These are universal stories, and our differences are our spices.” SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Cover Feature

OommoO Summerhall 4:15pm – 5:15pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14, 21

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We Three Kings Jodie Mitchell, Daisy Doris May and Oasissy on making a masculinity that listens Words: Kirstyn Smith

nspiration can sometimes spring from the most unlikely places. Newton’s apple, Archimedes’ bath, John Travulva’s drag persona. Sure, one of these things is not like the others; it’s much more important. Jodie Mitchell, the person behind “quietly macho” Travulva, found their voice after their improv instructor told them they weren’t confident enough. “But I am quite confident, so that didn’t really make sense,” they say. “One day I started doing characters that were seen to be masculine. I’d go on with a deeper voice, shout at people and tell them what to do. This is actually quite bad improv practice, but people stopped talking over me immediately.” They’d discovered that “confident” is a synonym for “masculine”. And masculine, it seemed,

was funny. They found audiences trusted them more and the laughs came easier – they were actually recruited into renowned drag troupe Pecs pretty soon after making this realisation. Exploring masculinity in all its forms – toxic, fragile, positive – is a king’s bread and butter. Mitchell’s specific area of expertise is utopian masculinity: masculinity that is feminist, intersectional and that listens. “When you take the toxicity of men and put it on stage in its purest form, you’re just retraumatising your audience a lot of the time. I want to hold a mirror up to it in a way audiences can enjoy.” So, Travulva is a feminist in his own way. He’s annoying and he hasn’t quite dropped his deep-rooted mansplaining, but he’s not Image: courtesy of the artist Steve Porters

Comedy

Oasissy

Features

Photo: Tiu Makkonen

aggressive. He’s funny and he’s doing his best for a Glaswegian ex-Catholic who is – Mitchell admits – 100% inspired by daddy issues. Similarly turning ingrained notions of masculinity on their head are Oasissy – an Oasis-inspired semi-tribute, semi-piss-take comprising Agent Cooper and King Biff. They perform ostensibly as the Gallagher brothers, but their portrayal of the pair has changed since they began. “It was too much of a straight copy,” says Biff. “Over the years, we’re bringing much more of ourselves and our politics into it. It’s really fun to be playful and ask what it would be like if we showed their softer or more feminine or queer sides. We’re not actually being Oasis.” Their show, Don’t Look Back in Anger, Babes, is a party for the end of the world. As they were putting it together, a lot of the conversations the duo had were about their fears and the world and the future and how overwhelming it all was. “But we also spoke about how Oasissy help us to be a little braver,” says Biff. Cooper adds, “We want to impart some of the ways in which embodying these characters help us face the world.” When you’re dealing with the Gallagher brothers, their swagger, often-toxic opinions and general laddiness can be overwhelming. “There’s a lot of pleasure in embodying the characters and dispensing with that,” says Cooper. “Just being fully queer beings.” And while fear – of the world and the future and, particularly, of scary white men – can be debilitating, it can also spur new artistic prac-

Comedy

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“But the power of drag has always been a middle finger to that fear” Agent Cooper

Photo: Corinne Cumming

tices, create confidence and help acts build safer spaces for themselves and others. “It’s powerful to celebrate and take the piss at the same time. It’s not a safe place to be a gender diverse person and I feel really paralysed by that sometimes,” Biff adds. “But the power of drag has always been a middle finger to that fear. Drag’s helped me change the way I carry myself in public, the way I communicate. To stop apologising for myself so much.” For Daisy Doris May, aka Steve Porters, developing a king persona helped them explore and open up their gender identity too. On top of this, they found allies in a fairly unlikely place: the garage run by their neighbours. “I’m experimenting with drag and I take out the bins, and they’re on the road and they see me,” they explain. “I was like a rabbit in the headlights. [They work in] this quite traditional masculine environment – they’re going to judge me.” Instead, they couldn’t have been more impressed. Far from being labelled a freak or laughed at, as May feared, the men invited Steve to do some work experience at the garage. When Steve asked for some man-to-man advice, one of the guys responded with “love everybody”. “It was a penny drop moment,” says May. “Through Steve I became closer to this circle of men I thought were laddy. But they weren’t laddy, they’re the most sensitive, gorgeous humans. And Steve was a vehicle for me to get closer to them, closer to men.” This is what the character of Steve is all about – he harks back to Mitchell’s idea of utopian masculinity. He’s trying to share his buds of wisdom with other men in a way that does nothing more dangerous than encouraging more spooning in the world. In How to Flirt: The Ted XXX Talk, Steve and May – grapple with balancing toxic and positive masculinity, asking questions like: How is society giving space to men to be vulnerable? How are men supposed to cry? Who are the role models and what are the lessons?” May adds: “Steve has been on a journey of listening, learning and loving. He’s naive, but he’s got a heart of gold,” says May. “There are elements of Steve I love that are pure and that are beautiful and I want to see more of that in men.”

John Travulva

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

Jodie Mitchell: Becoming John Travulva Pleasance Courtyard 9:50pm – 10:50pm, 2–27 Aug, not 16 How to Flirt: The TED XXX Talk Assembly Roxy 9:55pm – 10:55pm, 2–26 Aug, not 11, 15 Oasissy: Don’t Look Back in Anger, Babes BlundaGardens: BlundaBus & Magical SpiegelYurt 10:40pm – 11:30pm, 21–25 Aug

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Action Men David Banks and Sadiq Ali discuss their intensely physical and tender duet, Stuntman, which examines the impact of action-hero role models on men and boys Words: Anahit Behrooz

icture the traditional macho guy film. It’s full of men – of course – jacked and a bit cross, looking for an outlet to channel their aggression. Arnold Schwarzenegger is there, or maybe Sylvester Stallone, drenched in sweat. They’re at a boxing gym, or a gun range, or gripping a AK-47 in a darkened forest. The air feels explosive, taut with impending violence. It’s no secret that masculinity and violence are entangled bedfellows, both on-screen and off, and it is in this historic overlap that new physical theatre and circus show Stuntman sits. Described cheerfully by one of its co-devisers and stars David Banks as a show for anyone who has “ever enjoyed an action movie, and felt a bit weird about it,” Stuntman is a

gorgeous and dynamic two-hander that melds larger-than-life stunt set pieces with personal narratives from Banks and his co-star Sadiq Ali. “We were really big fans of The Godfather films when we were little,” Banks says, looking back on his childhood with his brother. “I wanted to be in them, but he wanted to be Michael Corleone. So it’s about how we receive these mediums, and how we try and perpetuate them. Is it a cathartic outlet, or is it an inspiration?” Banks grew up on such films, and in what he describes as an environment surrounded by violence; learning to box from a young age and losing various family members to the prison system. Through Stuntman, he is keen to trouble this direct correlation between Photo: Brian Hartley

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus

good analogy for masculinity.” It is difficult to approach such a heavy topic with warmth and vitality, but for Banks and Ali, the only way to approach the rigid confines of masculinity is to subvert it with softness and humour. It’s a stunning showcase, not just for its two stars, but for the ways in which we allow ourselves to approach difficult, often taboo subjects. Sometimes, as Ali says, the ridiculousness is both medium and message. “I get a dance solo in the middle of the show,” he explains eagerly. “And without saying it’s my Billy Elliot moment, it is definitely my Billy Elliot moment.” SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Stuntman Summerhall 5:50pm – 6:50pm, 2–25 Aug , 14, 21

