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Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019

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

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Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: hummingofevil on September 05, 2019, 03:31:11 PM
She is in London right now on business. Probably not far away actually. I will send her round for you to get started.

If you could ask her to wait outside my house at around 11.15pm that'd be appreciated as I won't be home before then, and I promise that if I do like it I'll just give her a hearty handshake and not stove her head in.

Small Man Big Horse

Well sadly you both get to live. :( I didn't think he was the best ever comedian I've seen (I prefer stand up which is a bit more unusual to be honest) but he was bloody good and he made me laugh hard a lot. Crashing now, but will post a longer response about him tomorrow.

hummingofevil

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on September 05, 2019, 11:43:30 PM
Well sadly you both get to live. :( I didn't think he was the best ever comedian I've seen (I prefer stand up which is a bit more unusual to be honest) but he was bloody good and he made me laugh hard a lot. Crashing now, but will post a longer response about him tomorrow.

Da iawn. Cytuno.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: hummingofevil on September 05, 2019, 11:51:39 PM
Da iawn. Cytuno.

I've no idea what that means due to not speaking Welsh, and my not bothering to run it through google translate, but I presume it says "Thank you, you sexy bastard". And if so, it's okay. Not a problem at all.

Also: This is the review I wrote of it for my site, in case you're interested.

QuoteUp until last year Tom Ballard used to host his own show on Australian tv, a satirical take on the news called Tonightly, but unfortunately viewing figures were terrible (Ballard drily mentions that it was once beaten in the ratings by a repeat of Deuce Bigalow European Gigolo) and it was cancelled. So now Ballard's over in the UK for two years, performing stand up and examining just how not only his own but all of our lives have gone pretty damn wrong.

That might seem a little downbeat but it's certainly not the case in the slightest. Ballard has a light touch as he touches on the disastrous situation Brexit has become, the abject cunt that is Boris Johnson, and he discusses how the rest of the world views Australia in a plethora of very funny ways. The above is all setting the scene however as the main thrust of his show is just how much he hates capitalism, and he makes a strong argument over the course of the hour as to why we should do away with a system which is clearly failing us.

The largest part of this revolves around the fact that 85% of the population absolutely hate their jobs, and how absurd are lives are given that we spend so much time at work. Hell, even Ballard hates his job despite the fact that he only works one hour a day, as he feels like a Dickensian villain who sells laughter for a living, turning in a great impression of such a character that still makes me laugh when I remember it today.

Following on from this he discusses all of the jobs he's had and why he disliked them, even when he was "The Lord of the Leash", a dog walker aged just eleven, and had to clean up shit for a living. After this he dissects the lyrics to Dolly Parton's hit song 9 to 5, explaining just how bleak they are, how according to Parton working causes mental illness, along with the irony that it's sung in a joyous manner. It's very strong material and impossible to argue with, and made all the funnier when Ballard performs it as if it were a Slipknot song.

It's not all based around his view of how capitalism has failed us, he lightens up the set with a few other stories including what happened when he called a politician a cunt on his tv show, and the time he visited a gay sauna while dressed as a rock lobster, which is a long but very amusing story with a great pay off. But as amusing as these parts were I have to confess to preferring him rant about the evils of capitalism as it was definitely his strongest material, and the moments which made me laugh the most.

Very slightly frustratingly Ballard complained about the audience not laughing enough at a couple of points, which is something I really struggle with when it comes to comedians doing such a thing, but the majority of the set was an absolute delight, an impassioned rant as to why society has gone so terribly wrong, ending on a suggestion as to how things could change. I'm pretty sure it's too late for that and we're fucked as a society, but I'm glad that people like Ballard exist and spread such sentiments, and do so in a hilariously memorable way too.

★★★★

hummingofevil

Good review. He definitely had a bit in the show we saw him that got no laughs which he then used for a better joke. Can't remember exactly what it was but wouldn't be surprised if it was intentional.

