School drama a class act
Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) JJJJ In recent years, Pierre Novellie has evinced a growing scepticism about the conventions of Edinburgh Fringe hours, the narrative arcs and thematic rigours, explaining that his theme this year is simply that these are “my thoughts, I thought them”.
Dressed in a velvet jacket and bow tie, he’s offering an authoritative, unfussy throwback to solid stand-up, with his show the less critically pregnable for being so straightforward.
Stand-up can be about literally anything he maintains, from the relatably spoofable Encore Tricolore books that taught the British their French in secondary school, to the specific nightmare of the Budgie the Helicopter child’s ride in the Isle of Man’s airport, its repetitive soundtrack grating on Novellie’s nerves as he sits waiting for a delayed flight projected into some very funny, existential despair on the part of the machine. Relatable for anyone who’s ever felt themselves trapped in hell perhaps.
The South African’s mixed feelings about comedy are expanded on in the war analogies ascribed to a show he once hosted at a school for the performing arts. His bloodied warrior of the entertainment industry, wearied from the conflict pities the fresh-faced new recruits, with little idea of the hardships ahead of them. All the while though, he knows he wields the means to crush them with the truth, the sense of power intoxicating.
Novellie’s strongest routines tend to be his anecdotes, his peculiarly anxious relationships with food and smalltalk ratcheting up the perils of dating, while an account from his time as a teenage caricaturist, faced with the task of depicting a woman with Down’s Syndrome, is hilarious in the racing thoughts of social awkwardness he dredges back up in a cold sweat. JAY RICHARDSON Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) JJJJ The date is 2 May, 1997, Tony Blair has just been elected prime minister and in the staffroom at the local comprehensive joy is pretty much unconfined, despite superficial attempts at impartiality in front of the pupils.
The newly-arrived German assistant, Tobias, is delighted to be there, since he solemnly ally anything if the performer is skilled enough, Lou Conran’s latest hour recounts a traumatic recent event in her life. While not holding back on the heartbreak, she isn’t dragged down by it either, delivering a very funny but sensitively handled, deeply personal take on the subject.
Initially though, I Love Lou C is simply about her rather dysfunctional relationship with her neighbours, the thin walls of her Manchester flat ensuring she could hear everything they were up to. Inspiring a certain amount of mischief but also soulsearching in the comic, she recognises that her own sex life is pedestrian by comparison. So much so that she’s invented an imaginary husband, Geoff.
Having reached middle-age with a desire to be a mother, Conran experimented with sperm banks. But after inadvertently seeing the quality of believes Britain to be the coolest place on Earth; but as he gets to know the hard-pressed staff and riotous final-year pupils, he soon realises that things are not so simple, in a nation caught between wild hope and an undercurrent of despair, where the decade of investment in education promised by the new prime minister will somehow fail to make a difference.
Big themes are tackled, in other words, in this latest play from the Wardrobe Ensemble, backed by the the seed being deposited, she resigned herself to not having children. Then of course, an encounter with a gentlemen caller, unsparing in the messy detail of their intimacy, got her knocked up. This episode, and the character studies she affords of people like her tiny-voiced doctor and best friend Jane-on-the-inbreath underpin some fine routines, rendered in roguishly vivid detail.
Sadly, they’re also the leadup to tragedy, as five months into her pregnancy, Conran is told that her baby has a condition which means it won’t be able to survive outside the womb, leading to an induced, stillborn birth.
Although there are elements of the grief that Conran understandably holds back on, it’s remarkable how much she shares, finding humour even at her child’s funeral, even as the poignancy of the sorrow is undeniable. Royal & Derngate Northampton and Shoreditch Town Hall; and although it’s hard to argue that the play – devised by the company with directors Jesse Jones and Helena Middleton – offers any conclusions about the arc of recent British history, it certainly tackles its subject with formidable energy and wit, a blizzard of brightly coloured imagery involving a dream encounter with King Arthur and a superb soundtrack of 1990s classics that has the audience stomping in the aisles, as do various references Moving but occasionally laugh out loud hilarious, something good has unquestionably come from the pain. JAY RICHARDSON Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) JJJ This show is billed as “a mini concert for mini humans”, and that pretty much sums it up. Four-piece band, The Small Laces, on bass guitar, lead guitar, keyboard, percussion and vocals, are a tight ensemble with more than their share of exuberance – even in the face of crying toddlers.
Which, to be fair, isn’t their target audience. The band’s original songs have been written squarely for the primary school market – more specifically four to 10 year to 1990s ephemera like the tamagotchi craze.
There are one or two beautifully nuanced performances, notably from Emily Greenslade as troubled pupil Sophie; and there’s a powerful exhilaration about seeing a sevenstrong young creative ensemble pitching in so vigorously to the recent political history of England and Britain, even if their approach – for now – is more playful than analytical, and more vividly eclectic than conclusive. JOYCE MCMILLAN olds, before children get too cool for school.
The subject matters are fun with a serious message, fun with a silly message, or just plain silly. One song explores the various ways that cleverness manifests itself (not just through maths and English), empowering those who may feel left behind. Another nails the embarrassment/excitement of bumping into your teacher in the supermarket.
All the songs are delivered as if The Small Laces themselves were children – so with their young audience, not at them, which is a nice touch. The group call themselves “musical comedians”, but in truth it’s the musicianship and songwriting that shines through here. And if you’ve got any under 10s in the back of your car, a Small Laces CD will have the whole family singing along. KELLY APTER Underbelly, George Square (Venue 300) JJJ You’ve got to admire a performer who keeps a running tally of his walkouts at various festivals, the aggression of his act that Tom Walker alludes to with a silly bit of business outside the venue before his show, swiftly confirmed by the violent manner in which he dispatches some of his props. But the Australian clown, for all his unblinking intensity is also, in his way, adorable. And I simply can’t fathom the audience members who don’t want to get on board with his call and response tomfoolery. True, he’s rangy and looms intimidatingly. But he’s also a big kid, albeit a mildly malevolent one.
Through mime, toys and whimsy, he seduces you into his little games with the depth of his own commitment. With surely the most outstanding pullback and reveal joke of the festival, the preparation and hardship its caused him for a solitary sight gag is related in a grumbling aside.
That routine notwithstanding, and despite a fairly consistent rate of laughs, I still don’t feel as if there are enough standout set-pieces to elevate Walker to the top tier of clowns plying their trade at the Fringe. JAY RICHARDSON Sweet Grassmarket (Venue 18) JJ Simon Caine’s schtick is his haplessness. His body doesn’t really “do” joy, he overthinks everything and all his friends are getting married and having babies except him. He references his audience too much, his fake “mistakes” are obvious and his hour has no internal tension so it feels like it is wandering. Some of his material just feels genuinely creepy. But he has some great writing in there, some nicely crafted jokes and some nice one liners. He has a new route down the much trodden path of millennials and house prices and made me think again about Dr Pepper. He also has a workable comedy persona. He just doesn’t have an hour yet. KATE COPSTICK