Summerhall

August 6^th-30^th

17.00

£12/8

*****

*****

Mark Thomas makes you want to break the law, or break some law or other, some law that may have existed since nineteen canteen – such as imagining the end of the British monarchy. At the start Mark Thomas offers an apology for the show, by saying it’s a work in progress. This is definitely not the case and no apology is needed. He has done his homework. The performance is all about carefully thought out acts of defiance and dissent, which provides the material for the politicomedian.

*****

The show is the story of three walks that Thomas took through London and the changes to the city that he’s noticed and which break his heart: bankers complaining about a garage in the street, where they have just moved to, ruining the tone of the area; corporations owning almost all the public space; fining of the homeless; 70% of new-build houses being bought by foreign investors; no loitering signs on the Thames walk way.

*****

*****

It’s a very minimal show with no gimmicks, just a few slides showing the routes of the walks and images of Thomas’s challenging behaviour. As ever it’s a fine mix of humour and startling facts about the powers that be. It makes you laugh and makes you angry. At various points he asks the audience to get involved, by copying some of the walks, or sending in pictures of protest banners at the new US Embassy building site – which is going to have a moat! – or joining him on various demonstrations. My favourite trespass is a 10k walk along the two public sides of the non-public triangle in front of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters in London.

*****

At the start of the show Thomas also invokes the spirit of 60s international art collective Fluxus. He’s right to do so. His stunts that challenge ridiculous laws are political art of the highest order. He has taken the Situationist dérive one step beyond: writing lines in chalk on the streets of Oxford, which organically develops into an interactive art work with members of the public, including a class of Polish school children. The best fact of this show was finding out that it’s illegal to even think about the end of the monarchy. Imagine that. FIVE STARS : 4 stars for the show, but an extra one for the dissenting acts which created the show’s material.

****

Reviewer : Nicky Melville

Gilded Balloon (Venue 14) ​
Aug 13-16, 18-31
20:00

“I am a woman, hear me roar!”

Jasp

Morro and Jasp are a couple of Canadian clown-chicks who love to spread their own brand of tomfoolery out of Toronto & across the North American continent & beyond. Thank heavens they chose to share their consummate wondrousness with we Edinburghers, for watching their madcap antics is like having an Atlantic mistral wind blowing away the comedy mists from Auld Reekies joke-teeming streets. after an over-excited entrance, & bleeding from the crotch – they progress through pre-pubescency with an uncanny & accurate delight – something I confirmed with a female member of the audience after the show.

They drag us giggling & sulking into the devastatingly dramatic world of the female teenager, through a worry-fraught dreamscape of cheesy slow songs & bottom-touching at the prom, De Caprio worship (pre-dad-body), the cross-listing of the school hotties, & the show’s central theme – a girl’s first menstruation. This is some brilliantly funny stuff, especially the starting-my-period party thrown by Morro in which a member of the audience was given a girly makeover. After the wild ending, I was the last to leave the theatre & took a glance at the carnage on stage left by the girls: toilet-roll strewn everywhere, make-up materials mixed up with tampons tossed about without abandon… absolute chaos! But then I realised that throughout all that madness the girls had kept a cool & ingeniously professional head, a natural freshness that we in the audience felt was being played out for the first time. FOUR STARS

Reviewer : Damo Bullen  

The Gilded Balloon Study at the Pleasance Dome
13th-31st
14:45
£8-£9

****

From watching the grim realities of War and Angels, I found my self with 15 minutes before performances. To get to the Gilded Balloon press office and pick my tickets up for a cute and cuddly, Gay Comedian. It was as tight as  a gnat’s chiff,  but I made it just in time. As one can imagine my head was in a bit of a whirl, it was a hot and sticky afternoon. The humidity levels were high. Instantly the cool of the venue put me at ease. As Mr Hart congratulated me on my late arrival, the previous performance’s descriptions of Man’s inhumanity to Man soon cleared, welcoming myself and his intimate audience into his camp, funny world.

Slowly he began to tickle my funny bone, & a smile started breaking out across my face. My my, a celebrity comedian that was genuinely funny. Divine sometimes has a hard time with such folk because they take themselves far too seriously. But Joe Hart hit all the right notes and deep guttural laughs started erupting from my belly. The heaviness of the earlier play soon lightened as the healing nature of humor and laughter cleared the blues away. This was quite the tonic that the whole audience needed.

