No beetle
powers. Evening spent thinking up superhero names wasted.
Also, a revelation
in the shower this morning (easy there). Reason for lank hair largely down to
my travel shampoo actually being conditioner. Don’t tell her, but I stole a
sneaky squirt of Herself’s precious T-Gel stash this morning. Ssshhh.
Again with
the abbreviated reviews. Seven shows today: six scheduled, plus one extra
recommended by Dr Foot and Mitchell.
Death Ship 666
Free Sisters
Up early and
march down Cowgate to get in the queue early. There are chalk markings all over
the area directing us to Death Ship 666. Brief period of panic and annoyance when
it transpires that we could have actually booked tickets for this after all,
and are now relegated to the pikey unticketed pleb queue. Curse you, low-paid
and ill-informed casual Three Sisters bar staff from yesterday!
But we do
all manage to squeeze into the venue behind the bar. And a bloody entertaining
show from Box Step Productions ensues, combining Titanic, Poseidon Adventure
and a brilliant Les Mis medley spoof
which is my highlight of the show. Also there are marauding bears. On a ship.
Very pleased
that none of the half dozen cast members hit their head on the low ceiling
stage right. Excellent quick changes, funny dialogue, good physical acting and
easy to keep track of character-archetype names. And it’s free! Do go and see
and give ‘em some money, you tight fisted so and so.
XY
Pleasance
Over to the yellow
Fringopolis that is the Pleasance for most of the rest of the day. No tramping
back and forth across the city. Rah!
In the
programme, XY is described as a series of gender-nonspecific plays. As it turns
out that is the case for the first (and possibly second) of the four short
plays we see in this hour. The others are very much gendered (sperm recipes, lady
lovebots and so forth), but are all decent offerings. I like the first one
about the couple, the wheelchair and the Olivia Newton John song best. The one
about the three characters in the onesies sat round a table slightly mystified
me, perhaps because of the odd character names (Normal, Egg etc).; I thought
they were variously mythic archetypes, cats and tellytubbies. Herself informs
me they were playing children. I’m a fool. Nice work from Papercut Theatre.
The Ghost Hunter
Pleasance
One man show
about a modern ghost tour guide telling us stories about his life and the ghost
stories he presents. Refreshing for us to see an actor over 30 – you can easily
find yourself seeing youth production after youth production at the Fringe.
Fine naturalistic and atmospheric storytelling from Tom Richards and the Theatre
of the Damned. Probably even better if staged at night.
Sandi Toksvig
Pleasance
Big crowd,
largely greying and probably Radio Four friendly. A perfectly pleasant and
positive hour spent in the presence of the host of the News Quiz, though I
still think of her as Ethel from Number 73. Anecdotes from her career, tales of
her Danish father, love of all things British, and climaxing in a full audience
participation conductoration of the Ode To Joy. Though borrowing other people’s
funny material at times (Alan Coren, trad Jewish grandmother jokes), very full
of life and love both for and by La Toksvig.
Colin Hoult: Characthorse
Pleasance
Somewhat
different to the previous shows we’ve seen from Colin: no other cast members
snuck into the audience, less props, and no sly Doctor Who reference in the show
title (shame!). Characthorse is a faux memoir of his youth in and around
Snottingham, with a variety of bizarre characters. This has a running narrative,
rather than the sketch format of previous shows. Some heroic stripping down to
his pants at one point, and a bit of audience participation as usual. Feels like
a Gaiman / Gilliam / Del Toro adventure, full of modern fairy tale characters
and wonderment. Less dark than his other shows. Give this man a TV show, for
Grade’s sake.
Richard Herring: We’re All Going to
Die
Pleasance
Herring
still on form, still funny, touching and despite the show title, feel-good and
positive. Also still in need of a decent haircut. But we do get a free DVD of
his show highlights, which some people turn down – the fools! Packed crowd
appreciative of his ruminations on death, the afterlife, Hamlet and wanking. It’s
not a Herring show without some wanking material, and I wouldn’t want it any other
way.
Snakes! The Musical
Just The Tonic At The Caves
Final
(Seventh!) show of the day, and am starting to hallucinate. As the day began
with Death Ship 666’s disaster movie spoof, so it ends with this three-person musical
version of Snakes On A M***** F****** Plane – Flight 666 as it happens. Damn
good song and dance performances from Will and Marina as the entire cast;
really powerful and versatile projection and big showbiz beams for the
audience, though reckon Marina’s lovely but softer voice could do with turning
up a notch on the mike.
Our second Les
Mis medley spoof of the day and great linking pieces from writer/director Tom
(I think that’s his name – as I say, I’m hallucinating somewhat in this seventh
hour of Fringeshow today) with his over-ambitious West End aspirations, designs
on ‘I’m actually not gay’ leading man Will and casual denigration of Marina (‘obviously
we’re aiming for Sheridan Smith when it transfers’). Brilliant stuff from Quite
Nice Theatre – see this or their other show This was Your life.
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