The Chocolate Ocelot's 2014 Fringe - Day Three

Shambolic audio diary of the day's events here

CJ Hooper's LJ of the day here

It's Day Three! Which can only mean it's time for my annual Oh bugger what's the time what do you mean we're going out to our first show in half an hour I've got a blog to write bugger bugger post. This is in no way linked to the unusually late night chez Ocelot, entertaining friends with a few glasses of wines and some witty banter. To draw a discrete veil over the proceedings, I shall refrain from naming exactly who was totally wankered last night, in case their wife back home reads this, after walking their dog Dakota. Suffice to say, the tut was talked, the world was put to rights, and it all ended up with us watching rude songs on YouTube, courtesy of the Socks and K*nt and the Gang (I can't even bring myself to type out the comedy version of the word).

So, straight on with the reviews, for today only rendered in bite-sized nibbles:



Breakfast with Shakespeare
Theatre I guess
No idea
Also no idea

As this was on at like ten in the morning and I had a blog to write, this was one for CJ and Herself only. It was apparently funny, with various Shakespearean characters all bumping into each other. I am told it was both funny and well acted. Plus there were croissants and coffee on offer for breakfast. Herself gives it 9/10.



Lunch with the Literati
Literature or something. Spoken word maybe
Some literary types
Some club in a quite square near the Ghllie Dhu

Never went to this. Another one for Herself and CJ, the artsy fartsy scamps. People talking about Robert Burns. Food may have been on offer. I imagine there was lots of unintelligible Burnsese spoken and great chieftains' o' puddin' clans praised. I sat outside on the steps waiting for them and munching on a stalectable day old cheese sandwich. Herself gives it 6/10.



The Hound of the Buskervilles
Musical
Walsall Dramaturge Collective
The Frooty Goose

Entertaining musical update of the classic Holmes tale, built around a walking tour of the Edinburgh streets around the Frooty Goose. The rapping dog was a particular highlight. 8/10.



Antiquithon
Theatre
Les Femmes a Barbe
Institut Francais d'Ecosse

Brilliant half-hour macabre visit to a cabinet of curiosities, tucked away on Randolph Crescent, away from the main Fringe action but well worth the walk. A dispossessed Romanian sister and brother take us through a slightly randomised selection of their grandfather's prized oddities - dwarf skeletons, mummified crocodile babies, spider-rabbits, that sort of thing. Doesn't outstay its welcome, ends brilliantly. Go. 10/10



Potted Sherlock
Kids
Dan and Jeff
Pleasance

No idea. It was cancelled due to an 'incident'. Gave us a chance to get food at the Potting Shed on Potterow though. 0/10. Well done again though to the Fringe office for the auto-refund a couple of hours later.



Alternotive a Capella
Song
Oxford Alternotives
C

Good songs, nice choreography. Some of the solo lead voices drowned out by the backing singers. I prefer it when they adapt well known pop songs to a capella (i.e. I didn't recognise some of the slower ones or the ones made popular in the last 5 years). The beat box chap was especially good. 6/10

Canterbury Tales Remixed
Comedy (I'd have said Song)
Baba Brinkman
Under Belly Cowbarn

One man plus his mate on the mixing desk retelling three of the classic tales, Eminem style. Brilliant. Reminded me of Mitch Benn's Macbeth. Education with a beat. Not so bothered about the scratchy mixy interlude, but I imagine American Brinkman needed to give his throat a rest from rapping solidly for half an hour. Bought his CD. 8/10

The Generation of Z
Theatre
Royale Productions
Assembly George Theatre (mainly the underground car park)

Fantastic interactive zombie apocalypse experience from New Zealand. Dark, spooky, firearms, body parts, swearing. Awesome performances from all the actors - grunts, zoms and civilians alike. Also splendid aerobic exercise at the end. Too many people in the audience though for the peril to feel real - too much queueing when we should have been running for our lives. I got to do a bit at one point, being on comms with the other squad, though I really wanted to go on a scavenging run with mohawked Private Moose. Awesome stuff. Go Moose! Go Frosty! Lots of fun photo ops at the end. 11/10



Lord of the Dance Settee
Comedy
Richard Herring
Assembly George Theatre

Feel good stuff from Ocelot favourite Herring. Lighter material than in previous years with no especial theme, unless you go with his suggestions of inertia vs mobility :) There are sombreros and dancing around on a settee. Mr Herring is looking fitter than he has in years. Well done to him. 8/10



Then stayed up late. So late.

The Chocolate Ocelot’s 2013 Fringe - Day Four

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.

http://deathship666.com/

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.