Dancing to the beat of time

Heroes@thehive (Venue 313) JJJJ Some of the younger, more thrusting young comics on the Fringe would do well to take a look at what Edward (Ed) Aczel is doing.

There’s a beatific air about Aczel, who, according to Fringe legend, still works in a fantastically boring office job for the rest of the year.

Aczel is slow, deliberate, unruffled with a disarmingly genuine interest in listening to what people have to say.

At one point he has a long discussion with a member of his audience about how to get the best tariff for his gas bill. Later he insists, politely but very pointedly, that another audience member tells him whether or not he could remember the last item he ever bought from a department store.

His show includes exhaustive and very precise meditations on the nature of infinity, which reference great theories of science, philosophy and mathematics without caring very much at all what any of them might mean. In case anyone is unfamiliar with his style and makes the mistake of thinking Aczel is serious, he begins and ends his show with a couple of beautifully made little films – which set the tone by showing him him dancing around London parks to classic pyschedelic pop songs with flowers in his hair.

They are the perfect counterpoint to his lugubrious delivery. He mutters, hesistates, appears to be reading his material from sheets of paper – but then takes you completely by surprise with a perfect ambush of a punchline that makes you snort and splutter out loud with laughter. This sort of pace only comes with experience. It’s deliberate, it is a skill and it is expertly done.

Aczel strikes an elegant balance between thoughtfulness and frivolity, existing in a perfect comedy bubble, where nothing and everything matters, and life is as light as a feather floating softly to the ground. CLAIRE SMITH Assembly George Square Theatre (Venue 8) JJJJ It is not unusual for a show to go on a journey of transformation, but rarely is it quite as striking as this. If you watched the first ten minutes of Djuki Mala, then returned for the last ten minutes, you would be forgiven for thinking you’d attended two different shows. Which, given

0 The Djuki Mala dancers have honed their craft and are now slicker, and funnier, than ever professional stand-up, Kae Kurd is in no doubt what his unique selling point is.

Yet with his slick, accomplished debut, he also proves himself a sharp, passionate spokesperson for his people and the rights of refugees in general, skilfully marrying political convictions with a thorough and entertaining insight into his background.

The son of Kurdish resistance fighters who fought and fled Saddam Hussein, he endured both the strict authority of his father – a victim of chemical weapons –and the mockery of his British-born younger brothers.

Always an insider-outsider, growing up in multicultural Brixton made a true social chameleon of him, even if that did instigate that we have been taken back thousands of years, then brought home to present day, is perhaps not surprising.

When we first meet the crew, they are dressed as their ancestors. Body paint, loincloths and spears, as worn by the Aboriginals of Elcho Island, in the remote outback of northern Australia. An atmospheric soundtrack is matched by movement deeply entrenched in tradition, with intermittent video clips from the dancers’ homeland taking us to the heart of Aboriginal culture. embarrassing instances of inadvertent racism on his part. Nevertheless, Kurd started his stand-up career on the black circuit, which informs his lean, confident delivery and a contrived but amusing fantasy of Kevin Bridges, John Bishop and Michael Mcintyre also appearing at urban gigs.

Affable and engaging, Kurd occasionally coasts on charm for more rudimentary material about relationships. That is a shame because it follows some perceptive, thought-provoking reflections on the class-based options open to him. No great matter though, because you are going to be hearing plenty more about him soon. JAY RICHARDSON

The film also tells us how this project got started ten years ago, as a way to keep young men on the island fit. A key moment in 2007, when their founder uploaded a clip of the men dancing to Zorba the Greek, found them propelled into the spotlight with over a million views (it’s now close to three million).

A decade later, that routine is looking slicker than ever – and funnier. Having honed their craft further, and toured extensively, the Djuki Mala dancers know exactly how to entertain a crowd. C venues C cubed (Venue 50) JJJ There is a sweet sincerity to this warmly funny twohander that should prove genuinely touching to all but the hardest-hearted.

Playwright Helena Westerman gives an endearing performance as manic pixie dream girl Leila, a waitress who keeps running into Martin (Robert Hayes) at the same London bus stop. Martin, a young professional, only uses the bus stop when he is visiting his mum, who is being treated for stage two cancer at the nearby hospital.

Leila is unhappy in her work and, obviously, Martin

Fusing their traditional Yolngu style with music and movement from 20th and 21st century Britain and America, the men deliver tight, synchronised numbers to Motown, 1990s dancefloor classics and more. The umbrellas are out for Singing in the Rain, and the black suit and spangled glove is slipped into for Billie Jean. Yet, regardless of what clothes they put on, the audience is always wearing the same thing – a huge smile. KELLY APTER is nurturing some pretty serious issues as well and it is through their infrequent meetings and initially reticent dialogues that a relationship of sorts develops.

Playing in support of CALM (Campaign Against Miserable Living) this is a quietly lovely little piece that benefits from unusually good performances and a real snap from Westerman’s dialogue (remarkably, given it is her first play). Thankfully, there is no recourse to monologues from its characters and the more time you spend in their company, the more they are shaded as recognisable, relatable human beings – a bit like meeting two friends that you never knew you had. RORY FORD ZOO Southside (Venue 82) JJJ The “void deck” is a feature unique to apartment blocks in Singapore, a covered ground-level space where children play and families hold celebrations. Mohamad Shaifulbahri’s first solo piece of theatre keeps returning to the void deck of his family’s block in Tampines, a kind of receptacle for the memories of his formative years.

Directed by Adeeb Fazah and staged by Bhumi Collective, Last Of Their Generation is a personal reflection on what it means to feel pulled between two places: London, where Shaifulbahri went to drama school, with its theatres and big-city buzz, and Singapore, the place of his childhood, first love and above all family.

Occasionally, the constant shifting of locations and time periods becomes confusing, and the big musical number two-thirds of the way through comes as a bit of a surprise.

The play fails to reach a conclusion, much as Shaifulbahri does: he seems to love both places and can’t choose one over the other.

There is, however, much that is resonant here about memory, regret, and what it means to grow up and move on but find yourself far away from the people you love. SUSAN MANSFIELD Young company Bearded Dog Theatre deserve credit for tackling the taboo subject of male rape, and for making advice available in a sensitive and appropriate way.

Yet their rawness as theatremakers means they can’t keep a certain sense of worthiness from infusing this ensemble piece; when one character replies to a painful revelation with a statistic, we can virtually hear the line clunk on the floor.

It also appears unsure as to whether it wants to be a knockabout student slice-oflife (Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl is dutifully press-ganged onto the soundtrack), a rather odd whodunit or a serious issuebased drama. DAVID POLLOCK