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Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019

Started by Malcy, January 31, 2019, 04:08:25 PM

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DrGreggles

This is my 12th Fringe and the 1st time I've been able to legitimately use the phrase 'counting down'.

hummingofevil

Last bit.

Ed Aczel - as lively and as playful as I have seen him. For the unique world that is Aczel world he is confident and silly and he does a really good job of signposting why we should be laughing at his stuff and it works. It always worked anyway but now it's just funnier. Really enjoyed it.

Phil Nicol and Tony Law - 40 mins of manic improvising. I liked it. Rachael didn't. It's funny and silly but if there was a problem with it they pulled a lazy shout early that some bald guy was a Nazi (yawn). He raised his right hand which was more than acceptable within the fake reality we were in but Phil doubles down and wanted to rinse the guy for the whole show. They, started it, the guy out did them and it just kinda became a bit one note. Would recommend but it risks being car crash. They also called out a visibly unimpressed Steve Bennet (so that was fun - I kinda hope he double bluffs them and gives it a 1 star review but suspect they would find that funny).
.
Kitson - easily the most fun I've had seeing him in years. 20 mins of riffing then 40 mins of WIP comedy bits. Obviously being Kitson the bits that didn't work got as big a laugh as the bits that did due to his constant commentary. And at 60 mins you were left wanting more without the lulls. Best comedian ever in his best format. What more do you want? Oh I was sat in front row having entered last. Yeah that was a nice touch.

—-

Post gig pub chat.

Rach has decided that Tom Ballard is the best comedian she has ever seen. Her take that it never hit the peaks of other shows she had seen but in her words "not only was I not bored but it just got better and better as it went on". She isn't wrong.

Please go see. I need someone to talk to about him.

hummingofevil

Oh. One final take. Machynlleth fucked up my Edinburgh. It has felt a little lacking (I'm not particularly gutted to be leaving) but that is because I have no inclination to see Lucy Pearman, Luke McQueen, Lou Sanders, Rosie Jones or Tom Parry who i saw in Mach with pretty much fully formed shows. That is a solid day itself.

Anyone seen Rosie Jones yet? That was the one show I was expecting to really go from being very good in WIP to excellent. If she could develop literally 3 more laughs out of it it has to be a prize winning show. Her babysitting joke is still biggest laugh of the year.

DrGreggles

It's been a looong day...
I'll try to write up some short appraisals though.

Fishbowl (Pleasance)
Really enjoyed this. Strong performances from all 3 actors, some fantastic physical gags and one of the biggest sustained laughs I suspect I'll hear all week.

Daniel Kitson (Stand)
It's too easy for him, isn't it. This is a ramshackle hour: half WiP, half banter. Hardly a 'show' at all. Fucking funny though.

Stewart Lee (New Town Theatre)
It'll be interesting to see how this evolves, but this was the best WiP I've seen from Stew in a decade.

Mat Ewins (Caves)
A bit one note. Some good funny stuff, but very much more of the same if you saw last year's show.

Daniel Kitson (Summerhall)
Still in its early stages, but this could well end up being one of his strongest plays. Don't want to spoiler it, but the story is simple yet brilliant. Kitson being in playful mood helps too. His pre-show prediction was that it would last for 75 minutes was, but it was actually 100.

Bed.

JCR

Yes I saw Rosie Jones tonight. I had never heard of her till S. Lee recommended her so the show about how her life changed now she's well known was a new one on me. I thought her delivery was better than the material at times but there were five or six really strong moments. The crowd was reacting strongly to it, so I'm assuming she's doing well. The inevitable poignant ending worked well.

I'd guess it's unlikely (not impossible) she gets nominated, but I'd recommend the show.  I'd imagine she'll be in a bigger room next time.

zomgmouse

Please tell me someone's going to see Paul Currie's new show, he was my favourite in Edinburgh last year and it'd be great to hear what this year's is like.

DrGreggles

Nick Helm - new stand up show = no good

Nick Helm - horror musical thing = fucking brilliant

hummingofevil

Stumbled across this on S4C. Tudur Owen struggling in The Fringe in 2008. It's only 20 mins. It's quite charming. Worth watching for the posters in the background if nothing else.

https://www.s4c.cymru/clic/programme/345159419

machotrouts

#488
EDINBURGH FRINGE 2019 SHOWS I'VE SEEN SO FAR PART 5: THE HIVE SPECIAL

Because I've somehow seen 8 shows there. Every time I've been, the toilets have had no locks in the cubicles, and no soap, and a big jagged tetanus-threatening hole in the metal sink.

