Category: review

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Edinburgh: Day the second.

Orpheum, To Loges

Derelict building image via

I’m running more than a little behind on responding to shows, but still wanted to, so here’s how it’s going to work. We’re all going to pretend you’re reading this late on Wednesday. Maybe if you go to bed before midnight, you’ve clicked on the link the next morning. I want you to think carefully about where you were, what you were doing, and briefly insert the experience of reading this into that memory. There. Fixed.

SO IT’S LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND I’M WRITING EVEN THOUGH I’M TIRED BECAUSE THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, DEAR READER.

I went to see some shows today, shall we* talk about them? Let’s.

After the End (by Dennis Kelly) Direct from Dundee

Probably the wrong time of day to see this kind of thing, really. Bit, y’know, swear-y and rape-y. Not really 1pm kind of thing. When I was more into proper plays Dennis Kelly was one of my favourite writers. Still is, I mean, but I think this is a quite tough piece to play. Especially to 3 people at 1 in the afternoon. The performances were a bit broad brushstrokes, it would fill a studio theatre, but was a little too much for an oversized crate. Still, the actress playing Louise was quite interesting, and it reminded me what a fascinating triple-layer piece of thinking the play is. It’s about gender in two ways, as well as the literal, in-front-of-you content. And no one comes out of it clean. Chewy, is what I’d call it.

Also, after googling to remind myself of the character names, I have signed up to wikipedia to start expanding on their records of plays and playwrights. WATCH OUT.

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik

I think I may be the tin-woman, because I’m pretty certain anyone with a heart would have been swept away by this piece. And I wasn’t. It’s very good, with some lovely puppetry (I wanted there to be more) and quite clever projection. But I was a bit, a tiny bit bored of watching, not seeing, being with it. I’m usually a sucker for things about flooding, too. Sorry. Someone please find me a Wizard. Continue reading Edinburgh: Day the second.

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Edinburgh: day the first

DSCN1049

image shared via CC on Flickr, click through for original

Haven’t quite worked out my policy* on blogging about shows I see in Edinburgh, yet, nor do I really have two spare hours to rub together to do so anyway… So expect sporadic at best. Will talk about things I love though. And Oh Fuck Moment (or ‘the show on at 5:30’ as the usher at St. George’s West demurely put it when she had to gather us together) is definitely one of them.

Supportively participative, by turn extremely funny, poignant, breathtaking, and wince-inducing as anything I’ve seen for a long while. And some fucking amazing writing. Chris Thorpe and Hannah Walker sit around a board meeting type table in a brightly lit magnolia coloured room with no windows, and talk to you about fuck ups. Really, monumental, absolutely no-way-back, fuck ups. And ask you about yours (mine was rubbish, I’m glad I didn’t read it out) and talk to you about chaos, and society, and how we learn from stupid, human mistakes, and how we like to pretend ‘we’re perfect beings who occasionally fuck up. Not Fuck Ups who occasionally do something perfect’.

It also had this amazing line. Which the second it came out of Hannah’s mouth I knew was Chris’, though only later did I really know how much.

‘He smoked cigarettes like they were an antidote to death’ (paraphrased, with apologies)

My best friend smokes like that. He also thinks he’s a fuck up. Because of a couple of things he did in his life which he can’t undo. Including not visiting his mother just before she died. When he was 15. 15. I wish we lived in a society that grew people who could forgive themselves for fuck ups like that. A society in which ‘fuck ups’ were more accepted would be one with much better politicians, press, and ensuing #ukriot debates, for a start.

And we would know who at the National Theatre called someone a ‘cunt’, too.

Today: Alma Mater, After the End, Alvin Sputnik, Bryony Kimmings, (g)host city, and Paper Disco.

P.S. It’s proper beautiful here.

*policy? Shut the fuck up, Hannah.