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masculinity, class, and violence, exploring the ways in which there is space for vulnerability, tenderness and even queerness in these narratives. “If you look at the history of action films, you’ve got John Wick, Rambo, Arnie and Sylvester Stallone…they’re an orientation away from being gay icons,” Banks says. For Ali (returning to Summerhall after a jaw-dropping performance in The Chosen Haram last year), Stuntman is also a space to trouble ideas of masculinity as a cisgender, heterosexual mode of being, examining his own implication in these spaces, and how his queer identity subverts them. “When I came on board, David gave all these references of action films and heroes and I was just like, ‘who are these people? What film, what name?’” he laughs. Ali’s own personal memories flood the show – much like Banks, he grew up on a council estate where homophobia and racism were rife – giving the violence he grew up with serious consideration before dissipating its power with humour. “I share some stories about putting on this mask of masculinity, quite serious stories that make the audience go, ‘huh’,” Ali explains. “And then I start this absurdist self-inflicted gay-bashing: I get set on fire and get to have the funeral of my dreams, where drag queens lower me into the floor and Barack Obama and Meryl Streep are there.” He laughs again. “So we start with something from a real place and then we get to get carried away and go, ‘What could that look like?’ It’s a good way to talk about real things that we think don’t happen anymore.” “It’s like when someone tells a really sad story in the pub and someone makes a joke to break the ice,” Banks adds. “Which is a really

Photo: Brian Hartley

“It’s about how we receive these mediums, and how we try and perpetuate them. Is it a cathartic outlet, or is it an inspiration?”

The UK premiere of Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring was performed in 1978 at the International Festival. As it returns to Edinburgh this year, we find out more from artistic director Clémentine Deluy Words: Claire Sawers

“I

t was a dream of mine to dance her piece since I was 15,” says Clémentine Deluy, a French dancer turned artistic director for the Pina Bausch Foundation. In 2001 Deluy was finishing her studies at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, where Pina Bausch also studied, when the legendary German dancer and choreographer came looking for dancers. After rigorous auditioning, Deluy was selected to join Bausch’s company. Deluy has danced Sacre (short for Le Sacre du Printemps, the French title for The Rite of Spring) more than any other of Bausch’s pieces and describes it as both, “a nightmare” and something that summons a dancer’s “instinct for surviving”. “Pina’s directions for the dancers were very detailed, very precise, sometimes very tedious!” shares Deluy, reminiscing about working

with the pioneering choreographer who died in 2009. “But she always took the time when rehearsing and Sacre really demands that. It’s a very complex group piece.” Bausch’s groundbreaking version of The Rite of Spring premiered in 1975 with an intense, exhilarating score by Stravinsky. Dancers are barefoot on a peat floor, acting out a gruelling, primal ritual between men and women. It’s a study of misogyny and an urgent battle of the sexes where one young woman must become ‘The Chosen One’, dancing herself to death. “How would you dance if you knew you were going to die?”, Bausch asked her dancers. Her work was famously informed by relationships and trauma, the back and forth of human interactions, the suffering and repetition and joy.

Features

Photo: Maarten Vanden Abeele

Danse Macabre

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“We don’t want copies, I tell the dancers that. We want dancers to bring their own individuality and emotion into Pina’s work” Photo: Maarten Vanden Abeele

“Even if they do exactly the same movements, each dancer brings a different approach,” says Deluy. “We don’t want copies, I tell the dancers that. We want dancers to bring their own individuality and emotion into Pina’s work.” In 2021, Bausch’s son Salomon, chair of the Pina Bausch Foundation teamed up with the Senegalese dance school, École de Sables and London’s Sadler’s Wells theatre to premiere a new version of her celebrated work, featuring 32 dancers from 14 African countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo. It’s hoped the ‘transmission project’, which is the subject of a new documentary, Dancing Pina, will grow an understanding of Bausch’s important work amongst modern audiences. “The dancers come from very different backgrounds,” explains Deluy. “Some have 20

EIF

studied African dance, jazz or hip-hop. The Ivory Coast, for example, has over 60 ethnic groups, all with different traditional dances. I come from the ballet world. But we stick to Pina’s choreography. We have her original book with notes, everything was recorded from 1973 onwards. It was a great support for me.” Although Deluy is very familiar with the work, she continues to learn from it each time they rehearse. “I open my gaze. I focus on the men more now, not just the female roles. We are extremely lucky to have this strong team full of experience. The production, like the work itself, is an enormous group effort.” Within the team are Deluy’s two co-artistic directors, Jo Ann Endicott and Jorge Puerta Armenta, who both danced in Bausch’s Tanztheatre Wuppertal. “Jo Ann is one of the original dancers who created The Rite of Spring, so I got to work beside her and share important information direct from the world of Pina.” The three-night run of The Rite of Spring is performed alongside common ground[s], a 30-minute duet by Germaine Acogny and Malou Airaudo, two female dancers greatly inspired by Bausch. Acogny co-founded the École de Sables in 1995 and feels there is a huge synergy between Bausch’s work and African dance. “After a couple of minutes of Sacre, the floor is already like a warfield with mud everywhere,” says Deluy. “The women’s costumes are these barely there slips, like a second skin. Sometimes the dancers must move in a very narrow space – and often they end up completely covered in sweat and mud. The dancers – even the costumes – everyone goes on this voyage together, a journey. We are so lucky to experience that.” SHOW VENUE: TIME:

The Rite of Spring / common ground[s] Edinburgh Playhouse 7:30pm – 9:05pm, 17–19 Aug

Latin Lives

21 Features

Guido García Lueches, Dre Spisto and The Ephemeral Ensemble discuss the multiplicity of Latin American identity Words: Xuanlin Tham

“L

Photo: Charly Monreal

atin America is huge, right? It’s hundreds of millions of people, and bigger than Europe a few times over,” Guido García Lueches says, speaking to us about his show Playing Latinx at the Fringe. “And yet there’s this imagination that the cultures all blend together.” Like most labels we use in an attempt to pin something as multifaceted as identity onto paper, the identifier ‘Latin American’ searches for two things at once: commonality, but also the vast multiplicity of individual experience. At the Fringe, three artists are exploring different facets of Latin American identity through comedy, physical theatre, and clowning: resisting the flattening of cultures and experiences, and performing counter-narratives into being. Lueches’ Playing Latinx mines comedy from Playing Latinx the idea of performing one’s identity as an immigrant. It combines an autobiographical story about a Latin American actor trying to alternate persona of mine teaches the audi“make it in the UK”, and what Lueches calls a ence how to be a good immigrant.” “very politically incorrect seminar, where this Comedy and politics are excellent bedfellows in this show where “silly” always wins, the Uruguayan actor says. “If I’m making you laugh, you’re already on my side. And then maybe I’ll charge you for the laughs by making you reflect on what you’ve been laughing at.” Also approaching identity from a place of silliness is Dre Spisto, a professional “art buffoon” whose El Dizzy Beast – a tender, explosive blend of performance art and comedy – centres a queer, autistic, Latinx caterpillar. Spisto, who cannot currently return home to Venezuela, conceived of the show as a way to deal with post-pandemic loss, and as an ongoing reckoning with their identity as an immigrant “living two realities”; an autistic person searching for connection; a demisexual person in an open relationship. Being a caterpillar is “to explore unbecomRewind ing,” Spisto says. “Especially when you come Photo: Héctor Manchego

