Last night we saw a very different pair of shows albeit only 1 degree of Sue Perkins apart:
Rhona Cameron (8pm Dining Room, Gilded Balloon Teviot)
This was the show we were booked into the 2for1 version off last weekend and were rescheduled due to overbooking.
Rhona hasn't done a live stand up run for the whole festival in absolutely years and, as far as I recall, it's been a good 6 years since she was here at all (for a one week run) but she has been gigging and also writing novels. Nevertheless the overwhelming feeling here is one of rustiness and extreme nervousness which seems to mostly manifest itself as aggression towards the audience. Often I've seen a hostile audience be turned into a warm receptive one but it's rare that I've seen such a positive supportive crowd become quite uneasy by, in the main, a strong batch of material. The delivery was just so aggressive and London-centric that it was a bit off putting but its nothing a few less nervous and good adaptive editor couldn't fix. This long into her run though Rhona should have sorted this out already. At 2for1 I wasn't disappointed but I'm not sure the same could be said for the majority of the audience who'd paid their 12.50 for this odd hour.
Eurobeat: Almost Eurovision (9.45pm, Pleasance Grand, Pleasance)
In stark contrast
Eurobeat was absolutely fan-fucking-tastic!!
An hour and a half, every member of the audience assigned a country, flags, clackers, live text voting and 10 phenomenal Eurovision parodies made this the most infectiously hilarious and enjoyable thing I've seen at the fringe in absolutely ages. A particular unexpected treat was the fact that Eurovision-obsessed Mel Giedroyc was playing co-host and there was a little recorded intro from His Greatness Sir Terence of Wogan. The campest numbers (Estonia's "Together Again" being my personal favourite), an unbelievably energetic cast w0rking their way through amazing parody Eurovis numbers with spectacular cheography and the genuine each-night-is-different twist of the audience picking the winner (ours pickes Ireland) made this an affectionate and loving mockery that hit all the right spots for me and the 5 folks Heather and I convinced to join us. It's so very very very good we're looking for a good excuse to go back again - this time in spangled with flags and proper insane levels of participation. Fabulous.
In other fringe review type news it seems I forgot to mention a show we saw last week:
A Conversation with Edith Head - Susan Claassen (6.15pm, Assembly@Hill Street Theatre)
This is a classic fringe theatre kinda production - one person monologue (well sort of a Q&A format but with feeder lines from a plant in the audience constituting most of the Q), great quality character acting and a show well honed from lots of runs in small but lovely theatres (like it's home for the festival in the Studio of Hill Street Theatre). However much of the charm of
A Conversation with Edith Head comes from it's old fashioned style. Susan Claassen, on realising she was the utter spitting image of Edith Head with only a paur of glasses and the addition of the highly individual bangs (that's a fringe for those of you unconverted to that lovely American phrase) required. Thus a show was born and a truly staggering amount of research has been undertaken. Claassen doesn't so much act the part as channel the very spirit of Edith as she discusses her life behind the scenes as the costume designer to all the most golden decades of Hollywood's golden era. References to Head's sexuality and plaguerism are a little overplayed and those staged questions rather unneccassary but overall this is a joyous hour for any fan of those fabulous glamerous films from the 30's to the 60's which which Heads designs are most sonomous. Claassen is astonishingly good and, as long as your prepared to show your film geekdom and hang out with the predominently pensionable audience, this is well worth your early evening hour.
And finally... I awoke today (just before the excellent Hardeep Singh Kohli covered Fi Glovers presenting duties on
Saturday Live) to the news that Factory Records founder and all round Manchester music scene supremo Anthony Wilson had died at the age of 57 of cancer.
Aside from admiring his prescient band-signing talents I have to also admit that Tony Wilson was a key figure in my late night tv watching as a telly obsessed adolescent (I can't recall it's name but Wikipedia suggest it might have been The Other Side of Midnight and later I certainly watched Remote Control with odder than odd clut character comic
Frank Sidebottom on unlikely sidekick duties). Having never seen 24 Hour Party People I'm now feeling it is the appropriate thing to do but perhaps the documentary on Joy Division, Control, playing next week at EIFF 2007 will be a fitting piece of viewing in memorium.
