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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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1998 Fringe Reviews 7
Fringe SundayFringe Sunday is party day. Always held on the second Sunday of the Festival, it is an open-air extravaganza in Hollyrood Park, next to the Palace of Hollyrood House at the opposite end of the Royal Mile from the Castle. It's a fair, with lots of rides, fast food, ice cream, candy floss and displays by various charities, but it's also a showcase for companies from the Fringe who come to show their wares in a number of marquees, on the back of a lorry, or simply on the grass. It's a popular event, both for local people and for those who have come to Edinburgh for the Fringe, and - would you believe it! - it rained! I suppose that's to be expected: if you organise any open-air event anywhere in the British Isles, even (especially?) in Summer, Sod's Law will bring rain! Anyway, when I reached the park at around midday (Fringe Sunday starts at 11.00), I was already soaked, having walked from my digs to High Street, and then the length of the Royal Mile to Hollyrood. But enough of my miseries! What you really want to know is what I saw. With so many theatre shows at the Fringe, it is impossible for one man to see much more than a small percentage in two weeks, so Fringe Sunday is a good way of getting a taste of the rest. So, manfully ignoring the street entertainers (all of whom are to be seen in the High Street on any day) and tearing myself away from the seductions of the variety of food on offer, I circulated between the various performances. One of the first pieces I caught was Z Theatre Company's extract from their production The Play's the Thing, a romp through the history of theatre. This left me wishing that I had arranged to see the show, but there's no way I can fit it in now. Shame! What I saw was hilarious - Ibsen played with the rapidity and absurdity which we have come to associate with the RSC - that's the Reduced Sakespeare Company, not the other one in Stratford! I also saw two pieces from the Harland Hamstrings Theatre Company. I wasn't particularly impressed by their April in Paris, but it was the play itself rather than the performances which I didn't like - although we have to bear in mind that they were only presenting an extract. However I also caught part of their production of John Godber's Teechers, a play which I know well, having directed it myself, and that I did like. The two girls were stronger than the guy, but they were doing it well. In an open-air arena I caught part of a physical theatre piece in which the company kept forming themselves (and/or each other) into letters to make up words, interspersed with each wandering around the arena, doing their own thing or speaking to the audience. Then they'd go back to the words, and then the whole thing would start all over again. Weird! There was no indication that I could see of who they were. Not that it mattered: I didn't want to know! Another piece of physical theatre was K.486 in Macbeth. And it was very physical: Macbeth and MacDuff declaimed at each other, accompanied by some rather peculiar music on drums and an instrument I didn't recognise but which looked like something boy scouts would use to light a fire without matches. Then they indulged in a bit of martial arts, throwing each other about the stage until finally Macbeth was killed and four people in white did some rather acrobatic dance around the corpse, a dance which seemed to involve a lot of standing on their heads and waving their legs around. I saw K.486 in Kafka's The Trial last year, and they were brilliant. This year? Let's just say I won't be going to their show. It was on my shortlist for this week. No longer! I also caught the end of the Blunderbus Theatre for Children in The Pied Piper of Hamlin. It's hard to make any judgements on the little I saw, but it seemed to have the children in the audience fascinated and it was a colourful piece. I seemed to make a practice of catching the end of things. I saw the final number of the Cambridge University ADC's Into the Woods. I am not a lover of Sondheim, but this was well dressed, well choreographed and well sung. I do wish he'd write better tunes though, and if that comment marks my card as a musical illiterate, so be it! Another end! This time it was the Cape Youth Dance Company from South Africa. They were wonderful! Full of energy and talent, and exciting choreography - I wouldn't mind seeing their show, but it's not really in my remit, so I'll have to give it a miss. The same could be said of another dance company, Kitty MaNamee's Hysterica Dance Company. Their three pieces showed all sides of their work, and their enormous talent. By turns aggressive and threatening, erotic, and then disarmingly gentle and tender, their three-piece set was a marvellous advert for their 50 minute show. I would love to see it, but I can't fit it into my schedule, and anyway, it would be pure self-indulgence! The Fringe is famous for some of the oddball companies that perform there, and one that caught my attention straightaway was Babes with Blades. (That could have had something to do with their flyers, of which they have a number, and each has a picture of the rear view of a naked woman waving a sword!) Anyway, they were there, not naked(!) but with their swords. Basically they are a group of stage combat specialists from the USA and they demonstrated how a stage sword-fight is choreographed. They were mightily impressive, but I don't think I would have found a whole hour that entertaining. Unless, of course..... I also caught part of someone's "sequel" to Miller's The Crucible. I didn't, however, catch the name of the group, which is probably just as well as they were dire! I don't normally get the chance to see any of the stand-up comedians, so I thought I would indulge myself and went into the Stand-up tent. I watched an American comic (no names, no pack drill!) who was so desperately unfunny it was embarrassing. No one laughed, mainly because he wasn't funny. The applause at the end answered the old Zen conundrum: "What is the sound of one hand clapping"! I left and didn't go back. By this time it was after three and, although the sun had come out and dried me, my legs were aching and I'd spilled gravy from my steak sandwich down my nice clean trousers (Well, you surely didn't expect me to resist the lure of food all the time!), so I decided to head off back to the digs to change. The crowds were now swarming in, with two hours to go to the end. I got to the bottom of the Royal Mile, looked up its continuous mile long hill and thought of the drop down to the Grassmarket, followed by the climb up West Port back to Fountainbridge, my heart in my boots. At which point an empty taxi came by so I gave in to temptation and spent a fiver on the ride home! Next page - - - Index |
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