Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Fringe Benefits
This year's Edinburgh Fringe programme was launched on Thursday and, as regular readers will know, we're quite big fans of our home city's entertainment extravaganza, to the extent that we pretty much go AWOL for the entirety of August, surviving mainly on a diet of Gregg's sausage rolls and half squeezed limes from our rum and cokes as we attempt to cram in more shows than is humanly possible in the space of three ever so short weeks. As befits an event with literally thousands of shows, there's something for everyone to enjoy, so we've had a look through and have found a few shows which may appeal to the more pop minded theatre goer. Here's what we've noticed:-
- Andrew McClelland's Mixed Tape (Gilded Balloon) - Andrew McClelland is a very funny man who knows more about pirates than anyone whose sat through all three episodes of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Although admittedly someone who hasn't sat through all three episodes of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies knows more about pirates than anyone who has done so, but this in no way diminishes his wealth of awareness on the subject of scurvy knaves, parrots and things that get sunk in the night. We have no idea what he knows about music, but we still reckon this'll be ace.
- Murray Lachlan Young (Gilded Balloon) - The million pound poet and the man who is possibly single handedly responsible for EMI being in the state it's in today returns, no doubt painfully aware that his fifteen minutes in the spotlight are long over. It's poetic. Or a word that's similar to that, anyway.
- Blazin' Fiddles (Queens Hall & Brunton Theatre) - Some of Scotland's most celebrated fiddle players pile their instruments on stage and set fire to them in an exhilarating and long overdue event. This is a follow up to last year's Blazin' Bagpipes show which sold out instantly and, despite the many deaths caused by the ensuing fire which swept through large parts of the city, was considered to be a success by all involved. Including the dead.
- David Sneddon (The Jazz Bar) - The winner, in as much as anyone involved in that particular travesty of television, of Fame Academy will be at the Jazz Bar and won't, despite what you may be expecting, be waiting tables, clearing up pools of vomit and attempting to get people to leave at finishing up time. Instead he'll be performing from his new White Noise EP. Unfortunately there's been a production error in the brochure and this show is listed under Music instead of Comedy. Three nights only, book early to guarantee disappointment.
- Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision (Pleasance) - A sort of parody/celebration of the Eurovision song contest. Because, of course, the whole event takes itself so seriously that it needs some sort of piss take to take it down a peg or two.
- We Will Rock You (Royal High School) - Have you ever wanted to see a version of the Queen musical done by schoolkids? Of course not. You've not even wanted to go and see the Queen musical full stop, so why on earth anyone thinks this'll be a good idea is beyond us.
- Zombie Prom (Church Hill Theatre) - With a title like that this has to be brilliant.
- Seriously. Pet Shop Boys. Reinterpreted (Rocket) - Pet Shop Boys songs done on a grand piano, string quartet with five singers. This will likely be absolutely awful, a sort of Travis-Doing-Britney destruction of everything that makes the songs great in the first place, but we're going to give it a shot anyway, something we will no doubt instantly regret.
- Dye Young/Stay Pretty - A play about a girl travelling to New York to try and meet Debbie Harry. In our experience, you should never try and meet your heroes. If only because the police get annoyed if you violate the terms of your restraining order.
- Sting for Nolte (Gilded Balloon) - Questioning what you should do if your fiancee buys you tickets to go and see Sting. The running time is 1 hour, which seems slightly overlong for the answer "Split up with her immediately and inform the authorities"
- Teenage Kicks (Assembly) - Continuing the deification of John Peel, here's a play in his honour. At the current rate he'll be a Saint in about ten years, before having a religion in his honour in about fifty, with Fall lyric books being seen as some sort of holy text. Given his egotistical character and rampant self promotion we're sure this is exactly what he would have wanted. Ahem.
- Plus a million rubbish comedians doing song parodies which, as we all know, are the lowest form of humour, residing just below sarcasm and men dressing up in women's clothes. But if you must then Mitch Benn (Udderbelly) is a million times better than the rest of them combined.