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“If I’m making you laugh, you’re already on my side” Guido García Lueches

Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear An(dre)a Spisto

from an immigrant background where your parents have sacrificed so much for you to be here, we’re always so focused on how successful you’re going to be. But what if I don’t want to become a butterfly? What if I’m in transition my whole life?” The show is a space of joy and visibility for queer and trans people: “Sometimes our defences are so high that it’s hard to feel joy and connection. But I’m going to show up and risk being open with an audience, because that’s how I can be brave.” 22

Theatre

The Ephemeral Ensemble’s Rewind takes political violence and resistance in Latin America as its focus, weaving physical theatre from the testimonies of refugees exiled from Latin America to the UK in the 70s, and those who migrated here between 2019-2022. Revolving around a criminal investigation into the disappearance of a woman named Alicia, it’s a dramatisation of the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated work of forensic anthropology: the scientific but also symbolic process of recovering the remains of those “disappeared” by political violence – seeking closure for their loved ones, but also as an act of defiance against authoritarian regimes. “Something the show does quite beautifully is that there is this reconciliation to pain,” director Ramon Ayres shares. “And though the performance is based in Latin America, the piece looks to the trauma and injuries of many nations, and brings the past, present, and future into dialogue.” It’s a performance of immense scope, which began with one word: “resistance.” With its fascinating multidisciplinary approach and analogue aesthetic – to mimic a criminal investigation happening in real time – Rewind poeticises forensic work in deeply lyrical ways. “People say the forensic anthropologists give voice to the bones,” Ayres says. “The bones reveal the truth.” SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME: SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Playing Latinx Summerhall 6:55pm – 7:55pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14, 21 An(dre)a Spisto: El Dizzy Beast Assembly George Square Studios 10:30pm – 11:30pm, 15–27 Aug, not 21 Rewind Summerhall 11:40am – 12:40pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14, 21

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‘Continually unexpected’

Pina Bausch’s

THE RITE OF SPRING

The Rite of Spring © Maarten Vanden Abeel | Charity No SC004694

The Guardian

WITH COMMON GROUND[S] BY GERMAINE ACOGNY & MALOU AIRAUDO AUDIO DESCRIBED

17–19 AUGUST | EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE

Supported by James and Morag Anderson

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The Empire Strikes Back The acclaimed playwright Ed Edwards’ England & Son was written for Mark Thomas. Their story began at the Fringe, five years ago. Words: Si Hawkins

Photo: Alex Brenner

Theatre

Ed: Where did we first meet? Mark: I came to see your show, at Summerhall, because it looked great: The Political History of Smack and Crack? I’m in. Then we met outside as I was enthusing about it in my normal calm way. We started having these great old natters about colonialism, empire, all of that. Ed: Then I had an idea, and thought ‘ooh, Mark’d like this.’ For me [England & Son], it’s a horror story, a ghost story, about how Britain is haunted by this sense that we’re still an oppressive nation. All this stuff about Saudi Arabia, but we’re bombing Yemen, Syria, Libya. That attitude of liberal intervention comes straight out of the empire playbook; ‘we’re civilizing them!’ So it’s sort of about that, for me. Mark: I like to think it’s a psychological Greek tragedy set within the context of the British Empire. Ed: Exactly. That’s far better. Mark: It’s a good excuse for me to run around, play different characters. One of the things I love about your writing: that rawness, it doesn’t feel filtered, it’s an exciting way of performing. I’ve acted some characters in my other shows, and I did a breakfast play at the Traverse – they promised me a bacon roll, and I’m fairly cheap – but this is the first time that I’ve been in someone else’s play. Ed: But you also manage to be yourself. Because that was my worry, that people would be thinking ‘great, a Mark Thomas show,’ then turn up and go ‘what the fuck is this?’ So I was really relieved that it’s still a Mark Thomas show. Because I was thinking ‘oh my god, we’ll have to put a warning on it.’

trust you to write something that’s going to be exciting. Ed: And then we need Cressida [Brown, director] to come and say ‘what the fuck does this mean?’ She’s the force there. Mark: Cress is amazing. You and I both have the capacity to go off on tangents at the drop of a hat. I always knew there’d be awkward days, slightly out of my comfort zone. And what Cress is brilliant at, she provides incredible structure, really insightful. It’s brilliant to work with people you really like and respect. Ed: What is nice, is having someone to write for who inspires you. Fest: Could you become the Scorsese and De Niro of experimental theatre? Ed: I’m up for it. Mark: We regard this show as our Taxi Driver moment. And now we’re going to be working towards our Goodfellas. SHOW VENUE: TIME:

England & Son Roundabout @ Summerhall times vary, 2–27 Aug, not 8, 15, 19, 22

Features

Photo: Alex Brenner

Mark: ‘No knob gags.’ Ed: I think there are a couple. The thing is, I want it to be entertaining too. I couldn’t write something that hasn’t got lots of twists and turns, and jokes. Mark: What I’d like people to get out of this, I’d like people to think ‘I want to come back to the theatre.’ I went to drama school when I was 18, which I loved; within the first term I was in someone’s assessment play, painting myself for a body art thing. So I’ve that kind of background, and I haven’t gone back to that at all. But then this is not traditional theatre. Ed: I do write plays, but it’s not naturalism, people don’t walk on and have conversations. As soon as I see a sofa on stage, I’ve got to leave. Mark: I’m like that with French windows. I think, ‘some cunt’s coming through that with a tennis racket.’ Ed: Right. So I always try to do something different. Did you try the new ending last night? Mark: I did, and I love the fact that we’re about to go to Edinburgh, and we go ‘fuck, whats the ending?’ That’s thrilling. I always

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Fest Party 2023 @ The Voodoo Rooms Photography: Charlotte Cullen

Party Ghost Wasteman

Michelle Brasier

Launch Party

Blub Blub

27 Features

Gillian Cosgriff Blub Blub

Party Ghost

est is back in action for another year and to celebrate, we teamed up with Glayva to throw the party to end all parties. We invited our pals and all our favourite Festival folk to the magnificent Voodoo Rooms, where everyone was treated to a Glayva glocktail to celebrate our 21st birthday. Alongside great company, fantastic drinks and of course, stunning magazines, we were lucky enough to have canapés courtesy of the venue, a photobooth via Blushbooth and entertainment from fabulous hostess Michelle Brasier, bin man drag queen Wasteman, comedy duo Shelf, Australian circus supremos Party Ghost and Melbourne International Comedy Festival award-winner Gillian Cosgriff. The team from Trunk Theatre Project also provided roaming performances from their charming theatre show Blub Blub. We danced the night away to tunes supplied by The Skinny and Fest DJs, and then

Shelf

everyone was lucky enough to go away with a free tote bag which included delicious Glayva miniatures, various goodies from the Adelaide Fringe, organic, plastic-free tampons from Daye (courtesy of Gilded Balloon), pencils from Carte Blanche, magazines from The Skinny and brochures and flyers from acts and venues including The Stand. A big thank you to everyone that made it along on the night, to our incredible acts and to The Skinny’s Tom McCarthy for all his efforts with the planning and organisation. Same again next year?

