Friday, September 04, 2015

The last days of the Fringe.

And I was spoilt. Spoilt, I tell you.

On the Friday night, I Did Good for once and helped out in a simple menial way (ticket checking) at a comedy gig (I know, right? This is still me we're talking about....). I sat through a little portion of the show itself which took place at the EICC, snickered a bit but mostly sat there like a sourpuss thinking this is why I never go and see comedy. Because I have such a weird sense of humour that I DON'T FIND IT FUNNY.

Saturday was my dose of Fringe beauty: 4x4 Ephemeral Architectures.

I'd hopes this would be lovely and it was. It was.




An extraordinarily weird premise on the face of it. Let's take four ballet dancers and four jugglers and mash them into a show. Oh - and we'll pop in a string quartet for good measure. But it was all about balance and strength and there wasn't a person of restricted growth reciting Shakespeare to a pulsating soundtrack. Beautiful.

Then then then there was Janis Joplin: Full Tilt. My dad raved about this show last year so I was eager to see it. Cora Bissett directed so of course I was going to love it. A bit of a story, a live band, a lot of brilliant music and a stellar performance from Angela Darcy. I was amused to see the production appeared at the Big Burns Supper in Dumfries earlier this year. In good company, then.

On Sunday, a neat, tidy and very well executed show called Cut. A really great premise (air hostess), a really great venue (a totally blacked out room fashioned to look like a plane cabin), an interesting and very nicely written script and another extremely polished performance from Hannah Norris. I'm happy to see she put on extra shows for the final Fringe weekend. She did very well with the show in Adelaide before she brought it here and I'm glad Edinburgh liked it too. It was just what the Fringe should be.

And then - the pièce de résistance.  I haven't cried all that much this Fringe. Hadn't. A little (quite a lot actually) at Every Brilliant Thing. A very little at the miserable Girl is a Half Formed Thing. A little more at seeing my life on stage in Swallow. A little at Max Richter's Four Seasons and quite a lot at the ever so very beautiful Sylvie Guillem.  

Tomorrow by the brilliant Vanishing Point was my time to sob. Thoughtful and careful and compassionate and imaginative and kind. Just what theatre should be. A perfect ending to the ragtag wonderful creative imagination overload of the glorious Edinburgh Fringe.

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