Hot stuff from Iceland
Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14) JJ Banned from the kitchen by his wife – he’s making far too many tasty, but potentially unhealthy, dishes – George Egg retreats to the garden shed. Where there are power tools aplenty with the potential to slice and dice and cook the kippers, steak and other tasty ingredients he’s smuggled in …
It’s a bright idea, executed with confidence by the puncrazy Egg, but thin fare so far as filling an hour is concerned. Once he’s explained what he’s going to do, watching it all happen is a tad tedious. And the Sportsman’s Bar venue is so stiflingly hot Eldjarn also used to be an air steward, and has a whole load of tremendous airline material – including a fantastic impersonation of the way Scottish people behave on planes.
As the show progresses, Eldjarn gets stranger and more surreal.
He slips in and out of sound effects as easily as he does different languages and accents; a riff on the behaviour of his he could’ve just poached that egg on the floor. MARTIN GRAY New Town Theatre (Venue 7) JJJ The chaps are lovely and the shtick is absolutely delightful in this little giggle- and groanfilled show. The chaps take ancient physical routines like attempting to put up a music stand and mix them with daft new ideas to make fresh laughter.
The show is adorable in its minimalism, having more of a toybox than a props or costume department, although mention must be made of the sound operator and the baby daughter turns into a ridiculous parody of Game of Thrones.
There can’t be many standups at the Fringe throwing out punchlines in so many languages – but Eldjarn doesn’t lose his audience for a moment.
This modest-seeming man has some impressive comic tricks up his sleeves. CLAIRE SMITH panoply of interestingly timed effects, the marvellous sports-based running gag being the perfect example.
The chaps themselves are mild-mannered and entrancing. They get laughs out of two newspapers, a sketchlong bubbling of laughter from some small hair-combs and a pint of water, and hilarity from a tumbling ladybird toy. Their recreation of Lady and the Tramp had the entire audience oooo-ing and just when you think they cannot get any sweeter, everyone gets a chunk of fudge.
I’m not entirely sure about their yoghurt-based ending, but by that time I was so happy that I didn’t really care. They certainly started my Fringe day with a smile. KATE COPSTICK Playhouse JJJJJ PJ Harvey’s consciously theatrical Hope Six Demolition Project tour has been doing the rounds for the last year, but it was a privilege to meet this sonic juggernaut once again for the Festival.
Martial drumbeats and a bassy brass fanfare signalled the black-clad band’s portentous march on stage with Harvey taking her place in the line clutching a saxophone, her original instrument. She is the shamanic star at the eye of the storm, but this was a glorious group effort from her ninepiece male voice band.
Double drums and triple sax were supplemented by tremolo guitar and spindly keyboards to create eerily catchy off-kilter anthems from her Let England Shake album, about the desperate carnage of the First World War and the lessons we don’t learn from history, as well as the spectral folk fragility of a suite of songs from White Chalk, inspired by her Dorset background.
Then she dug into the blues on the virile Ministry of Social Affairs and its oestrogen-fuelled equivalent 50ft Queenie, tightly marshalled but delivered as if on the brink of collapse, before leaving her gothic gospel hymn to the River Anacostia hanging in the air like a requiem for Washington DC and all who depend on her. FIONA SHEPHERD Queen’s Hall JJJJ “It is not intended to deal in trivialities for petty minds” is what Grieg said about his magnificent String Quartet in G minor Op 27.
Taking him at his word, the Apollon Musagète’s performance of it yesterday morning was one which radiated with expansive, vivid playing from this young Polish quartet, who were making their Festival debut. Standing up to play, with the cellist on a raised stool, gave an extra edge to the immediacy of their sound in the ideal chamber music acoustic of the Queen’s Hall.
Built on the ‘Fiddler’s’ motto from an earlier composition, Grieg’s richly textured, often folk-music inspired scoring was swept along by playing that exhilarated in the vitality of its spirit. It is surely a string quartet with a special place in Apollon Musagète’s repertoire.
Less evidently so was Puccini’s funeral lament, Crisantemi – Chrysanthemums – which was subdued and verging on timid rather than reverential mourning.
Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ quartet likewise didn’t quite take off, although the beautifully sweet tone of first violin Pawel Zalejski cajoled the playful minuet and trio movement to open up into fuller bloom, with the andante preceding it growing organically in confidence. CAROL MAIN