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Photo: Van Corona

Comedy Reviews

Bill O’Neill: The Amazing Banana Brothers HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 10:00pm – 11:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

There’s a large bucket on stage, overflowing with bananas and a blackboard on the wall with the word ‘tally’ written in all caps. Tonight, two daredevil brothers will take on the impossible in their attempts to slip on 1,000 banana peels – a stunt requiring extreme grit and gusto. Headliner Kevin Calamity is the embodiment of toxic masculinity, an eyepatch, moustache and foul attitude distinguishing him from his younger, meeker brother, Joey 28

Comedy

Insanity. But when Calamity is unable to complete the show, Insanity is forced to step up, his endearing nervous energy carrying him through a number of death-defying stunts. With Natalie Palamides – winner of the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer in 2017 – on board as the director, The Amazing Banana Brothers was bound to be packed with a very particular brand of surreal, unpredictable and at times unsettling humour. But the absurdity is not arbitrary or frivolous; the slapstick stunts, maniacal spirit and uneasy tension all contribute to a cocktail of anxieties around grief and failure.

Bill O’Neill is phenomenal in his clowning and audience interplay, succeeding in his use of the banana as the primary motif all the way through. It becomes a grenade, a gun, a piece of spaghetti à la Lady and the Tramp and so much more, the smell of mushed-up and mangled banana increasingly overwhelming everything else in the room. Ultimately, you may ask yourself: how funny can slipping on a banana peel over and over again actually be? Turns out, it might equally be the funniest and most profound thing you see all Fringe. ✏︎ Arusa Qureshi

The Poor Rich

HHHHH TIME:

Assembly Roxy 10:00pm – 11:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 15

Exploring greed through the lens of absurdity, The Poor Rich is a physical comedy about money and power. Gemma Soldati’s masterful clown performance is fearless, silly and laugh-out-loud funny. Half-bank manager-half dominatrix, Soldati wants all of your money and valuables and she’s going to seduce, threaten and trick you to hand them

over. Using effective props, hilarious facial expression and with impeccable comic timing, she sets out to run a business, while diving into the heart of contemporary issues. The show is heavily reliant on audience participation, and tonight’s audience is definitely game, literally barking on command. It’s noisy and chaotic as Soldati becomes increasingly desperate, pulling back credit lines with questionable methods to meet her financial targets. She eventually gets caught out, but lands on her

feet in the end – not dissimilar to many people running unscrupulous businesses – and she’s built up enough credit to keep the audience on side when she gets away with it. It’s a real feat to make social commentary about the capitalist world with your bosom hanging out, but Soldati manages to pull it off. The Poor Rich asks important questions and is simultaneously ridiculous, landing somewhere between excellence and absolute nonsense, and it works. ✏︎ Veronica Finlay

Review

VENUE:

Photo: HanJie Chow

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Nabil Abdulrashid: The Purple Pill HHHHH

TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 6:05pm – 7:05pm, 2–27 Aug, not 15

When we’re next congratulating ourselves with an ecstatic, mutual backslap about how ‘anyone can put on a show’ at the Fringe, we’d do well to think of Nabil Abdulrashid. Despite establishing himself as a comedian over several years, despite the Fringe’s grip on the UK comedy scene, getting on Britain’s Got Talent seemed a more realistic goal for Abdulrashid than doing an Edinburgh show. On the back of his TV success, with no real need to do Edinburgh at all, Abdulrashid is now here. And perhaps because he doesn’t need to grease up the comedy industry The Purple Pill is an hour with no time wasted. He manages to side-step easy categorising: he isn’t keen on the division of right and the left in politics; he wants to be a good dad to his two daughters (while knowing he doesn’t have all the answers); he’s perceptive about the impact a developmental disorder can have over a life – but how, in the wrong hands, such labels can be abused. But his activism, his ethics, his thoughtfulness about the wider social context is all very practical and conversational. He successfully interrupts our echo chambers – simply by offering a point of view that’s wrapped in modesty and understanding. 30

Comedy

Photo: Matt Stronge

VENUE:

The Purple Pill is also wrapped in jokes, Abdulrashid is never far away from a punchline, and the laughter,

sometimes his own, spreads around the room with contagious joy. ✏︎ Ben Venables

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Photo: Matt Crockett

Mary O’Connell: Money Princess HHHHH In drawing on her own money anxieties, O’Connell takes TIME: the ever uncomfortable topic of finances and pushes it to a point of comical comfortability. It’s a welcoming perforIt begins with fanfare – cash, mance that is equal parts luminous pink, blasting music thoughtful and feel-good. – and deservedly so. Mary From OnlyFans and girlbossing, O’Connell’s debut show Money to Nectar Points and healing Princess interrogates the crystals, topics we may think possibility of joy in late-stage are tired and overdone becapitalism with shameless come far from it with O’Connell. honesty, self-awareness, and Such is truly a testament to an impressive attentiveness. her fresh ingenuity. Framed by the cost of living Amid the money chat, she crisis, the set questions who also questions the role of we are, who we want to be, the comedian and makes a and why we’re so comfy letnumber of astute and necting capitalism come between essary points on identity and the two. audience expectations within VENUE:

Pleasance Courtyard 6:00pm – 7:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 15

Comedy

comedy. It’s incisive, generous, and still very funny. But it’s also clear that O’Connell is a truly talented storyteller; there’s a real warmth to each returning narrative. And, each unexpected turn is fun – for both the audience and O’Connell, who brings an easy excitement to her discussion of financial fears. Undeniably, there’s also a certain trustworthiness in her humourous yet conscious approach to these harsh realities. The irony is clear: within just a few minutes of this show about late-stage capitalism, the audience is left with an insatiable desire for more. ✏︎ Eilidh Akilade

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

The Stand Comedy Club 2 4:00pm – 5:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

He may look, as he puts it, like a Republican senator’s son or the villain in a basketball movie, but Philipp Kostelecky is an exciting new stand-up who’s not afraid to get mucky or dark – occasionally simultaneously. His clean-cut demeanour contrasts with some material that you wouldn’t want to watch with your parents (some of it a little too near the knuckle, as it were), but

he’s got the kind of presence and confidence in his skills to give the impression that he’s as surprised as we are about what he comes out with. Kostelecky, who’s six foot four, is Austrian, Slovenian and American, his accent mainly settling in the latter territory. The youngest, and favourite, of four kids, he grew up without his dad, and many of the father figures he cultivated in his mind (male comedians) have been cancelled. As per the title, he also plays with the use of the term “daddy”, but at its heart this is a show about relationships and

the denial of mental health problems, all lubricated with some astute and unusual observations, committed mimes and quality jokes. Stark truths about the cost of living are handled cleverly and one particular memory of his father would make for a fascinating short story. Kostelecky’s only 25 but he’s already got the slickness of someone who’s been doing this for decades. One might say there’s something of a young Alex Edelman about his style. Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a contender. ✏︎ Ashley Davies

Review

Philipp Kostelecky: Daddy’s Home

Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

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LEE MARTIN FOR GAG REFLEX AND ROYAL CARIBBEAN ENTERTAINMENT PRESENT

A TA L E O F I N D I A N M A G I C

“BEN HART IS A MASTER”

AS SEEN ON

BRITAIN’S

GOT TALENT

& PURE MAGIC Sell Out Show 2017 - 2019

12+

18:00

02 - 27 AUG

PALAIS DU VARIÉTÉ

Review

Louise Young: Feral HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 7:25pm – 8:25pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14 Photo: Jiksaw

