I shall make a start on this post but I will be popping out in a bit to see Scaramouche Jones, or maybe not as it’s still exceptionally windy out there and yesterday’s performance had to be cancelled! It’s in a yurt, you see, next to the Potterrow underpass. Storm Floris wreaked havoc across Scotland yesterday and the winds are still going strong (no, I haven’t been anywhere near the Park, I don’t want to end up in Fife!!).

Anyhoo, that last show last Friday, it was at the Assembly Rooms in George Street, well, close by, the Front Room is actually a large white box in the street outside the Assembly Rooms. The opening music was O Fortuna played on banjos, oh-kay, best strap in (well, I’m pretty sure it was O Fortuna, conjuring up the dark, magnificent Excalibar for me, the Old Spice ad for others). A large laundry bag was pushed inside the box by stage hands, it awkwardly moved itself further into the room before unzipping and our man extracted himself from it.

Jonah Non Grata is a one man performance, it was bemusing, confusing and a tad disconcerting; full on absurd. An old adventure choice book was to hand, and left in the audience’s whilst he went outside, we just kept playing wondering when he would reappear, what else to do?! Later on, he led us all outside, just to lead us back in, oh, we all followed obediently on (not sure how much time had elapsed in the box, I did wonder if he’d just wander off and that would be the end of the show). I have no idea what it was about, had I missed something? A brief check with a few other audience members afterwards, it wasn’t just me, phew, none of them really made sense of this strange experience we had witnessed together, but, you know, we all kinda enjoyed it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

There was a storyline to The Mayor and His Daughter: A Genuine Appreciation of Comedy but for me it got a bit lost in the sketches and the two strange personalities ( I say two, I think the daughter had a few going on there). This is absurd comedy with a dash of horror and a Russell Howard dvd boxset; very funny, a dash unsettling. It reminded me of how I felt about The Establishment, hysterically silly but with something dark and uncontrollable lurking underneath (Is that just me? Anyone else?) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

So I nipped out to see Scaramouche Jones, absolutely superb, a triumph for Tuck, but more on that later. Since then, I’ve been out at another show and had a mushroom pizza from Moratti, on the corner of St Mary’s Street and Holyrood Road (tasty and reasonably priced). Now, on to the third in this trio of surreal absurdities…

A Haunted House began with a very impressive model of a very haunted looking house, welcome to the nightmare! Car broken down outside? Come in and stay for the night, have a tour of the old place – if you dare! There’s all manner of ghoulish creatures, brought to life (or undeadness) by grotesque mime and dark surreal comedy. While there’s definitely nods to The League of Gentlemen, the eyes loop bit (sorry, it would be insanely difficult to describe it more, but if you see A Haunted House you’ll know the part I mean) had me thinking of Guillermo del Toro. I’ll admit, while I enjoyed David Hoskin‘s performance (he is great at physical comedy), I kinda lost the narrative at times, though, maybe it was just loosely there, anyway? Oh, and the Blue Moon part, loved it! ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

It’s late again!! One of these nights I intend to be asleep before midnight!