Leo Mohr works there checking tickets. His show is better than most of these.


Sean Morley: Soon I Will Be Dead and My Bones Will Be Free to Wreak Havoc Upon the Earth Once More. I love Morley's characteristic mix of mundanity and horror fantasy. I don't think I've ever laughed harder at the Fringe than last year, at the sight of him getting upset and strutting through the audience in a shamanic mask, cutting an utterly unimposing figure while trying to intimidate the audience.

My favourite of 2018, so it's not damning at all to say I didn't love this as much as last year – the ideas are great, but quite thinly spread (maybe it depends on the audience, but I wanted that baby debate section to be over several minutes sooner). But the best bits of this will stick in my mind longer than anything else I've seen.


Joz Norris Is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad.. 20 minutes after Sean Morley, in the same room. Opened the show by smacking my knee very hard, which genuinely hurt and I was quite annoyed about, not least because it was objectively quite a funny thing to do. Mr Fruit Salad is a fucking stupid and ridiculous presence and I reluctantly loved him. What a great voice. Everything he said (and sang) in that voice was automatically hilarious to me. Imagine walking out of this. I was physically assaulted and I wouldn't dream of it. A lot of creativity here, too, he's not just a nuisance for an hour.

It's one of the shows I least expected to have an earnest and serious subthread, and to be honest, I didn't get that element of it at all. Something about Joz Norris falling out with a friend? I don't want to slag that off because it seemed to mean a lot to him but I have no investment in who Joz Norris is and isn't friends with. I barely care about the friends I've fallen out with (all of them, to date).

Guest stars Ben Target, the only person in this room whose own show I haven't seen.


Phil Ellis: Au Revoir. 20 minutes after Joz Norris, in the same room. Apparently Phil Ellis's last show at the Fringe, and my first time seeing him. Went in a bit suspicious of him – I mainly booked this because it sounded like I wouldn't get another chance, whoever he was – and was pleasantly surprised. Ellis, with the help of several other performers whose names I don't know I think one of them was named Ruth that will have to do, tells the story of his life. Everything is apparently going wrong and overrunning throughout, but it's an intricately plotted shambles. Came out of the show thoroughly admiring it.


Adam Larter: Good Morning Croissant. 20 minutes after Phil Ellis, in the same room. Elaborate cardboard-based comedy – just about every joke and narrative element here comes in the form of a drawing on a cardboard cut-out, rapidly presented and discarded one by one. Colourful and wholesome. If it wasn't for the bit where he gets us singing along to Rage Against the Machine this could be a fun-for-all-the-family show.


The Establishment: Le Bureau de Strange. 20 minutes after Adam Larter, in the same room. I was one of an audience of 7. I wanted to see the shows before and after this, there wasn't time to see a show anywhere else, and I wasn't hungry, so, whatever this is. Might as well.

Exceeded my no expectations. They're a sketch duo, two "quintessentially English gentlemen". When asked what we hoped would feature in the show, one audience member said "tomfoolery", and another said "nitwittery". Despite this, I didn't find them annoying. It all fell into place for me when I started to imagine the beardy one was Jon 'Log' Blyth. It could be a Regular Features feature that's just gone on a bit.


Mark Dean Quinn Knits: A Comedy Show. 20 minutes after The Establishment, in the same room. I was one of an audience of 5. I previously saw him flyering with Sean Morley, taking a fluffer role in the double act – Quinn would hunch down a bit, hold out his flyers, and say "my flyer is quite low", and then Morley, bent over and stretching his flyer hand down to the floor, would say "my flyer is the lowest flyer on the Fringe".

I don't really know how to describe Quinn's material. It makes sense to me that he occupies the same orbit as Morley, if that helps any. References he makes to his previous shows suggest he has a reputation for being tense and difficult to watch, though he was apparently going for something lighter this time. I don't feel like I saw very much of him. He spends most of the first few minutes out of the room allowing the audience to pass around and read notes he's left behind (and they were funny, fair enough). Not very long after he came back, two girls behind me got the giggles, Quinn halted his performance to let them proceed unimpeded, then eventually he threw out any attempt at deadpan, joined in giggling with them, and seemingly canned the rest of the set.

We spoke about it after the show, and he was happy with how it went. He says he thinks it's "arrogant" to trample over spontaneous laughter with his own performance. "I consider a bad gig to be one where I've got to do all my set. I don't want to be efficient."