“I promise I’m not exaggerating things for comic effect,” laughs Louise Young, towards the end of this increasingly eventful hour. “If anything I’m playing them down.” Young’s debut is a bit of a Trojan Horse, rolling in with a bunch of relatable but not particularly clever club stuff, then throwing open the doors and letting great hordes of gobsmacking material flood out. It is quite the life she led, having left her native north east for north east London, and things hardly calmed down further south, from doing a runner while being sectioned to an epiphany in a police station. The show’s big turning point is a ‘stop being crazy’ class she was sent on, for an afternoon, which was hopelessly optimistic. But then she squeezes a lot into this hour too, particularly the second half; her Turkish heritage, the fear of coming out onstage, and that rich history of fraternising with wrong-uns, doing speed at work and being generally – her word – feral. Everything in excess. Nothing in moderation. In fact, you can’t help wondering if this gleefully dynamic comic has emptied out the envelope a bit early here, but there’s clearly a wealth of backstory still to come, and

a unique perspective on the surrounding issues, from mental health funding to multicultural family matters. She even leaves a cliffhanger

to whet appetites for the next show; something about being chased through a field by a helicopter. That should definitely do it. ✏︎ Si Hawkins

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Photo: Felicity Crawshaw

Amy Matthews: I Feel Like I’m Made of Spiders HHHHH Following two break-ups in a year, Amy Matthews’ system shut down and she found TIME: herself floating in between different states of mind, as well as jobs, flats and relationships. In I Feel Like I’m Made Amy Matthews turns the lens of Spiders, she tells the story on disassociation in her soph- about how she reconnectomore Fringe show, taking ed with herself and others, the audience on a personal making good use of audio and journey as she rebuilds her props along the way. life following a breakdown. Sharing her thoughts on She successfully weaves a Henry VIII, the aubergine emoji, mental health narrative with and the different types of chilhumorous observations in a dren at weddings, Matthews well-structured and enterkeeps the show upbeat and taining hour. light-hearted, while also VENUE:

Monkey Barrel Comedy (The Tron) 3:00pm – 4:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 9, 16, 23

Comedy

touching on real issues – such as the difficulty of finding a mental health professional or trying to get the attention of her best friend when her kids are around. It all amounts to an enjoyable and relaxed hour, delivered by a confident performer who is clearly in a better place now than a year ago. I Feel Like I’m Made of Spiders is witty rather than laugh-out-loud funny, but Matthews’ sharp observations and comic timing more than makes up for the lack of belly laughs. ✏︎ Veronica Finlay

SHOWS FROM DENMARK THAT OPEN YOUR MIND AND IGNITE YOUR CURIOSITY

August 2 – 27 danishedfringe DANISHedfringe danishedfringe.com

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Nathan D’Arcy Roberts: Present/Tense HHHHH

VENUE: TIME:

Gilded Balloon Teviot 4:20pm – 5:20pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

What a pleasure it is watching a show about identity from a confident storyteller with real star potential. Nathan D’Arcy Roberts announces right at the top that he doesn’t really know what this hour is about because he’s too deep into it. Even if that’s true, it doesn’t

matter a jot because there’s so much great material here. He talks about the “Where are you from from?” question, sharing some illuminating responses to his racial ambiguity, as well as dipping into DNA, family (handling several uncomfortable truths with ease), his girlfriend and observations on city life, never once losing momentum. His simile to explain the difference between anger and rage issues will stay with

you for some time, as will his theories about certain retail specialists, and one particular flight of fancy in a prison environment. There are a few stand-out bits that really show off what D’Arcy Roberts is capable of, and it’s worth buying a ticket just to hear his truly excellent story about an encounter with a couple of guys in San Francisco. There’s some lovely acting in this winning sequence too. Definitely one to watch. ✏︎ Ashley Davies Image: courtesy of Flick Morris PR

Comedy

Review

Ruby McCollister: Tragedy HHHHH

TIME:

Underbelly, Cowgate 5:45pm – 6:45pm, 3–27 Aug, not 15

Sunset Boulevard for jaded millennials, Ruby McCollister’s Fringe debut is an entertainingly delirious, stream-of-consciousness, overtly theatrical stumble through the seamy underside of Hollywood’s live fast, die young allure. A tragedian to her always performative bones, she grew up hanging around the low-rent Los Angeles theatre where her father was manager. Here, she was surrounded by, and thirstily absorbed the glamorous ghosts of stage and screen, most of whom had been destined to expire in obscurity. But some, like Marilyn Monroe and Karen Carpenter, became exemplars of the tragic idol. And all were McCollister’s role models. Experimenting with being-seen socialising, recreational drugs and eating disorders from a prodigiously early age, she nevertheless met her romantically nihilistic match in a French exchange student when she swapped everything but her intense personality to go study in Vermont. Flirting with genuine disaster and the base desires of her similarly affected Gallic squeeze, these people are absolutely exhausting to hear of. But you can’t quite tear your ears away from the approaching calamity.

Image: courtesy of Avalon

VENUE:

In song and wry, if melodramatically over-the-top soliloquy, McCollister is a wild-eyed, luminescent figure, quite aware of how ridiculous and self-obsessed she appears.

Still, she’s furiously dedicated herself to wringing maximum empathy and a fair few laughs out of the still twitching, beautified corpse of her youth. ✏︎ Jay Richardson

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

Theatre Reviews

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

England & Son HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Roundabout @ Summerhall times vary, 2–27 Aug, not 8, 15, 19, 22

Desperate, angry and loving, Ed Edwards’ play England & Son is a searing one-hander that burns on long after the audience has vacated their seats. Written especially for Mark Thomas, who gives a masterstroke performance, the play follows a young man whose life is brutalised by abuse and addiction. But the frame of this portrait also extends beyond the parameters of his own experience, to insist how the violence that 40

Theatre

the British Empire sanctioned in faraway places will inevitably be brought home. In less capable hands, such ambition and scope would result in an impassioned, but ultimately stilted political mouthpiece. Instead, the detail with which Edwards renders this young man’s world – both its cruelty, and its moments of compassion – makes these truths feel livedin. The rubber of the father’s scrapyard is a potent sign of how the evils of colonialism and free-market capitalism go hand-in-hand; but it’s also an indelible part of the narrator’s short childhood. And Thomas’ dynamicism ensures that our narrator is no mere symbol

of anything: he’s a living, breathing, funny and flawed boy whose horizons are rapidly collapsing around him. His treatment in the youth detention centres that were opened under the “short, sharp shock” policies of Margaret Thatcher’s government in particular strangles the air out of the room. But again, what prevents England & Son from backsliding into mere pain pornography is its insistence on joy, even beauty, as meaningful and essential lessons in creating a better world. Whether everyone is given access to such an education is another matter. ✏︎ Deborah Chu

Photo: Steve Ullathorne

Tartuffe

Blood of the Lamb

HHHHH TIME:

Assembly Rooms 2:10pm – 3:10pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14, 21