Small Man Big Horse

It was the bit about farting in the face of a tube passenger where he moaned about not enough people laughing, and then a second joke about five minutes later. He didn't build on either parts too so I'd be a bit surprised if it's something he always does, but I could be wrong. I do have to admit that it's a real pet hate of mine when comedians do such a thing, but fortunately the rest of his set was so strong that it didn't annoy me too much.

machotrouts

For fuck's sake I've still got 61 of my shitty little mini-reviews I haven't got round to typing yet. I'll still be bumping this thread in 2023 like "just come out of Michael Legge 4 years ago! Highly recommended"

Quote from: hummingofevil on August 26, 2019, 01:10:21 AM(thanks again to Macho for ace coverage) but when I see anyone with a notepad my heart sinks. Fuck them all

I did actually carry a notepad. You're welcome!


machotrouts

EDINBURGH FRINGE 2019 SHOWS I'VE SEEN SO FAR PART 11


Michael Legge: The Idiot. Didn't consider him for most of the Fringe because he was someone I was dimly aware of on the periphery of my Twitter feed from 10 years ago and there were absolutely no good people on the periphery of my Twitter feed 10 years ago, all my mutuals-of-mutuals turned out to be Lib Dem Guardian journalists, and the blurb being all about ranting and misanthropy didn't help, because there is absolutely nothing on the planet worse than a performatively grumpy middle-aged Lib Dem (I have absolutely no idea if he's a Lib Dem and refuse to check in case he actually is). An "aye go on then" last-day booking because I saw people in this thread saying he had a big old pop at Graham Linehan in the show. Did he have, like, an actual routine about him? Because at my show he mentioned Linehan, got no reaction, then went "you don't know who he is... I'll just skip that bit then" and moved on. No! I'm there specifically for that! Reflect my opinions back at me!

Anyway turns out he's really good so whatever. I get the impression you all already know that. Nobody told me though. Well now I know.


Zoë Coombs Marr: Bossy Bottom. Apparently best known for playing some bloke named Dave. Is this the bloke with the TV channel who hands out the award at the end of it? I've not gotten out into the Fringe much before this year okay. Everything is new and exciting!

A solid hour of almost-straightforward stand-up elevated to verygoodness by its more meta elements. There's a lot of "well, it's Zoë Coombs Marr, so of course it's not ENTIRELY straightforward!" talk around this and I don't really know what that means but I guess I've been missing out until this point. Thought Dave just broadcast QI repeats.


Jessie Cave: Sunrise. A 2018 show I didn't see in 2018, and in my haste to get properly into the Fringe, I was way more likely to book reruns of shows I missed the first time than anything else, even if I might not have been that arsed if they were debuting now. I really hesitated on this one. "Really machotrouts?", my internal monologue would say. "Are you actually arsed about this or have you just got some weird compulsion to make up for lost time? 'Oooh, got to catch up, got to pretend I haven't been wasting my Augusts up to this point', that's you that is, that's your internal monologue mocking you machotrouts, you twat."

More solo theatre than stand-up, with Cave alternating dialogue between herself and men in her life played by herself, and monologues to the audience about her relationships. Sweet but frank. Not hilarious but charming and engaging. Don't regret seeing it and sort of thought I would.


John Kearns: Double Take and Fade Away. While I'm clearly only posting my personal feelings on what I've seen rather than aspiring to some sort of objectivity, I try to be fair in as much as I take my personal mood out of the equation – I've been positive about shows where I was struggling to stay awake, because it's not their fault my body clock is fucked by trying to see lots of Fringe shows and trying to keep up on posting about those Fringe shows on a forum (unsuccessfully, obviously). I've even been nice about shows in Teviot, despite the fact that I just spend them quietly seething about that security guard who didn't let me in there after the whole bag of dildos palaver. That was another thread if you didn't see it but you get the gist I think.

In this case, I can't really separate my thoughts on the show from how I physically felt. The combination of slow, languid, lulling pace, and LOUD, ABRASIVE, WAKEY-WAKEY VOICE absolutely fucked me. Never have I felt so close to and so far from sleep simultaneously. I don't know that it was a bad show, but it was certainly a gruelling one.


Sofie Hagen: The Bumswing. Fat acceptance campaigner and YouTube hate figure (sorry for the tautology). This was an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" booking – I don't know that I like her, but cunts fucking hate her.

The voiceover before she comes out declares "I HOPE YOU LIKE COMEDY ABOUT EMOTIONAL ABUSE!". She explains that this was intended for her previous show, but she recorded it too late and wants to get some use out of it – though, as it happens, this is a pretty tense hour of comedy, if not entirely for the right resons. If I didn't know she's an experienced performer, I'd have had her down as nervous – she seems very quiet in what's perhaps too big and loudly air-conditioned a room. I can appreciate the structure and writing of this, but it's a tricky show to enjoy.


Limmy: Surprisingly Down to Earth, and Very Funny. It was Limmy reading from his book and answering questions from the audience. That's very explicitly all it was going to be, so I can't very well complain, but it's not a Fringe show, really, is it? I mean, it's nice to spend 70 minutes in Limmy's company, but isn't there a Book Festival on at the same time? Why wasn't he there?

