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Fringe 2009 Reviews (20)
Danielle Ward Lies
Avalon Productions
Pleasance Courtyard
****
The biggest lie of this show is the title: few stand-up routines are
as daringly honest as this one and manage to garner equal honesty from
the audience too.
While Danielle gets some huge laughs from the crowd, including someone
snorfing (where a drinker is caught by surprise and regurgitates the
drink nasally), it is her long periods of serious build-up that showcase
her dauntlessness.
If you need a laugh a minute then this isn’t for you, but Danielle
exemplifies the value of giving a joke a really detailed introduction,
and when the laughs come they’re dangerously infectious; unstoppable
and self-replicating.
This is a brave stand-up of the Stewart Lee school; Danielle is quite
happy to have one member of the audience in stitches over a niche joke,
while the rest of the audience remains baffled.
A truly confessional show, as the audience are able to use their laughter
to own up to their faults. If only the Catholic priesthood allowed women,
Danielle would be perfect - perhaps too much so: her fascination with
death is a little too disturbing even for a Catholic.
I admit I did snorf in the front row: it’s difficult not to be
truthful after this wonderfully cathartic show.
Seth Ewin
And then he said...
In a Pickle
Diverse Attractions
*
A series of short vignettes show the odder side of vaguely inter-related
people as they meet, laugh, cry and argue. Most of these characters
are unlikable, and flawed in many ways, which brings out the comedy
in the writing. The players perform well, flitting from piece to piece
and swapping roles with some gusto. The problem is that the stories
themselves hold very little interest which would be bad enough on its
own but combined with the play running over the denoted finishing time
by fifteen minutes the patience is stretches slightly.
If you have a schadenfreudian penchent for watching the misfortunes
of others, then you may just find this to your tastes; anyone else will
likely be a little bored.
Graeme Strachan
Shitty Deal Puppet Theatre
Company's Oh! What a Shitty War
Axis of Evil Productions/Escalator East to Edinburgh
Zoo Southside
****
War! what's war? asks one of the glove-puppets in this hilarious satirical
comedy, which manages to make a fool out of just about every nation
in the world and at the same time manages to be vaguely educational.
When the US President's white Daughter is kidnapped by Terrorists and
removed to a fortress in Syria and then the soldier sent to rescue her
is captured in turn, there is only one person the US can call upon.
Doper the clown and his bunny side-kick are the only ones capable of
saving the day. Meanwhile it's up to Doper to explain why the situation
came about in the first place. While the concept and some of the style
has obviously been inspired by Team America: World Police, Oh!
still manages to become its own creature. At times it moves from a rollicking
piece of quick jokes, snappy lines and occasionally groan-worthy puns
to a cuttingly satirical socio-political commentary.
It's certainly not every show which could manage to tie in the history
of warfare, making fun of every single nation and country along the
way, before building to a priceless theological debate between Jesus
and "The Muslim Pirate behind a screen-who does not represent Mohammed".
Naturally the humour will not be to all tastes, as there are a fair
few close to the nail comments and the swearing and overall cheapness
of the production may well put some people off the whole thing. However
for a cheap as chips production carried out with genuine good humour
and performers who evidently love what they do, you can't go far wrong
with a nice shitty war.
Graeme Strachan
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