The fall of Roe v. Wade means abortion is now illegal or heavily restricted in 18 out of 50 US states. Though people living in blue states or outside of the US altogether may think their own reproductive rights are safe, Arlene Hutton’s new play is a stark warning that this is not the case. The intense two-hander takes place in Dallas, after the flight to New York that Nessa (Dana Brooke) was on

was diverted when she took ill. After waking up in hospital and finding out the baby she is carrying has died, Nessa just wants to get back to California and see her doctor. Then there’s Val (Elisabeth Nunziato), a lawyer appointed by the state to represent Nessa’s dead foetus. Val is part of a larger group of politicians and advisors who are trying to determine how to proceed and whether or not Nessa has committed a crime. Hutton drip-feeds plot points with an exquisite sense of timing. These dramatically

escalate the stakes because the longer Nessa has to wait to receive care, the more her life is at risk. Val’s religious convictions mean that she refuses to release Nessa and wave her through to departures. This is a powerful piece of activism, an excellently-crafted play, and perhaps more importantly, a public service announcement to anyone who can get pregnant: you are at risk even if you’re just visiting or passing through a place that has criminalised abortion. None of us can be complacent. ✏︎ Laura Kressly

Review

VENUE:

Photo: Jason Kuykendall

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Clown Sex HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard 1:45pm – 2:45pm, 2–27 Aug, not 16, 21

Echoing through plugholes, trickling down leaking pipes, and straight from the deviant’s mouth, Clown Sex is a triptych of lust, taboo and sexual euphoria. The show comes from the warped mind of Natasha Sut-

ton Williams, taking on the persona of Gary Strange who has moved into London’s sewer system. Here, he has a worm’seye view of his neighbours’ carnal lives, which he shares with lascivious relish. A primary teacher stuck in a rut, who simply cannot stop thinking about cock as she shepherds kids through the school day. A wannabe CEO using the guise of eccentricity to confess her worst carnal sin. Gary’s own story of fulfilling his biggest kink, sliding head(s) first into a clown. It is raw, it is twisted, it is

utterly addictive. Sutton Williams finds the edge of decency and hurls us all over, warping from character to deranged character as she does. Clown Sex is Roald Dahl on viagra, a dark carnival of debauchery that’s heart-clenchingly visceral whether you want it or not. By delving into the darker recesses of human desire, Clown Sex celebrates sexuality, fetish, pushing the line, indulging in what truly turns us on, regardless of whether the results are orgasmic or horrific. ✏︎ Kirstyn Smith Photo: Rowan Spray

Theatre

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Underbelly, Cowgate 2:15pm – 3:15pm, 3–27 Aug, not 14, 21

Following a group of four friends in South London, One Way Out is a complex look at the treatment of young men of colour and working class backgrounds. On receiving their A-Level results, their lives spin out from one another’s: university, work, the Home Office, and abuse. Its critique of our government and its violence – particularly in relation

joyful, and very necessary, One Way Out centres male platonic love with the depth and honesty it so deserves. The undeniably talented cast carries the story with such brilliance, their energy filling the room without force or falsity. There’s a unity and commitment to their movements, bursting across the stage with laughs and shouts. And yet, attentiveness isn’t sacrificed for grandeur; the slower, more sombre moments are approached with care. One Way Out is worth it, purely for this.

sive, and always utterly right. There’s a sense that the audience are meant to enjoy each laugh, to join in, and it’s warming to be welcomed in this way. There’s moments when the plot gets a little knotted: it’s unclear how one character came to know something or how much time has passed since the last scene. It demands we give into its logic – or, sometimes, lack of – but One Way Out makes this easy for us, with a cast and story so thoughtfully captivating. ✏︎ Eilidh Akilade

Review

Image: courtesy of Underbelly

crisis – is cruAmid this, its humour cuts One Way Out tocialtheandWindrush poignant. Angering, just right: silly, a bit subver-

PRESENTS

P M A W S E H T G N I DRAIN By D.R. HILL

Is fascism once again on the march? Does the legacy of Sir Oswald Mosley continue to feed populist, right wing movements? This provocative new play explores Mosley’s controversial life and activities, with a chilling contemporary punch. From the perspective of the 1960’s, and the emergence of the European Union, Sir Oswald Mosley looks back on his experiences in the 1930’s. The play brings to life the meteoric political rise of Mosley as a potential Labour Prime Minister, and the subsequent founding and development of the British Union of Fascists. We see Mosley and Diana Mitford on their wedding day at Joseph Goebbels’s house in Berlin, and witness the events leading up to the infamous Battle of Cable Street, before the Mosley’s are incarcerated in Holloway Prison, during the war. Mosley ponders on his legacy and the opportunities for future political leaders to communicate with and stir the masses. It ends with his legacy in 2019. #drainingtheswampplay CAST INCLUDES: ROWLAND D. HILL AS SIR OSWALD MOSLEY, TINA THOMAS AS LADY DIANA MOSLEY, PLUS GEORGIA WINTERS, SIMON POLO-CLARKE AND DAWSON JAMES. DIRECTED BY SU GILROY

HHHHH not capture the play’s fascinating destabilisation of the TIME: borders between perception and imagination, contrivance and realism, contorting theaLars von Trier’s Dogville – tre and cinema alike. either revered or reviled for This is a formally exhilaits alienating experimental rating meta-play. When Dusk form – is filmed entirely on begins, you don’t really know it a soundstage, and behaves has: house lights stay on, and like a piece of theatre. But as the actors casually introduce award-winning theatre-maker themselves to the audience. Christiane Jatahy writes in They tell us they’re working on her programme notes for an adaptation of Dogville, exDusk, while von Trier turned to perimenting with the concept theatre to make Dogville, she of “acceptance of the Other”. turned to Dogville to create Slowly, we slip into a version her play. of the film’s events. A digital While it would be simple to camera on stage manned describe Dusk as a stage adby the actors broadcasts aptation of Dogville, this would live footage onto the screen VENUE:

The Lyceum run ended

behind them. What happens on stage and on screen are physically layered: a spectacular palimpsest of realities, an inquiry into the shape of truth executed with brilliant technical ambition and prowess. Jatahy uses the framework of Dogville – a parable about the interpersonal roots of systemic evil – to exhume the conditions that permitted the election of Jair Bolsonaro’s fascist government in 2018. To do this, Dusk breaks open Dogville’s conclusion, releasing it from its Old Testament fatalism to seek a way forward: rejecting history’s repetition, its immovable endings. ✏︎ Xuanlin Tham

Review

Photo: Magali Dougados

Dusk

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Photo: Ste Murray

Heaven by Eugene O’Brien HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Traverse Theatre times vary, 3–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

The white-hot desires of two people who’ve not lived life to the fullest bubble over in this electric new play from Eugene O’Brien. Mairead (Janet Moran) and Mal (Andrew Bennett) are an Irish couple in their early 50s who have settled. There wasn’t much passion between the pair to begin with, but any that was there has long been extinguished. They married for the wrong reasons: Mairead wanted a quiet man after a string of wild affairs with charismatic drunks, while Mal saw married life as a way to put paid to the homosexual fantasies he’s had since his days as an altar-boy staring up at a shredded Jesus on the cross. They are happy, though: they’re best pals, proper partners. But one night, at a family wedding back in their dilapidated hometown, each carve out a night of heaven for themselves. The play is delivered as a pair of criss-crossing monologues, which makes perfect sense for a couple exploring carnal hungers they could never share. Mairead’s is the most vivid, ripe and lyrical and extremely horny, with Moran relishing her character’s vivacious wit. Bennett’s role is more tragi-comic. He has a lot of fun with Mal’s gay panic, 46

