First reviews, recommended shows, Dave Johns interview & half-price tickets
The Scotsman’s team of critics will review hundreds of Fringe shows over the next three weeks – but to get you started, here are a few returning must-sees
Process Day / Tutumucky / Velvet Petal: Bedroom
What is it? Three recent works by Scottish Dance Theatre, all appearing as part of the prestigious Made in Scotland showcase – and, in the case of Process Day, the British Council Showcase too.
Where and when? Process Day, Zoo Southside, 22-26 August, 7pm; Tutumucky, Zoo Southside, 16-10 August, 7pm; Velvet Petal: Bedroom, Summerhall, 17-27 August, 1:15pm.
What we said: “I loved every last twitching, jerking, pulsating second of it. Creative duo Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar have set the dancers an almighty challenge, giving them 40 minutes of choreography that, at times, is almost imperceptible, other times demands strict unison. Ori Lichtik’s intense techno score gives them little to hang on to in the way of counts, and yet the company has never looked better. The movement goes from minimal to staccato sharp, bunched together to expansive, and never, for one moment, does the dancers’ confidence waver. Fascinating, and utterly absorbing.” (Kelly Apter on Process Day)
Hot Brown Honey
What is it? Return of the six-strong Australasian cabaret collective whose Fringe debut won a five-star Scotsman review in 2016.
Where and when? Assembly Roxy, 9pm, until 27 August
What we said: “A pacy, rousing, highoctane cavalcade of comedy, dance, hip hop, beatbox and burlesque, delivered with passion, style, laughter, inventiveness and a searing political message rooted in lived experience and the need to connect…. It’s phenomenal stuff – sexy, footstomping fun and radical consciousnessraising all at the same time. As Busty Beatz boldly declares, fighting the power never tasted so sweet.”
Two Man Show
What is it? Rashdash’s Fringe First winning 2016 show in which two female performers confront masculinity and patriarchy.
Where and when? Summerhall, 21-22 and 24-26 August, 10:15pm
What we said: “Two Man Show goes from strength to strength, not losing its fierce performative energy – still visible in some powerful dance sequences, and in reflective moments between scenes – but driving it forward to a climactic and frightening moment, when one layer of reality threatens to merge irrevocably, and angrily, into the other.”
Heads Up
What is it? The end of the world, as imagined by Scottish writer and performer Kieran Hurley, in his Fringe First-winning 2016 hit, returning for one week as part of the British Council Showcase.
Where and when? Summerhall, 22-27 August, 7:40pm
What we said: “As an invitation to us to lift our heads, to look beyond the everyday, and to see what might be ahead of us, Heads Up is urgent, compelling and beautifully written; and as a swift survey of our world as it is to day it has a harshly-lit brilliance that fairly takes the breath away, and confirms Hurley’s status as one of the most powerful writers to emerge in British theatre this decade.”
Richard Gadd: Monkey See Monkey Do
What is it? A limited return run for Gadd’s 2016 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner, in which he revisits a truly traumatic experience from his past, to extraordinary, intense effect.
Where and when? Summerhall, 18-27 August, 11pm
What we said: “Richard Gadd has established himself as an uncommonly visceral comedian, his bleak, often disturbing humour manifesting itself in intense shows that drip with blood, sweat and tears, preoccupied with sex, violence and hard living. Now though, with this staggeringly candid hour he makes manifest the psychological drives behind the depravity and it’s a performance even more remarkable than anything he’s delivered before.”
Mairi Campbell: Pulse
What is it? Beautiful, acclaimed theatre show from 2016 in which the Scottish musician tells the story of her life in music.
Where and when? Scottish Storytelling Centre, limited dates until 27 August, 5pm.
Campbell also performs as a musician at the Jazz Bar on 28 August.
What we said: “Campbell is a mesmerising performer with such a gift for accents and physical comedy that it’s easy to forget her main job is folk musician. Her theatre debut, an exhilarating blend of music, movement and animation, tells the true story of how a Scottish islander finally found her musical ‘pulse’, after frustrating detours to Guildhall School of Music in London and a Mexican orchestra, before a
visit to Cape Breton turned things around.”
Mies Julie
What is it? A five-star smash hit at the Fringe in 2012, Yael Farber’s show relocates Strindberg’s famous play to a South African farmhouse 23 years after Apartheid – the show returns to Edinburgh as part of a new South African season supported by Assembly Festival.
Where and when? Assembly Rooms, 2:30pm, until 27 August.
What we said: “Some of the fiercest political drama I have ever seen, as writer and director Yael Farber transforms this familiar play into a terrifying essay on the politics of land, race and sex in 21st-century South Africa.”
