Fringe Frenzy

A fairly busy day at The Fringe saw me go to six very different shows, planned out like a military campaign, I had just enough time to walk to the next venue (all venues were fairly close together) and relax for a bit with possibly a quick drink before going in to see the show. 

As most shows do not allow photography during the show it's a little difficult to get any worthwhile pictures but I managed to grab this one at the end of "Sonics in Toren". The extra photo was taken outside The Surgeons Hall as I witnessed a rather amusing encounter between a rather disheveled drunk guy and this performer trying to hand out flyers. 

"Austentatious" : This show got rave review the last couple years when it was free, which meant there were long queues and no guarantee of getting in unless you got there at least an hour (or two) before the show. This year it is not free, but at least that means if you buy a ticket you will get in. It's an improvised comedy show in the style of Jane Austen, the audience are asked to supply titles and one is selected at random. I'm not a fan of Jane Austen but you don't have to be to enjoy the show, the show was very funny and the cast did a very good job, most of the time, on occasion you could see they were struggling to move the "plot" along, but that just added to the fun.

"Sonics in Toren" : There are always a number of acrobat/gymnastic/dance shows on at the Fringe and they are usually very good. It's difficult not to be impressed by the skills and artistry of the performers, this show excelled even above the usual high standards. Not only were the artists extremely impressive but the whole show was brilliantly done, the choreography, lighting, costumes and music all worked together to create a spell binding and  beautiful show.

"Real Japanese Drum Beat!" : I saw these guys performing on the Royal Mile last week and was very impressed with them, the sheer energy they put into their performance is quite staggering. There's a nice video on YouTube of them performing on The Mile last year, but this does not compare to seeing them perform live and indoors in a relatively small venue.

"Jurassic Park" : I think it was two years ago I saw the "Superbolt Theatre" group perform an excellent show called "Uncanny Valley" and I was excited to see they had returned to Edinburgh this year with a new show. They play a family who are going to show you the film "Jurassic Park" in memorial to their mother/wife who died in a traffic accident (it was apparently her favorite film). Unfortunately somebody lost the tape so they decide to act out the film themselves. It's very cleverly done with "flash backs" of their life before their mother passed away. As the "family" are improvising the film they take the main parts of the film and recreate them with whatever is "at hand" (the T-Rex scenes are cleverly recreated using a back pack). 

"Bastard Queen!" : A young cast play the last 5 survivors on earth after some unmentioned disaster, the characters are not exactly what you would want as mankind's last hope. There was no real plot or story to the show, it was almost like watching a single episode of a TV show in the middle of a series. It was well acted and there were some genuinely funny parts (it's described as a "black comedy") but the whole thing did seem a little incomplete, it lacked the traditional "beginning,middle & end" format and I left at the end, not disappointed, as it was entertaining but thinking "what was the point"?

"Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre - Minging Detectives" : The "socks" are an old favourite of mine and I've seen their show several times at The Fringe. The theme this year was "Fictional Detectives". The show was very funny but I can't help feeling that they've lost their "edge" a little, as per usual one of the socks tries to do a proper show while the other one messes everything up. Their mixture of anarchic comedy, corny jokes and obscure references make for a very entertaining show, their attempts at improvisation struggle a little, especially when they don't get much input from the audience, a number of request for ideas from the audience got no response and I threw in a couple suggestions to keep the show moving along.