Theatre

particularly after he snorts up some Dutch courage at the wedding reception, although there’s a disappointing sense that O’Brien doesn’t quite take Mal’s yearnings as seriously as Mairead’s. She certainly

has more dimensions; her character feels more lived in. Taken together, though, this is an overwhelmingly compassionate portrait of marriage, brimming over with wit and pathos. ✏︎ Jamie Dunn

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Andronicus Synecdoche HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Zoo Southside 8:20pm – 9:35pm, 4–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

Titus Andronicus is arguably Shakespeare’s most violent play. In Song of the Goat’s version, condensing it to just over an hour concentrates its violence and brings the women characters to the fore. These features, and the large cast, use of music, and striking design, make this a powerful adaptation about the consequences of war. Though the title of Shakespeare’s original suggests the

play belongs to Roman general Titus, this version is Tamora’s, the goth queen taken hostage during the war that precedes the play’s start. The revenge she engineers, and that which Titus enacts in return, is fully staged whereas much of the other action is speedily narrated rather than played out. Though this means some knowledge of the story would be beneficial so as to understand the context around the staged scenes, this clever approach highlights key moments that drive the message home. In this case, the takeaway is that ultimately,

no one really wins a war. Both sides endure awful suffering as a result of their desperate need to make each other feel as much pain as possible. As well as the narration, choral singing and movement sequences emphasise the religion and militarism that drives the story. Angular choreography and all-black costumes create a sense of unrelenting brutality. The only major issue is that Aaron is a white actor, though often referred to as black. Apart from this, the clear concept and message make this production one to see. ✏︎ Laura Kressly Photo: Domas Rimeika

Theatre

HHHHH a wish to find her childhood farm. And so they trek through a South Africa blighted by civil war. Presenting a theatrical adapK’s simplicity gives him a tation of JM Coetzee’s 1983 limited understanding of Booker Prize-winning novel, the conflict. Filtered through Baxter Theatre fluidly fold his mind, the war takes on a puppetry and film into this Kafkaesque quality – the initial performance. The protagoof his surname a direct literary nist, Michael K, is a gardener allusion. His modest desires and also a simple man. His and tenacity throughout the innocence is due to an innate perilous journey compel us to slow-wittedness or a lack empathise with his otherof play with other children worldly perspective. when a boy (his mother held The puppet representing K him back because of her own artfully reveals his emaciatdiscomfort with his cleft lip – ed figure, showing both his fearing the snide remarks it constant hunger and the wiry might attract). strength of his personality. Now, as K’s mother’s health The use of film to depict fails in her old age, he honours his traversal of the landVENUE: TIME:

Assembly Hall 12:00pm – 2:20pm, 4–27 Aug, not 14, 21

scape establishes the vital link between him and the natural environment. The play’s pacing does falter – certain narrative points are redundantly explained by the actors, despite us grasping the visual clues. Yet the production creatively captures episodic moments of Coetzee’s novel, such as K’s efforts to hunt and grow food – the performers guiding the puppets with grace and understanding. In another key scene there’s a confident pause; a long silence that seemingly plays a discordant note, portraying the first shock of grief, deepening our connection to the character. ✏︎ Ben Venables

Review

Photo: Fiona McPherson

JM Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

theSpace @ Niddry St 6:05pm – 6:55pm, 4–26 Aug, not 13

Great literary figures collide in this monologue biography of Truman Capote, as written by Scottish author Andrew O’Hagan, the writer of Mayflies. It’s his debut play, which is a big deal, and the performance we saw had the capacity audience to prove it. Yet these are also modest circumstances in which O’Hagan can test the theatrical waters; not at the Traverse or the International Festival, but in a converted function room in a Royal Mile hotel. A proper Fringe debut. Writer and director, O’Hagan and the play’s sole performer Patrick Moy imbue the whole enterprise with a touch of class. The setting is New York’s Plaza Hotel in November 1966, just before Capote’s Black and White Ball at the same location, the famed ‘Party of the Century’ which united the literati, film stars and international grandees of the era in a definitive event of the American 20th century. Capote waits in his hotel room, fielding calls about the infamous guestlist, reflecting on his life and dropping names like Hemingway, Parker and Arthur Miller into anecdotes told for his own benefit. Moy’s performance is note-perfect, nailing the impudent falsetto of Capote’s voice, and a certain tone of

bold confidence mixed with creeping self-doubt which ties with his public persona; and, of course, his failure to write a follow-up to 1965’s In Cold Blood in his subsequent two decades of life. The beauty of the picture being painted,

however, masks a certain dramatic inertia to proceedings. We feel we know Capote more by the end, but we wonder if this interior journey might not have worked at least as well were it printed as prose on the page. ✏︎ David Pollock

Review

Image: courtesy of Michelle Mangan PR

The Ballad Of Truman Capote

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Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus Reviews

Review

new extreme, showcasing only one performer for the HHHHH 40 minute show. Instead the focus shifts back to the thrilling experience of being in a VENUE: Assembly Murrayfield circus big top; using darkness, Ice Rink shadow, pinpricks of light and TIME: times vary, 4–27 Aug, a dramatic soundtrack to not 15, 22 draw parallels with majestic desert night skies, or the hushed reverence inside a The Budapest dance and mystical place of worship. modern circus company, A custom built space has Recirquel have brought been created in Murrayfield staggering, pared back shows Ice Rink, and suspense builds to the Fringe before, where as the audience waits to be unnecessary frills are edited led through a dark tunnel for out, leaving all eyes on the the spectacle to begin. An extraordinary talents of its illuminati style cape conceals performers. This year, artistic a spectral shape, moving director Bence Vági takes his in a graceful and slightly minimal approach to a brave spooky way towards the

Photo: Bálint Hirling

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crowd. Pacing and precision dominate the choreography where controlled bursts of athleticism on aerial straps are mixed with graceful dance sequences. A religious score of low chanting gives way to a soaring classical melody, and the astonishing gymnast (there are four taking turns during the Fringe run) seems to reach a kind of spiritual ecstasy as she carves and swings through the cavernous space. A dazzling, impressive and memorable moment of calm within the busy Fringe, although it will be interesting to see if the company gives other performers a chance to shine again in future shows. ✏︎ Claire Sawers

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Common Dissonance HHHHH

flirting, tussling, comforting, but not necessarily always in TIME: harmony – we also see moody huffing, physical pain, winding each other up. After passing underneath the Circus founder Harvey Mann giant inflatable gibbon guard- is from the Wakka Wakka ing the entrance to House of nation in central Queensland Oz, we are ‘welcomed to coun- and does a mean routine with try’ by Melbourne’s Na Djinang diabolo and indigenous sign Circus. Without reading any of language. He set up Na Djinang the blurb, what immediately to bring a First Australian becomes obvious is a trio of perspective to the comperformers in silent symbioplex modern world; the title sis. There is a non-hierarchical, Common Dissonance reflects non-patriarchal grace to their universal disagreements and acrobatics and dance, teshow we disentangle ourselves sellating around each other, from problems. VENUE:

House of Oz 4:30pm – 5:20pm, 4–27 Aug, not 9, 14, 21

Jessica Connell performs some of the best hula hoop you will ever see, staged in a minimal way with a soft electro soundtrack, just six hoops whirring around her taut muscles, a smooth blur of criss-crossing angles and absolutely precise grace. Johnny Brown brings elegance to his muscular dance and acrobatics with body paint, traditional art, origami and water also dropping in for some short cameos. Simple staging from a strong trio, with powerful results. ✏︎ Claire Sawers Photo: Bridget Brigg