Personally, I wish I'd caught him on a bad gig. I sat in that audience thinking "I wish these two girls would stop fucking laughing and let the comedian do his job."

I'm sorry, but I want to laugh about something. I just don't have the community spirit for mass hysteria.


Phil Kay: A Happening. A different, larger room. Not a "show", really – just a couple of dates for Phil Kay to piss about on stage for an hour. Came on bouncy and energetic – exploring the stage, tugging on pipes, observing dripping bits – then calmed down for the remaining 50 minutes, wandering into anecdotes that went nowhere, and improvising songs that also went nowhere. Like the vast majority of the acts I'm seeing at the Fringe, he's new to me, and I suspect non-fans weren't supposed to be in attendance. I didn't get anything out of this.


The Glang Show. All I knew about this before going is it's a comedic ensemble headed by Sean Morley. Audience members are given "orbs" (plastic balls) and asked to stick their orbs in the air to make demands of the performers, who then must fulfill them. On stage is Morley and a rotating cast – at the show I attended, Mark Silcox, Sam Nicoresti, Dougie (mononymous), and on keyboard, a man Morley consistently identified as Fred Durst (I don't know who he actually was), plus guest slots from Joe Jacobs, Alice-India, Ben Pope, and Daniel Nicholas (all starting out performing their stand-up bits, which were inevitably swiftly derailed).

I can't believe I got tricked into seeing what turned out to be an improv show. And that it was loads of fun. They're very funny people. They know what they're doing. Though I particularly liked the bits that weren't entirely left to the audience – Nicoresti was in character as a security guard, hassling us as we came in, and a presumably planned thread ended with him I think being poisoned and morphing into a monstrous entity, I'm sure I have the details of that wrong but it sounds right which is what's important. Morley's gently malevolent tone shone through, and I think I might have enjoyed this more than his proper show. Only 2 performances of this at the Fringe, and the second is... tomorrow, tonight, whatever it is. The 14th, 21:00. I recommend it and I'm a bit sad prior bookings at that time mean I can't go again.

billyandthecloneasaurus

Dont suppose anyone has spares for kitson at the stand next monday? Also how early would I  need to be waiting outside the stand to make sure I get in? Taaa

Small Man Big Horse

Just wanted to say that I'm still loving your reviews Macho, and am noting down many a comedian's name who I'll see when they come to London. It's a shame you didn't get on with Phil Kay though as I'm very fond of him and used to regularly go to his The Goodfather comedy night, but due to that I know that while most of the time he's superb sometimes he can be a bit off and it just doesn't work at all.

DrGreggles

Stewart Lee just shoved a mobile phone down his pants.

BritishHobo

Enjoying following all the reviews in the thread. I'm glad you enjoyed The Glang Show machotrouts. That lot have become one of my new comedy obsessions. I'm getting very tempted to go to the Aberystwyth Comedy Festival just to see Sean's show.

JCR

I have a spare for Sadowitz tomorrow (22.30, George Street) if anyone here wants it free.

Rizla

Quote from: JCR on August 14, 2019, 03:56:34 PM
I have a spare for Sadowitz tomorrow (22.30, George Street) if anyone here wants it free.
Really? I'd love to take it if it's still available.

JCR

Quote from: Rizla on August 14, 2019, 04:04:20 PM
Really? I'd love to take it if it's still available.

Sent you a pm

DrGreggles

Now here for an extra day, so a Kitson spare at The Stand would be lovely... (Or Limmy)

*Doesn't get hopes up*

JCR

Mary Houlihan now has a plastic beer stein as a bucket. So yeah, this is a thing. She drones on about her fictional relationship with Jack Nicholson while at one point someone in another room can be heard singing show me the way to go home (at 2.30pm) over the top of her. Some  PBH rooms really are dumps compared to the Heroes rooms.

Richard Gadd (not comedy) very well performed but it's bleak.

Darren McGarvey: Scotland Today (not comedy) Thoughtful left leaning social commentary. Saw it on Sunday and am still thinking about it so it must have done something right.

John Kearns was okay. Had six or seven great moments, but at other times I thought he confused the audience. Hotter than average room didn't help.

Stewart Lee Maybe it's because I haven't seen him in a while, but this was effortlessly the best show I've seen this year, he's on a different level to everyone except Kitson.

hummingofevil

Quote from: JCR on August 14, 2019, 10:50:56 PM
Mary Houlihan now has a plastic beer stein as a bucket. So yeah, this is a thing. She drones on about her fictional relationship with Jack Nicholson while at one point someone in another room can be heard singing show me the way to go home (at 2.30pm) over the top of her. Some  PBH rooms really are dumps compared to the Heroes rooms.

