August 2009 Archives

Update! I forgot one! I actually saw Eleven stand-ups. Forgive me, I think it was mostly a blur after a while. I just remembered that I had seen both a lawyer AND a doctor (what is the world coming to when people leave these noble professions for comedy?) Saw GEORGE RYEGOLD - TRAMPLE THE WEAK, HURDLE THE DEAD in a basement decorated as a tiki bar, where we had to sit on the floor on pillow covered a pallets. As you would expect from a doctor, some really disgusting anecdotes mostly involving poo. So really well-written poo jokes basically. Two stars. ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Took some time off and went up to Edinburgh last week for the Fringe Festival. Saw a lot of comedy. Read a lot of reviews, although I should have read a little more. I saw 10 stand-ups (ten!), one contemporary dance troupe and a play for good measure. I had a great time running up and down Edinburgh, seeing shows and listening to bagpipes.

As an exercise in writing I am going to review all that I saw. A word of caution, I'm very hard to please, and I don't expect everyone to agree with my opinions. As this is a personal site, I don't have to worry about ruining anyone's careers with my brutal honesty - I don't think I could ever be a real reviewer, I would be too afraid of stating the truth.

Since the Fringe is obsessed with stars, I am going to rate all of the shows I saw on the five star system. I had a great time, but none got all five stars. I don't think Britain is really heaving with good stand-up comedy. For one thing, I think it's pretty rare to have a stand-up knock your socks off at all (or maybe just my socks) and another thing, I don't think this is the country for it. The Brits really try hard to be polished and have a coherent show with a theme, but I'm not sure that's what stand-up is all about. The political ones come across as too preachy, the non-political ones come across as too self-obsessed. No one really shocked me, I was a bit disappointed.

Ok, having said all that, here are the specific reviews...

Celia Pacquola in Am I Strange?
Aussie woman bores you for a long hour with her cheating boyfriend story using lame props and snapping fingers. Only good thing I could say about it was that she was loud enough not to need a mic. One star. ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

I Wish I Could Be Like Andrew Watts
Unexpectedly funny but not sure exactly why. All over the place but sincere enough to show the audience the foot long scar on this chest. Even his unfashionable admission that he believes in god didn't ruin his show. Three stars. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Richard Herring - Hitler Moustache
This show was all about his toothbrush moustache and how he was making a statement against fascism and racism in modern day Britain. Does that sound funny to you? Well, not to me. Few funny bits but not political enough or funny enough for my taste. Best bits about his iPhone. Was well prepared but skimpy on the actual jokes. Ending message: get out the vote. Two and a half stars. ★★ ½☆ ☆

Giacinto Palmieri: Italian Misfit (Free Fringe)
Italian software developer with a master's in philosophy (sorry, you can't hide from Google if you put your life on LinkedIn and Facebook) complaining about English Grammar. Haha, doesn't understand why we say "fucked up" and not "up fucked". Not funny. Gets fake call from his mama. Sterotypes not funny. One star (cause he was free.) ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Lewis Schaffer - Bigger and Blacker (Free Fringe)
New York Jew shtick - very aggressive, egging the audience on and asking them to walk out. Was also violently contrary. Had a few good jokes actually, but left feeling like it should have been better. One and a half stars. ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

Jon Richardson: This Guy at Night
The title pretty much states his theme, he didn’t have one. Which was nice. Found him very amusing, but in a safe way. Laughed at his bitter attitude on life for such a young person, maybe he will grow out of it. Four stars as he made me chuckle throughout. ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Zoe Lyons: Miss Machismo
Typical comedian fodder, complaining about celebrities and non-famous stupid people, but pretty funny about it. Agreeable and eager to please, had lots of laughs, 4 stars. ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Andrew Lawrence - Soul-Crushing Vicissitudes of Fortune!
This show was soul-crushing, that's for sure. He was so negative and bitter, yet a bit uncomfortable about it. Had a few really well written & performed spews of profanity and insults (the best aimed at the police) but overall no really good laughs. Two and a half stars. ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

Four Quarters
Four contemporary dance pieces performed in the back of a church. Really good, moving and funny. Also nice to see dancers who are not rail thin or bulging with muscles, but with more normal body types. Four stars. ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Coffee
My one attempt to branch out and see some theatre backfired severely: This short play got good reviews from all the mainstream broadsheets, but boy was it an unbearable 45- minutes. Too meta (sometimes merely understanding what meta is can be confused with wittiness, perhaps this is why the reviews used the word "witty" to describe this thing). Repetitive bore, couldn’t wait to leave. Then the web-savvy author stalked me on twitter after I panned it in under 140 characters. Eeek. No stars. ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Marcus Brigstocke: God Collar
My companion said as we were leaving "well, that was shite". I didn't quite agree, even though, there was exactly one joke that I laughed out loud at (and it was the most offensive one of the show- maybe that says something about me.) It was a patchy critique of religion, in some but not all of its formations, and yet simultaneously preachy in its tone. I was smiling throughout, expecting something to laugh at, but it never came. He had something in common with Richard Herring: his best jokes were about iPhones. Two stars. ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

And then, one more:

Dan Atkinson: Death By a Thousand Pricks
Squeezed this last one in after I thought I had had enough of the stand-ups. I went hiking earlier in the day (which meant getting up early and taking a two hour train ride out to the foothills, walking about 6 miles in the rain, which was much nicer than it sounds) but still got back feeling restless. I couldn’t face another free show (I had been to one of the very late night free showcases, and it was pretty silly, but not in a good-way silly and not worth even reviewing). The previous morning I had stumbled accidently on a very nice cafe for breakfast (Urban Angel - highly recommended) and sat next to a comedian and his (I think) agent going over his tour plan & budget. It was amusing eavesdropping, peering over his papers and then googling him (yes, on my iPhone, rich with comedian fodder and also useful!) to see who he was. He seemed sane enough (but not that sane) so I figured why not see if there were any tickets left. Well, there was, so I went. It was a pretty good performance, but with only one really good laugh in it. His show revolved around a core of playing snippets of a call-in radio show, and then riffing off of these very easy targets (people who call into talk-radio shows are always pathetic, fringe elements at best). He also obsessed about his polite behaviour, trying to pin down the Great British personality trait: repression. Strangely, overall, I found it charming. Maybe I was tired of being jaded about stand-ups. And there were no jokes about iPhones! Three stars. ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

And my shortened food reviews:
Black Magic Coffee and Monteith's Restaurant - Both really horrible, avoid if you can. No stars.☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Kilimanjaro Coffee, Urban Angel and The Dogs Restaurant - All very, very good. Eggs Benedict at Kilimanjaro absolutely perfect. The Dogs, very good home-style comfort food, good wine AND affordable. Four and a half stars all round. ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

So, the food wins in the end!