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus

Review

Photo: Matt Crockett

Cabaret Reviews Ben Hart: Jadoo HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Assembly George Square Gardens 6:00pm – 7:00pm, 2–27 Aug, not 14

Magic thrives on storytelling. Consider the difference between a sleight of hand card trick performed skilfully but without fanfare, and one which has an hour-long backstory and threads that weave in and out of a narrative that pulls you out of reality and into Ben Hart’s enticing world. In Jadoo, Hart’s literary arc revolves around a recent trip to India undertaken to discover 56

Cabaret

nature, the universe and what real magic actually is. The lines between reality and magic are more blurred than we think, Hart explains, demonstrating with an unassuming, gentle kind of trickery, unnoticeable at times until he points it out. There’s a sense of calm throughout, as though Hart has discovered exactly what he was looking for on his pilgrimage and is waiting for the correct moment to unleash the answers to all the universe’s questions. Taking inspiration from Indian street magicians, jadoowallahs, Hart whirls through sleight of hand,

conjuring and illusion, before exploring fakirs’ beliefs that the concept of life and death is all in the mind and that, subsequently, pain is too. With Jadoo, Hart is doing something quite beautiful: inviting audiences to step beyond the veil, to question whether we are the reflection or the reflectee, whether our experiences aren’t just a mass hallucination. Taking the dark of life with the light, Hart has created a show that is both enchanting and eerie, exploring the concept of what is trick and what is truth. ✏ Kirstyn Smith

Dizney in Drag: Once Upon a Parody

HHHHH

TIME:

Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 6:30pm – 7:30pm, 3–27 Aug, not 7, 14, 21

It’s common knowledge that some of the most popular Disney films and characters have their origins in the dark fairy tales of storytellers like the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. But as twisted as those stories can be, they’ve never included sex toys, menstrual fluid and pegging – until now.

Dizney in Drag: Once Upon a Parody is a riotous hour of raunchy, horny pantomime magic, featuring all your favourite Disney classics. The narrative is purposely cliché, centring on a stereotypical Disney hero as he heads off on his journey to find his one true love, assisted by a magnificent pink-bearded Hairy Godmother. It’s here he encounters the likes of a coked-up Snow White, sex-curious Ariel and Gaston in a strap on, all played expertly by drag kings and queens with striking and

colourful costumes. From the goofy opening rendition of ‘Be Our Guest’ to Ariel’s kink-tastic ‘Part Of Your World’, each song and performance is delivered by The Hairy Godmothers with cheek-filled undertones in a very sex-positive manner that encourages the audiences to get on board. Dizney in Drag is a silly, raunchy show but in its takedown of toxic masculinity and discussions around consent, it also touches on some valuable life lessons. ✏ Arusa Qureshi

Review

VENUE:

Photo: Emma Basc

Review

Photo: Alex Brenner

Music Reviews After The Act (A Section 28 Musical) HHHHH Breach Theatre’s musical After the Act excavates stoTIME: ries from that dark period in not 4, 7, 14, 21 British history, with every word coming from activists, teachOne night in 1988, as the BBC ers, politicians, and students went on air to present the six who lived through Section 28. o’clock news, two activists Twenty years after its repeal, stormed on set and handit’s clear that the law’s impact cuffed themselves to the has had an indelible effect on newsdesk. They were there to an entire generation of young protest Section 28: a new piece queer people, who are today of legislation which forbade lo- in their middle age. cal authorities from ‘intentionThe ensemble cast of Ellice ally promoting homosexuality’. Stevens, Tika Mu’tamir, EM Under this law, it became illegal Williams and Zachary Willis is for councils to advance proastonishingly good, capturing gressive agendas, fund LGBTQ+ the deeply rooted anger and initiatives – and speak about pain in these testimonials, homosexuality in schools. but also their joy, humour and VENUE:

Traverse Theatre, times vary, 3–27 Aug,

hope as people across society rise up to fight the law. Its thrumming synth soundtrack and beautifully emotive choreography further elevate what’s happening on stage, which feels vital in both senses of the word – as something absolutely important, and deeply alive. For not only does After the Act preserve the past, but it also draws chilling parallels to the culture wars embroiling our current moment, particularly around the far-right’s backlash against trans rights. Where we go now is up to us; just as long as we never go back. ✏ Deborah Chu

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Kids Critics Grow Alvie, two years and two months, cultivates joy and play in a show for tiny gardeners Photo: Alice Tucker

What happens in the show? Babies and little kids are drawn into a simple story about a beginner gardener minding her friend’s allotment for a few days and trying to grow flowers. We meet a tiny robin and bumblebee, someone gets on the wrong end of a garden hosepipe (because taps and water are always hilarious and fascinating, obvs) and the weather keeps us guessing (a strong Edinburgh theme). All the wee ones get handed things to smell and shake, there are songs to learn and singalong to, packets of seeds to take home, plus a relaxed mini arts and crafts session for decorating plant pots at the end. What did you like most about the show? It’s a gentle, playful, interactive show co-written by Scots-Indian writer Niall Moorjani with Diana Redgrave and Vickie Holden. Nothing too frantic or zany happens, the 60

Kids

children were kept enthralled and the entry level intro to plant appreciation for the very young was cute. Was there anything you didn’t like? It’s quite a small room, with kids on laps and some adults cross legged on the floor so leave any bags behind and go early for a comfy spot. What did your grown-up think? Loved it. Wholesome content that Alvie immediately got into, not a crazy ticket price either.

Plus the Storytelling Centre is an excellent space for letting toddlers play for a bit while grown-ups get a coffee too. Bonus. Would you tell your friends to go? Deffo. It’s part sensory play session, part sweet storytime with songs. SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Grow Scottish Storytelling Centre 10:30am – 11:10am, 4–27 Aug, not 9, 16, 23

61 Reviews

Kids Critics Sea Dragon For Under 5s Emerald, two-and-a-half-years old, dives in for an underwater adventure

What did you like most about the show? There are lots of puppets and songs in Sea Dragon For Under 5s, and lots of fun things to play with. When you go in, you’re given a shiny bag full of colourful and noisy things that you’re asked to take out at different points in the show. It was really fun, and I got a sticker at the end. Was there anything you didn’t like? No. I thought I might be a bit scared of the dragon before the show, but he was really nice and friendly. What did your grown-up think? My mummy liked playing with the toys in the sack as much as I did, and she liked that there was a pianist playing live on stage.

Would you tell your friends to go? Yes, especially the ones that like songs and puppets. We’re also going to tell our baby friends about Sea Dragon for Babies, which happens right after this show at 11am.

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Sea Dragon for Under 5s Pleasance Courtyard

10:00am – 10:40am, 2–20 Aug, not 16 Image: courtesy of Pleasance

What happens in the show? At the beginning, we meet three kelpies, who look a bit like the Muppets. They call their friend, Kipper the Sea Dragon, to help them bring colour back to the coral reefs in the ocean. Kipper swims through the ocean and asks lots of friends – like some seahorses, a starfish and a jellyfish – for help.

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Comedy 09:30

A Political Breakfast PBH’s Free Fringe @ Burrito ‘n’ Shake, 16–27 Aug