Best of This Week’s Edinburgh Blogs – 14 Aug 2009
Having settled into life in Edinburgh, Whatsonstage.com’s Fringe bloggers began discovering the highs and lows of the festival. Michael Coveney experienced life from the other side of the footlights (almost) as a review he had written of a non-existent musical was improvised into a show with a lascivious director, a bit of Bob Fosse and, just for good measure, lots and lots of singing birds.
For This Mortal Coil’s Mark Matthews, however, this week meant a tech rehearsal and a tech rehearsal meant everything spontaneously failing to work. Meanwhile, for Tangram producer Hannah Spens-Black it was a taste of one of Edinburgh’s most renowned lows – the fall from opening euphoria to the reality of how many people are (or aren’t) in the audience.
On the Edinburgh Fringe Blog, Laura Corcoran gave an insight into one rather manic day at the Fringe – including a performance at the intriguingly named Spank!. Trestle Theatre, meanwhile, celebrated being top of the physical and dance theatre shows at the festival on Ed Twinge, and in the process challenged The Stage’s Mark Shenton, who’s giving this year’s Fringe a miss, on his view that audience reviews are making it impossible to distinguish “the wheat from the chaff”.
Finally, it was a challenge of a very different nature for Anil Desai on the Gilded Balloon blog – namely that of how to get your keys back when you’ve managed to lock them inside your flat…
The Brand New Musical Wot I Wrote
“I’d written a resolution with a beauty pageant, but this proved too complicated a development. Goaded by Dylan Emery, the cast instead turned on Hitch big time and he was saved from a violent and nasty execution only by a promise to forget the movie.”
Tech Rehearsal
“The smoke machine failed to work; yours truly brought the music CD case without the CD inside; the floor was a different colour from what we need (pale floorboards instead of black but that will be fixed); props fell over; costumes missing.”
The Morning After
“What a hard thing to come from a week of incredible sales and great audiences to the day after a day of no publicity and what appeared to be one of the quietest days in the festival. It hurt.”
“I for one am all for audience-based reviews (probably because I write them). Although, like every professional critic’s review, they should be used as a guide only and read in conjunction with other commentary. But at the end of the day isn’t it what you, the individual audience member, thinks of the show that really counts?”
“Now, we’ve been to Spank! before. We know what happens at Spank! We were ever so slightly afraid. But the absolutely wonderful Corrie looked after us brilliantly, and the hugely skilled technicians made sure everything was perfectly set up for us.”
Nothing Stops Him!
“I didn’t, I couldn’t have. I search in my pockets and bag in vain… then. I have. I’ve locked myself out. I have no flatmates and the landlord is away on holiday. I instinctively shove my arm through the letter box to try and reach the key, but it’s hopeless.”
log on to Whatsonstage.com/Edinburgh2009!