I'm just sad I missed the Vines thing last year. Not least because I've hardly seen any of his Vines. I can't follow Limmy on Twitter. He just takes up too much space. I can't read that many tweets. Nah. Condense it into an hour and make a Fringe show out of it. I want Limmy in manageable concentrated doses.

Richard Osman was also in attendance, according to the excited boy in front of me who was shouting "is that the speccy cunt fae Pointless? It is! It's the speccy cunt fae Pointless!". He ran back and got a selfie with him. "Just got a selfie with the speccy cunt fae Pointless!" I watched him post it on Facebook, captioned "The speccy cunt fae Pointless".


Darren Harriott: Good Heart Yute. Yeah he was alright. Got nominated for an award for this, didn't he, and that's okay. Don't have anything to say about this really. That's going to happen more and more from here on in.


Frankie Foxstone AKA The Profit: Walking Tour. A corrupt property developer character comedian outlines her plans to demolish Edinburgh. While walking. I had a friend visiting, and "comedy walking tour" sounded like the most tourist shit I could put him through, so "Frankie Foxstone AKA The Profit: Walking Tour" it was.

At one point, on the one cobbled back-road in Edinburgh that's still otherwise empty enough in the Fringe to give her space to dick around on, she asked a couple of stooges (if you can have stooges in a show where the audience must actively engage by default, unless they just want to sit alone in a high-vis on the astroturf at the meeting point for an hour) to form themselves into the shapes of various kinds of building she specified – skyscraper, bungalow etc. We were then all asked to stand in a circle and make ourselves into shapes representing buildings of our choosing, and then rotate. (She didn't clarify what "rotate" meant in this context – it sounded to me like she wanted us all to adopt the shape of the person next to us.)

I decided to take a creative approach, and lie down right there on the cobbles. My chosen building was "mausoleum".

What I didn't realise was 1: she wasn't going to ask us what kind of building we were, which means I was just lying flat on the ground apropos of apparently nothing, the punchline existing entirely in my own head, and 2: she meant literally rotate, as in pivot on the spot, which meant I had to drag my whole body around in circles on the road like a maniac.

For Frankie's finale, she addressed us individually, referencing things we'd said or done during the "tour". Leaving me till last, she said, with an undercurrent of contempt that I'd like to think was in-character: "And Tom... who could forget your big moment on the floor?" What a uniquely damning sequence of words. My big moment on the floor. Can't forget that. Can't forget my big moment on the floor.

kitsofan34


sevendaughters

hang on is the Fringe still going or has machotrouts done expert level dripfeeding? will you still be posting 2019 content until 2020? i hope so.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: hummingofevil on September 04, 2019, 12:18:49 AM
This year at The Stand they were letting people in on the door with their names even if they didn't have tickets (like I presume they do on normal nights - they certainly do that in Newcastle). I forgot to pick up my Michael Legg ticket and just got off the train and they were cool about it. There used to be that edfringe.com pick up on St Andrew's Square so I suppose it's easier for them to do it that way than have people having to go back to Waverley if they forgot.

I got let into something just by showing an email as I hadn't time to get a ticket. As it happens some of my tickets should've been posted but never arrived so the people in the ticket office printed off a receipt and a letter confirming that they'd sent them but I hadn't got them, which worked in all the places I tried.

JCR

Off topic, but for anyone still in Edinburgh, Chris Morris is doing a Q&A/screening of his new film, at the Cameo next Monday.

bobloblaw


hummingofevil

Bumpity bump. Newcastle Stand doing its Fringe show week. Just out of Fern Brady and it was absolutely superb.

In past the issue I had with her was I wasn't quite buying the things she said (ironically, not because I didn't believe they were true but felt her style made it all feels bit rehearsed and mechanical). Well oh how she has overcome that....

If I'm being totally honest there was no one thing in it that I haven't heard before but it all felt personal and vital and, most importantly to me when watching comedy, fucking funny.

Highly recommend.

(She also singled me out specifically about 30 seconds in as an example of the  "been-with-me-from-the-beginning, bearded beta-Male wrestling-fan with a thing for powerful women." types who make up her fanbase.)

lol.

sevendaughters

going watching Jordan Brookes based on this thread (and watching a few mins on youtube). despite the award my insider says tickets not going well at that particular venue.

CaledonianGonzo

That's the Riskiest Comic In The Biz for you.

Think the first shows for 2020 are announced next week.