If you are looking for an antidote to the after-effects of harrowing fringe performances, then Joe Hart is your clown. This performer has a healing magik all of his own. Gifting us with an hour of pleasant, unoffensive comedy in the Pleasance. Unpretentious, warm and genuinely funny, Jo Hart a favorite of housewives nationwide, & on bringing his show into my heart this afternoon I left with a spring in my step. And the apple bit? Well one will have to buy a ticket to find out. You will nae be disappointed. FOUR STARS

****

Reviewer : Mark ‘Divine’ Calvert

Underbelly, Big Belly (Venue 61)

12-17, 19-30 August

£10-12 (conc £9-10)

****

*

A one man show written and performed by Ben Norris. Norris is a man who has grown up wondering about his stoic, enigmatic father. How did he become this way? Does he feel any emotions other than for his beloved football team? Why was his father so different to him? (“if I’m a pea in a pod with my mum, Dad and I are a pea and a microwave Chicken Balti”). Ben is an extrovert that can’t stop talking? Is he his dad’s antithesis? Norris narrates us through his life from childhood to adolescence. He undertakes a hitchhike to all of the places his father lives thinking that the act of being where his father had been might bring them closer together. There has been 3 moments in his life where he felt close to his father. These are emotively explained.

*

There’s clever use of video and photos from this journey interspersed with old family photos where charting Norris’ metaphorical journey from adolescence to manhood. Ben changes his outfits as the time passes to match those he wore on the actual journey. All this makes the monologue far more colourful and adds depth to the narrative.

*

*

He takes us right up to the point where his mother has left his father (“his indifference to this was unconditional”) and he has had to show love to a father so impotent in his ability to overtly show it. He has to teach his Dad how to hug! Eventually his father moves on…I’m not going to tell you the ending but do we all end up telling Dad jokes. Hitchhikers Guide to the Family is tender, endearing and an unexpected tipped-hat to the nature-nurture debate at this year’s Fringe. FOUR STARS

*

Reviewer David McCaramba

Assembly George Square Theatre – The Box

5^th – 31th August

7.20pm

£10- £11 (£9-£10)

*****

*

A glossed-up oven-baked porta cabin named The Box, pitched up outside the rather more ostentatious George Square Theatre, was the rather doleful home of tonight’s show. However we were welcomed in magnanimously by an enthusiastic steward who assured us of the Alice In Wonderland palace awaiting for us within. Once inside it was indeed an endearingly cosy space, with warm velvet curtains, keeping the temperature stifling, as we packed up and unpeeled beneath a great sound system and amongst an expectant air of excitement for the jam-packed, sold out show.

*

Armed with a massive smile and a Hawaiian shirt, Alfie Brown sprung onstage in a colourful tirade of offensive yet somehow endearing, energetic outrage to deliver his show using some splendid dramatic dialogue. Opening with fast-paced audience interaction, mixed up with some particular personal lamentations on bagpipes, poets and vegans, it quickly becomes apparent just how smart this impromptu act really is. Through a steady, effortless stream of quick fire jokes and dynamic improv, all varied, colourful and animated, he jumps with ease from contemporary liberal philosophers, Ebola news reports and his theory on the dark side of Thomas the Tank. Is licking a chicken quite as bad as snogging a baby? – Just don’t ask Morrissey.

*

*

It becomes apparent his real passion lies in politics, where the meatiest part of his show is packed with intelligent jokes and provocative observations, and the audience are keen to play along with a well-deserved standing ovation. By far the best act seen so far at the fringe this year, this guy is an exceptional talent and the future of British comedy. FIVE STARS

*****

Reviewer: Teri Welsh

Bobs Blundabus, Potterrow Underpass, Venue 212

Aug 11, 27-29

16:30

Pay-what -you-like 

****

This was definitely a fine afternoon to be in Bobs Blundabus.  As soon as I got up the stairs the upper deck sparkled as the sun shone in over the leafy underpass and ignited the colour of the painted glass in this recently converted double decker.  Local legend Cammy Sinclair was at the back of the bus which has been kitted out with rows of benches  that do a brilliant job of maximizing the space.  With about 15  adults and 4 children it is comfortable and cozy. He kicks this family show off with a song about a dog with its legs cut off, ‘This songs for the adults, you wont understand it,’ Cammy explains to a child in the front row and to be fair none of us do but that’s the point, there’s something VERY Ivor Cutler about it.    Behind the drum kit, up front, Cammy’s son Robin is in charge of the good majority of the show.  Cammy constantly looking to him for direction, its very sweet.  Not at all like some of the scenarios you expect when parents get their children involved with performance.  They are playing, I’ve no doubt the in the same way they do at home so its almost like an insight into their eccentric and fascinating relationship instead of a strictly choreographed  show.

Although the lads only 3  he belts out a mean bit of controlled drumming which he has obviously been learning at home and I must say I’m impressed.  Cammy has been in many bands as the drummer over the years so I’m not surprised when this is the instrument of choice for his son.  Oh, and he is really good at timing a honk from his red nose too.  I’m most impressed by the fact that the wee man sits their for the whole show and you know he wants to be there.  Theres loads of audience participation, kids songs made daft enough so that the parents don’t need to feel like its a week day in term time but enough like it to keep the kids engaged.  In another game an audience member is asked to participate as a victim while others pass round pre written heckcles.  It’s chaotic but always fun.  and culminates into some of the worst juggling I have ever seen!

*

This is a happy wee event in a great location,  Cammys surreal nonsesical humour is almost rationalised by his wee son and is well worth looking at.  FOUR STARS

*

Reviewer : Sarah Marshall