What do you think it WAS? Rachael was convinced it was self-aware anti-comedy. I just thought it was unintentionally shit but so bad I found it utterly hilarious (the fact I thought she seemed really lovely actually made it funnier as I felt bad for laughing at it which made me just giggle more - the constant flow of walk outs enhanced that effect mind - was utterly cringe). Tim and Eric would die for some of the awkwardness of it all.

Maybe I've just been too lucky and haven't seen enough really bad shows before.

DrGreggles

Quote from: JCR on August 14, 2019, 10:50:56 PM
John Kearns was okay. Had six or seven great moments, but at other times I thought he confused the audience. Hotter than average room didn't help.

I thought the show was really good, but there were a few issues with the air con the other day too. Sounds like it might be fucked.

QuoteStewart Lee Maybe it's because I haven't seen him in a while, but this was effortlessly the best show I've seen this year, he's on a different level to everyone except Kitson.

Pretty much ready to go, isn't it.

Rizla

Quote from: DrGreggles on August 15, 2019, 01:15:18 AM

Pretty much ready to go, isn't it.
i saw stu on monday and it's like you are actually watching a michaelangelo paint a ceiling or suting. silly good. better, funnier, cleverer comedy doesn't exist (for me) as far as i know.

slempike

Quote from: billyandthecloneasaurus on August 14, 2019, 11:38:07 AM
Dont suppose anyone has spares for kitson at the stand next monday? Also how early would I  need to be waiting outside the stand to make sure I get in? Taaa

They release tickets at 4:30 before the show. On Saturday (in sunshine not rain) I got there much later than I'd planned, at 4:25, was 16th in the queue, and got straight in. On the Wednesday before the staff hadn't sold the return my friend had, so I think that wasn't just a fluke. If I were doing it again (I'm not, I've inconveniently moved to Myanmar) I'd probably try to get there for 4pm because I like to be sure, but I think that would be overkill. Both times I saw Kitson were excellent, with very little overlap in material.

JCR

Quote from: hummingofevil on August 15, 2019, 01:09:08 AM
What do you think it WAS? Rachael was convinced it was self-aware anti-comedy. I just thought it was unintentionally shit but so bad I found it utterly hilarious (the fact I thought she seemed really lovely actually made it funnier as I felt bad for laughing at it which made me just giggle more - the constant flow of walk outs enhanced that effect mind - was utterly cringe). Tim and Eric would die for some of the awkwardness of it all.

Maybe I've just been too lucky and haven't seen enough really bad shows before.

Would  have been more obvious if it was anti comedy. She seemed happy when she said 'any questions?' at the end & someone asked about onions, presumably because they aren't Jack Nicholson. Think it's just a misfiring show.

CaledonianGonzo

Real life getting in the way of reviews at the moment.

Anyone heard any good word on Phoebe Robinson?

DrGreggles

Jordan Brookes had a (faux) angry pop at a bloke in the audience last night for not laughing enough.
After he'd finished he walked back to the middle of the stage and after a few seconds pause he looked back at the guy and said "You're Brian Logan aren't you.".
It was. 

DrGreggles

BUGGER!
Was hoping to not see anything fucking awful this year, but took a punt on a play called Art Heist.
Took a punt on it? SHOULD HAVE TAKEN A SHIT ON IT!

DrGreggles

Quote from: DrGreggles on August 05, 2019, 07:24:25 AM
I can't remember how I ended up seeing it, and my initial reaction was that it was going to be awful, but I genuinely enjoyed it and laughed a lot.

I was right.
The Delightful Sausage was fantastic.
Very silly, but it doesn't try to be anything else.
Perfect midday stuff.
Full house too, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

cakeinmilk

Any advice on how early to start queueing at The Stand for the day release Kitson tickets to have a decent chance of getting in?

Heading up for Saturday and would like to squeeze that show in.

hummingofevil

Quote from: cakeinmilk on August 15, 2019, 03:41:00 PM
Any advice on how early to start queueing at The Stand for the day release Kitson tickets to have a decent chance of getting in?

Heading up for Saturday and would like to squeeze that show in.

3.30pm to guarantee. 4pm should be fine. Saturday was very busy last week.

sevendaughters

starting to think my pal has shite for branes