Joan
What is it? Powerful, dynamic and irreverent account of the life of Joan of Arc, written and directed by Lucy J Skilbeck, and performed by Lucy Jane Parkinson (aka
Louis Cyfer, is one of the cabaret scene’s foremost drag kings). The show won a Fringe First in 2016
Where and when? Underbelly, 21-27 August, 7:20pm
What we said: “In Joan, male clothing is a vehicle of satire, then a path to glory, then an expression of the essential self. We first meet Joan as an alienated adolescent who dresses as Monsieur d’arc to lovingly mock his disapproval of his unusual child’s tomboy qualities. Then, following divine instructions to lead an army against the English, Joan mans up by learning the mechanics of masculinity, from walking butch to delivering a weaponised spectacle of leadership through gleaming armour and the right kind of horse. Later still, the masculine mode proves impossible to forsake. It has become Joan’s true identity – or perhaps always was.”
Labels
What is it? Joe Sellman-leava’s show about the labels we all impose on each other was a Fringe First winner in 2015 and a Best Theatre winner in Adelaide last year.
Where and when? Pleasance Courtyard, 10-13, 17-20 and 24-27 August, 11:30am.
What we said: “At its core it’s a piece about immigration and how labels allow us to see some people as less deserving than others to a point where we’d rather let them drown then let them into our countries. With the growth of Ukip in the UK and far-right parties in Europe, it’s a pertinent attempt to understand what’s currently happening and why.”
The Duke
What is it? Shon Dale-jones dropped his Hugh Hughes alter-ego for this 2016 Fringe First winner, bringing together plot strands about a broken porcelain figurine, an unfinished film script and the refugee crisis. It has, interestingly, moved from the theatre to the comedy section for its return.
Where and when? Pleasance Courtyard, 2pm, until 27 August.
What we said: “Like his creation Hughes, Dale-jones is such a likeable performer that it is a pleasure to follow his meandering thought processes as he sits at his desk, cues incidental music and replays dialogues with his mother, sweetly capturing the shorthand communication which flows between people who know each other well.”
(I Could Go On Singing) Over the Rainbow
What is it? FK Alexander sings the famous Judy Garland song, over and over again, to individual audience members in her mesmerising 2016 show, returning as part of the Made in Scotland showcase.
Where and when? Summerhall, limited dates from 11-27 August, 8pm
What we said: “An immersive and interactive happening which demands full acceptance and open-mindedness from the viewer/participant. As a spectator the experience is somewhere between intrigue and boredom. Once you’ve seen it done a few times, the appreciation is not for the way an artist performs, but the way they repeat the performance night after night, show after show, riding the same crests of emotion. And then you step up yourself, hand held and included, invited in by the fact eye contact is unbroken for the duration. It’s a deeply vulnerable, humbling position to be in, to be regarded by another for so long. Tears, apparently, are not uncommon.”
Translunar Paradise
What is it? Theatre Ad Infinitum’s multiaward-winning show about coping with grief returns to Edinburgh.
Where and when? Pleasance Courtyard, 3:45pm, until 28 August
What we said: “When William’s wife of 60 years dies, he must learn to manage on his own. But that is easier said than done when memories of Rose fly up unbidden, everywhere he turns. The story is told without words. Instead, we have fluid movement, masks and a hauntingly beautiful vocal and accordion accompaniment… a superb tribute to the inexpressible bounty of love, this is a show that will steal your heart.”
Plan B for Utopia
What is it? Joan Cleville Dance’s funny and moving debut show, premiered at Dance Base in 2015, returns to Edinburgh as part of the Made in Scotland showcase.
Where and when? Pleasance Courtyard, 21-27 August, 10:30am
What we said: “I’ve sat through a lot of dance theatre where narrative detracts, rather than adds, to the hugely powerful language of dance. Which is why this new work from choreographer Joan Clevillé is so incredibly exciting. Because he gets it all very, very right. Every word, every wonderful facial expression, every bodily movement that performer Solène Weinachter makes is a gift to the audience. Each visit to the microphone is accompanied by words of truth that are either politically and socially spot-on, funny or moving.”
How to Win Against History
What is it? Another outing for Seiriol Davies’ 2016 musical based on the extraordinary story of Henry Cyril Paget, the 5th Marquis of Anglesey, who inherited a fortune at the age of 21, only to end up bankrupt within six years, and dead within eight.
Where and when? Assembly George Square, 7:25pm, until 27 August
What we said: “It’s savagely clever, verbally dextrous and powers along at a relentless pace, burning through Paget’s short life rather as he did himself. Davies strikes a poignant figure as Paget, in a gorgeous blue sequined dress, utterly narcissistic, cushioned from all forms of reality by his family’s vast wealth, but also trying desperately to be himself in a world which didn’t understand him.”