A Life in Three Acts (part one)
August 30, 2009
Traverse
18-30 Aug, times vary
“As the old prostitute said: it’s not the work, it’s the stairs” quips Bette Bourne as he takes his seat opposite interviewer Mark Ravenhill and proceeds to divulge an extraordinary personal history. Read more
Bane
August 30, 2009
Pleasance Dome
5-31 Aug, 3.30pm
“The name’s Bane, Bruce Bane. I’m a hired hand that gets the job done. I don’t waste time and I take no prisoners…”
So begins Bane, the one man film noir pastiche that’s got both movie geeks and theatre buffs excited over at the Pleasance Dome. The show shouldn’t really work and certainly not on this reviewer, whose film tastes are Clueless in more ways than one. But Bane has been one of the happiest surprises of my Fringe experience. Read more
Scots Mack & Bissett Win Stage Acting Awards
August 30, 2009
The results of this year’s Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at the Edinburgh Fringe have been announced, with homegrown talent taking the prizes in the top two categories.
Scottish performers Billy Mack and Cora Bissett took the Best Actor and Actress awards, Mack for The Sound of My Voice, a Glasgow Citizens production at Assembly, and Bissett for Midsummer (A Play With Songs) at the Traverse (one of the venue’s seven nominations).
Chair of the awards William McEvoy said this year’s nominations proved that “storytelling is back with a vengeance”, adding that he felt 2009 has been an “extraordinary year with numerous outstanding shows and performances”. Nearly 350 productions were considered for the awards, which are judged each year by The Stage newspaper’s senior reviewing team.
Other winners this year were Belfast-based Green Shoot Productions, who won Best Ensemble for Chronicles of Long Kesh at Assembly, and George Mann, who won Best Solo Performer for his physical retelling of Homer’s Odyssey in Theatre ad Infinitum’s production at the Pleasance Dome.
THE STAGE AWARDS FOR ACTING EXCELLENCE WINNERS
BEST ACTOR
BEST ACTRESS
BEST ENSEMBLE
BEST SOLO PERFORMER
Sammy J in the Forest of Dreams
August 30, 2009
Underbelly
6-31 Aug, 10.15pm
Sammy J’s life is falling to bits and the films of his idol Walt Disney have nothing to offer by way of help or guidance. He expresses his sense of deep loss in an opening number entitled “Fuck you Disney”, which draws our attention to the fact that Walt was a Nazi; then he finds himself sucked through a portal to an enchanted forest where he, among other things, stages a coup, steals his best friend’s girl, and does some extremely questionable drawings of the King of the forest enjoying a squirrel. Read more
Ward No 6
August 30, 2009
C Cubed
7-31 Aug, 4.10pm
Having recently formed from graduates of Drama Studio London, DogOrange presents an adaptation of Chekhov’s short story Ward No 6.
We walk in to find four lunatics in filthy hospital gowns, each one with their own tics and torments. After some kind of occult ritual, one of them is called upon to play the role of Dr Ragin, and the rest of the play tells his story. An ambitious and foolhardy psychiatrist, Ragin becomes fascinated by Gromov, one of the patients on Ward 6. Read more
The Penny Dreadfuls Present … The Never Man
August 30, 2009
Pleasance Courtyard
7-31 Aug, 8.30pm
Having made their name at the fringe with sketches in the Victorian style, comic trio The Penny Dreadfuls have changed tack this year, presenting a James Bond-style thriller set on the fictional Beef Island.
Evil genius Dr Lovable is using the island’s theme park as cover for a dastardly operation to rule the world with beef, and the only hope of stopping him comes in the form of an ex-policeman, dismissed for massacring owls, and an eight year-old giant. Read more
Eurotrash
August 30, 2009
Gilded Balloon
10-31 Aug, 5.30pm
Sirqus Alfon’s production, like many Fringe shows, defies categorization. Melding acrobatics, slapstick physical humour, along with hyperrealist dance tunes, and the technological lingo usually reserved for computer game aficionados, Eurotrash is a bustling and joyous feast for the senses. Read more
Party
August 30, 2009
Assembly Rooms, George Street
7-31 Aug, 2.25pm
Political satire is one of those strange breeds of narrative work, which audiences often approach with a degree of caution. Luckily for us, former if.comedy winner Tom Basden has penned an accessible, humour-filled take on the genre that manages to reveal a nuanced argument about political hypocrisy, whilst also maintaining an effortless sketch show-like experience. Read more
The Hotel
August 30, 2009
Assembly @ George Street
5-31 Aug, 4.00pm
This sublime example of experiential theatre is one of the Fringe’s best-conceived and certainly funniest offerings this year. It’s a logistically impressive undertaking which, whilst providing a wholly personalised and random experience, also builds to a satisfying denouement. Read more
Weepie
August 30, 2009
C soco
18-31 Aug, 9.25pm
Chris Goode is a dramatist I generally admire, but Weepie, first seen in 1996, is nowhere near his strongest work. It’s a play in which the central issue is muddled by obscurity, where ambiguity and abstraction create befuddlement and a deep sense of having missed something. Read more
EIF: 14 August-6 September
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